The PGA Award for Best Picture is usually the most important and accurate precursor to the year’s Best Picture Oscar. This year, it is just the latest two-film showdown between “One Battle After Another” and “Sinners,” if not perhaps the final battle that will settle any doubt about Best Picture. But this particular year will be historic no matter who wins, since both films are unlike any the PGA has honored for Best Picture before.
The PGA has never given a Black-led, or Black-directed film a Best Picture win by itself, which is what “Sinners” needs to do if it’s going to win Best Picture at the Oscars. Yet on the other hand, the PGA rarely gives Best Picture to a theatrical film that has lost money – and depending on what reports or estimates are out at any given time, “One Battle After Another” has either lost a lot of money or is still waiting to break even. However, would producers really choose a money-losing film for what may be the first time, just so they don’t have to honor a Black-led/made film for the first time, instead, even one that is one of the major box office success stories of the year?
“Sinners” was infamously counted out as a potential box office runaway hit by the trades even after its big opening weekend, and some still dismissed it because it made little international impact. In contrast, most of its money was made in America. Yet PGA voters haven’t been overly concerned about box office results in recent years, as in this decade alone, they gave indie films like “Anora” and “Nomadland” and a streaming film in “CODA” Best Picture. In contrast, the only box office smashes to win have been “Oppenheimer” and the unusually profitable indie hit “Everything Everywhere All At Once.”
2009: The Hurt Locker (Budget: $15 million / Box Office: $49.9 million)
2010: The King’s Speech (Budget: $15 million / Box Office: $427.4 million)
2011: The Artist (Budget: $15 million / Box Office: $133.4 million)
2012: Argo (Budget: $44.5 million / Box Office: $232.3 million)
2013: 12 Years A Slave & Gravity (Budget: $20–22 million / Box Office: $187.7 million) (Budget: $80–130 million / Box Office: $723.2 million)
2014: Birdman (Budget: $16.5–18 million / Box Office: $103.2 million)
2015: The Big Short (Budget: $50 million / Box Office: $133.4 million)
2016: La La Land (Budget: $30 million / Box Office: $504.6 million)
2017: The Shape Of Water (Budget: $19.3–19.5 million / Box Office: $195.2 million)
2018: Green Book (Budget: $23 million / Box Office: $321.8 million)
2019: 1917 (Budget: $90–100 million / Box Office: $446.1 million)
2020: Nomadland (Budget: $5 million / Box Office: $39.5 million)
2021: CODA (Budget: $10 million / Box Office: $2.2 million)
2022: Everything Everywhere All At Once (Budget: $14–25 million / Box Office: $143.4 million)
2023: Oppenheimer (Budget: $100 million / Box Office: $975.8 million)
2024: Anora (Budget: $6 million / Box Office: $58.2 million)
But although PGA voters and producers have given Best Picture to smaller films instead of massive blockbusters in various years, there is still one barrier they haven’t broken. They have given recent PGA Best Picture prizes to movies directed by women and by foreign directors, and broke ground by giving the Asian-led “Everything Everywhere All At Once” Best Picture just three years ago. Still, they have never selected a film led or made by an African-American – not on its own, anyway.
“12 Years A Slave” is still the only PGA Best Picture that has been directed by a Black filmmaker, as well as the only one where a Black actor has been the undisputed lead – not counting when one was a co-lead or main supporting actor in the likes of PGA winners “Driving Miss Daisy” and “Green Book.” Yet the case of “12 Years A Slave” still has an asterisk, as it was part of the only tie to date in PGA history when it shared Best Picture with “Gravity.” So even when a Black-led/made film made history with the PGA, it wasn’t allowed to win on its own.
“Sinners” now has the chance to correct that by being the first film, and the first to be headlined by an African-American, to win the PGA without sharing it. Like with “12 Years A Slave,” its main competition is a Warner Bros film with bigger megastar leads and the likely Best Director winner. But unlike “Gravity,” which was both enough of a major box office hit and a critical darling to justify being neck-and-neck with a more serious, artsy, and historically relevant film like “12 Years A Slave,” “One Battle After Another” does not have anything close to the box office numbers of “Sinners.”
