Focus Features has done almost everything there is to do for a mid-major except win a Best Picture Oscar. One other exception was that, until last week, it had never had a film gross over $200 million worldwide – yet now that is one of many box-office milestones “Obsession” has hit in its month-long rampage. As such, now that “Obsession” is officially the No. 1 Focus Features movie of all time, it helps its case to be its No. 1 in other races beyond box office, too.
With each passing weekend and box office milestone, the seemingly ridiculous theory that this low-budget horror movie should be an Oscar season priority for Focus – and not just for Internet and potential pundit darling Inde Navarrette – seems a little less ridiculous. Yet if there is an actual chance “Obsession” could have a case on the Best Picture bubble, it may hinge less on Academy voters and their growing ease with horror films, and more on what else Focus has in their Oscar season lineup this year, if anything.
At the moment, nothing in Focus’s fall lineup or potential awards campaign looks like a sure thing. All it would appear to have is the latest update of “Sense and Sensibility” with Daisy-Edgar-Jones, the medieval film “The Uprising” from Paul Greengrass with Andrew Garfield headlining, and another horror film in Robert Eggers’ “Werewulf” opening on the holidays just like “Nosferatu” did. There’s always a chance Focus could buy something on the fall festival circuit, but barring that, these three films look to be what they are hanging their fall Oscar season hopes on – and none of them are guarantees.
“Sense and Sensibility” could catch on in the same way that the 1995 Ang Lee/Emma Thompson/Kate Winslet version did. Still, its stars and debut feature film director, Georgia Oakley, are much less proven with the Academy. “The Uprising” features past nominees in Garfield and Greengrass, yet Greengrass hasn’t produced anything close to an across-the-board Oscar contender since 2013’s “Captain Phillips.” And while Eggers made “Nosferatu” one of the top five highest-grossing films in Focus history two years ago, it couldn’t get anything beyond tech nominations and was overshadowed as a horror film turned Oscar contender by “The Substance,” to say nothing of Focus’s actual top 2024 awards film in “Conclave.”
One of the hard and fast unwritten rules of the Oscars these last several years is that Focus’s No. 1 film every year is guaranteed a Best Picture nomination. It happened with both “Hamnet” and “Bugonia” last year, “Conclave” in 2024, and the likes of “The Holdovers,” “Tár,” “Belfast,” and “Promising Young Woman” in this decade alone. In fact, the only years in which Focus hasn’t had a Best Picture nominee in the expanded era have been 2011, 2012, 2016, and 2019.
It isn’t a rule written in stone that Focus has to have a Best Picture film every single year. In fact, given how the once mighty Searchlight didn’t receive a single nomination in any category last year, any studio with a seemingly infallible Oscar season track record can have a very off year. As such, if none of Focus’s fall movies make any waves and if it doesn’t find one to buy at Venice, Telluride, or Toronto, it doesn’t automatically mean voters have to put “Obsession” in by default just so Focus makes the cut again.
Yet if “Obsession” really does wind up being Focus’s best awards season bet at the end of the year, by default or otherwise, then that alone will give it legitimacy as well as a genuine shot to get in. One could argue it just needs to be its No. 2 option, since Focus got both “Hamnet” and “Bugonia” last year. But a huge reason they did was that both “Hamnet” and “Bugonia” had multiple Oscar winners and past nominees in their cast and crew – along with a past nominee turned future winner in “Hamnet’s” Jessie Buckley – which gave both movies a major leg up with the Academy.
Not only is “Obsession” thoroughly lacking that factor with its cast and crew of relative newcomers, but the rest of Focus’s fall lineup doesn’t have that edge either, save perhaps for “The Uprising” with Greengrass and Garfield. Therefore, if either “The Uprising,” “Sense and Sensibility,” “Werewulf,” or a festival acquisition does emerge as Focus’s true No. 1 awards season film, Focus won’t have the advantages or perhaps the need to get a second film like “Obsession” in too, the way that it pushed “Bugonia” in alongside “Hamnet.”
The closest awards season comparisons “Obsession” has struck so far has been with “Weapons,” between its runaway box office and positioning Navarette as the next Amy Madigan – in raves and spectacle if not in name recognition and career experience. However, “Weapons” fell just short of a Best Picture nomination in part because it was Warner Bros’ No. 3 priority in 2025, thanks to the historic 1-2 punch of “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners.”
Maybe if just one of those films came out in a different year, Warner Bros might have had room to make “Weapons” its second BP nominee instead. And maybe if “Obsession” isn’t crowded out by at least two other Focus films, it will be at the center of its studio’s Oscar season in a way “Weapons” never could have been. Either way, while “Weapons” was overshadowed at Warner Bros by the eventual Best Picture winner, and one of the highest word-of-mouth box office sensations of the decade – at least in a pre “Obsession” world – it is harder to imagine one or even two of Focus’s remaining 2026 movies crowding “Obsession” out that way.
Focus has had dozens of Oscar contenders and eventual winners, but none of them have ever been a true box office smash at the level “Obsession” is right now. It did have the likes of “Brokeback Mountain,” “Nosferatu,” “Darkest Hour,” “Pride & Prejudice,” “Atonement,” “Conclave,” and, most recently, “Hamnet” gross over $100 million worldwide, which helped make the case for their eventual nominations and wins. Yet “Obsession” is on the way to top $200 million just in America, and perhaps as much as $350-400 million worldwide by summer’s end.
There has never been a Focus Features movie like “Obsession” at the box office, which makes it uncharted territory as a potential awards season film at any level. Right now, it has gigantic, obvious advantages over any Focus film designed to be an Oscar player. Still, it will suddenly be at some disadvantage if even one of them is a breakout in its own right. If there is a more traditional kind of Focus awards contender – whether from a proven IP like “Sense and Sensibility,” a possible return to form from a past nominee like “The Uprising,” the latest breakthrough from another horror genre icon in “Werewulf,” or maybe a late purchase of an unattached film like Tom Ford’s “Cry to Heaven,” Joel Coen’s “Jack of Spades,” or some other surprise – then “Obsession” may go back to being seen as a film where the box office, and any possible push for Navarette, is its sole reward.
Any dreams for “Obsession” to do what “The Substance,” “Sinners,” and “Get Out” did as horror Best Picture nominees hinge mostly on Focus, in more ways than one. In any world where “Obsession” ends up as both Focus’s No. 1 awards season hopeful and its biggest financial hit of all time, then it gets much harder to argue that a Best Picture nomination cannot happen. If “Obsession” is instead its No. 2 awards season film at worst, the odds get much longer if not impossible, perhaps depending on which film does become Focus’s No. 1 instead.
In every year this decade, Focus has been entitled to at least one Best Picture nominee – and with the exception of “Tár,” one nominee that also wins one major above-the-line Oscar. If Focus really ends 2026 without anything as acclaimed or buzzy as “Obsession,” then the vision of both a Best Picture nomination and even a Navarette run to win would be right in line with its past Oscar season success stories. In that regard, as unprecedented as “Obsession” has been to date, this would make it just like any other ‘normal’ Focus Features Oscar season leader, albeit a far more profitable and horrific one.
Have you seen “Obsession” yet? If so, what do you think of it? Do you think it will be another Oscar-nominee for Focus Features? If so, in which categories? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