“One Battle After Another” – (Budget: $130–175 million / Box Office: $208.7 million)
“Sinners” – (Budget: $90–100 million / Box Office: $369 million)
Various reports and allegations over the months have painted differing pictures of just how well, or how poorly, “One Battle After Another” has done in making money this fall. On the surface, “One Battle After Another” has a respectable haul with over $72 million domestic, which far exceeds “Anora” and “Nomadland,” rivals that of “Everything Everywhere All At Once” and tops several other smaller films that have won the PGA in the expanded ballot era. And yet, because of a budget over $100 million, if not as high as $175 million, debates over whether it is actually a box-office flop have lingered as long as any debates over its politics.
So many have argued that the importance of budgets, box-office tracking, and profitability has been grossly inflated, especially when it comes to films like “One Battle After Another” and their significance in other, more creative aspects. In fact, those same people will cheer if “One Battle After Another” wins the PGA and becomes a symbol that producers and PGA voters don’t have to take money into account after all.
Then again, they already proved that when “The Hurt Locker” beat the box office record-breaker “Avatar” in 2009, when “12 Years A Slave” did at least tie the much bigger “Gravity” in 2013, and when other modest films like “Birdman,” “The Shape Of Water,” “Green Book,” “Nomadland,” and “Anora” won the PGA and then the Oscar as well. However, although those films were not the biggest hits in their respective Best Picture lineups, they at least made money and recouped their modest budgets.
But when it comes to “One Battle After Another,” there’s no consensus on whether it has actually made its money back, lost a small amount of it, or lost as much as $50-100 million against its budget. As such, there’s a very good chance that if producers still wind up picking “One Battle After Another,” they will have made history by awarding the biggest money-losing Best Picture since the PGA awards began.
One could argue “CODA” has that record because it was a streaming film that never went to theaters, or that maybe “Nomadland” does, since it had a limited theatrical release right in the middle of the pandemic. Nonetheless, since “One Battle After Another” was a major theatrical film that didn’t come out in a pandemic year, it has to be judged against all the winners in so-called “normal” years – and none of them had as many allegations of losing money as this film does.
Box office has not been held against PGA winners or losers in recent years, for various good reasons, and many would argue that “One Battle After Another,” beating a much bigger hit in “Sinners,” falls under the same standard. However, all those smaller films that have won Best Picture over larger hits have at least made some money, or at least were the kind of sleeper hits producers could tout as financial successes anyway. “One Battle After Another” could have made that argument too, as a film that grossed over $70 million, had very small week-to-week drops, and regularly sold out 70mm IMAX screens. Yet that massive budget, no matter how massive it actually was, still partly overshadowed all of it.
Normally, that is not the kind of movie that producers and PGA voters would choose for Best Picture. And yet “Sinners” is far more the kind of film they have never chosen to stand alone as a Best Picture winner, either. Therefore, if this is yet another competition this season where only “One Battle After Another” or “Sinners” can win, then the PGA will make history one way or another by choosing one of them, whether the optics look good or not.
Are producers so driven by budgetary concerns and box office results that they will punish the most acclaimed film of the year and current Best Picture frontrunner in “One Battle After Another” at the last minute for losing money, no matter how much it has actually lost? But on the other side of the coin, is the PGA still so incapable of honoring a Black-led and Black-made film, even one that made so much money in the U.S. and became one of the largest successes of the year, that they would rather honor what may be a massively money-losing, white-led/made film instead? And if a movie like “Sinners” cannot win the PGA even against a white-led movie that loses money, can any movie made and led by an African-American ever win there?
As much as either “Sinners” or “One Battle After Another” will make history as the first PGA winner of its kind, it doesn’t mean all the history made by this result will be a positive kind, in one aspect or another. Of course, the PGA could split the difference like they did with “12 Years A Slave” and “Gravity” and have “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another” tie as well, which might be the most fitting result for these two movies that so thoroughly dominated this entire season. Then again, having both of the PGA’s only Black led/made Best Pictures share their wins, in the only two ties in PGA history, would raise too many eyebrows.
The PGA awards will have an unprecedented outcome in some form on February 28th, though it’s still unclear what that will look like.
What do you think is winning PGA this weekend? Do you think it will be “Sinners” or “One Battle After Another?” Do you think that whatever wins PGA will automatically go on to win the Oscar or do you feel the winner of the Ensemble prize at the Actor Awards the next night will swing momentum the other way and keep things interesting? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account, click here here for the most recent tally of awards season winners, here for Next Best Picture’s precursor tracker, and here for their current Oscar predictions.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
