Two Decades, Dozens Of Oscars, But Still No Best Picture Win: Will “Hamnet” Be The First For Focus Features?

While Netflix gets the most attention for never having won a Best Picture Oscar, Focus Features is by far the most decorated studio never to win one. Yet after 20+ years of many more near misses than Netflix, and after having won a lot more Oscars in major categories anyway, Focus’s latest awards season run is in high gear. Between “Song Sung Blue’s” AFI Fest world premiere this week, “Bugonia’s” nationwide expansion later this week and “Hamnet” looking more and more like Focus’s next great hope to break its Best Picture losing streak, this may be another big Focus awards season in a history full of them – whether it finally includes that one missing piece or not.

To put that history in full, here are Focus’s biggest Oscar season successes to date, which doesn’t even include films like “Being John Malkovich” and “Traffic” back in its earliest incarnation as USA Films, or across-the-board nominees like “Tár” that got shut out on Oscar night.

“Lost in Translation” – 2003 Best Original Screenplay WinnerAfter USA Films merged with other Universal assets to become Focus Features in 2002, it didn’t take long at all to make its first Oscar season splash in 2003. Sofia Coppola, Bill Murray, and Scarlett Johansson’s “Lost in Translation“ became the darling of the indie film circuit and looked like Murray’s big Oscar-winning moment, until it became the first one for Sean Penn instead. However, it still made history when Coppola became the third woman to win Best Original Screenplay on her own.

“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind“ – 2004 Best Original Screenplay WinnerFocus repeated in Best Original Screenplay the next year for an even wilder romantic fantasy, albeit one that didn’t make the cut for Best Picture and had only one other Oscar nomination. In a way, that made “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s” win here all the more eye-opening, which helped cement it as one of the more original Original Screenplay winners of the 21st century.

“Brokeback Mountain“ – 2005 Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay & Best Original Score WinnerExactly 20 years ago, Focus Features was the story of Oscar season for its first 99.9 percent. Not only did Rachel Weisz win Best Supporting Actress for Focus’s “The Constant Gardener,” “Brokeback Mountain“ became the biggest and most groundbreaking Focus film and award winner to date, and backed that up for the first 99 percent of Oscar night with three major wins. But of course, all that was overshadowed at the very end by one of the most infamous Best Picture outcomes of the modern era.

Twenty years later, that upset loss to “Crash“ still hangs over Focus as its closest and most bitter Best Picture loss to date, no matter how many others have tried and failed to avenge it since – and no matter how “Hamnet’s“ quest to finally finish the job turns out in the next four-plus months.

“Atonement“ – 2007 Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress & Best Adapted Screenplay Nominee, Best Original Score WinnerTwo years later, Focus had what looked like the preseason Oscar favorite with “Atonement,“ from the director and lead actress team of Joe Wright and Keira Knightley, who brought them “Pride and Prejudice“ two years earlier. But in a year that brought about “No Country for Old Men,” “There Will Be Blood,” “Michael Clayton“ and “Juno,” “Atonement“became more of a token nominee for the old voting guard – Wright’s one-take showmanship and Dario Marianelli’s Oscar-winning score notwithstanding.

Also, notwithstanding the nominee who made “Atonement“ something more historical down the line, as the first of many films to put a then-13-year-old Saoirse Ronan into the Oscar spotlight.

“Milk“ – 2008 Best Actor & Best Original Screenplay WinnerPenn defeated Focus’s Best Actor candidate in 2003, only to win his second Oscar with Focus’s help in 2008. Like “Brokeback Mountain“ before it, “Milk“ was a gay-themed Best Picture nominee that won two major Oscars, including a Screenplay award, but couldn’t crack the final glass ceiling as a Best Picture winner, though “Slumdog Millionaire“ made this outcome far less of a surprise.

“Milk“ was also historic as one of the final Best Picture nominees in a mere field of five, as the expanded ballot ahead would help ensure Focus would be in the Best Picture running most every year now.

“Dallas Buyers Club“ – 2013 Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor & Best Makeup and Hairstyling WinnerWhile Focus already had a few films that won one acting Oscar, “Dallas Buyers Club“ went a step further by taking two. For one, it rode the coattails of Matthew McConaughey’s career resurgence, as he capped it by winning Best Actor, and for the other, it rode the benefits of happening a few years before everyone turned on Jared Leto and on straight cis actors playing trans characters in general. Nonetheless, without winning Best Original Screenplay as well, “Dallas Buyers Club” was a Best Picture winning afterthought in the year of “12 Years a Slave“ vs “Gravity.“

“The Theory Of Everything“ – 2014 Best Actor WinnerWhile most everyone predicted a Focus Best Actor frontrunner to win in 2013, it was a different story the next year. Although “Birdman“ won Best Picture and had Michael Keaton as the face of it in his own career comeback narrative, Focus foiled such a narrative in Best Actor this time behind Eddie Redmayne’s late rally as Stephen Hawking.

Perhaps like the 2013 acting wins, this one wouldn’t age as well in years to come. Still, Focus’s growing power on the Oscar campaign circuit was showing, whether the results were unanimously cheered for or not.

“Darkest Hour“ – 2017 Best Actor & Best Makeup and Hairstyling Winner

Another example of Focus pushing a traditional, showy, and transformational Oscar winner came in 2017, as Gary Oldman used Oscar-winning prosthetics, his own career narrative, and the words of Winston Churchill to win his overdue Oscar. What’s more, although “Darkest Hour“ was on the bubble for Best Picture much of the season, Focus still muscled it and “Phantom Thread“ in as last-second nominees at the same time.

Although “Darkest Hour“ was another Focus film that couldn’t threaten for a Best Picture win, it was another example of the studio’s growing power in getting other consolation Oscars anyway.

“BlacKkKlansman“ – 2018 Best Adapted Screenplay WinnerA year later, there was more widespread celebration when Focus got another longtime star his first Oscar. This one went to Spike Lee as one of the co-writers of “BlacKkKlansman,“ marking one of the more popular 2018 Oscar wins on a night that often went the other way. Still, this was one year where Focus’s major Oscar victory wasn’t for one of the “villains“ of the season.

“Promising Young Woman“ – 2020 Best Original Screenplay WinnerIn the unprecedented pandemic year of 2020, something as incendiary and controversial as “Promising Young Woman” stood as good a chance as any to win Best Picture, at least if “Nomadland“ became vulnerable. But once more, Focus had to settle for a “consolation“ prize of a Screenplay win, as both the movie and Carey Mulligan otherwise fell short to “Nomadland“ and Frances McDormand.

Even so, for a movie this over-the-top to open in Sundance before the pandemic, stay on the radar through the rest of 2020, and roar into the Oscar race during the extended campaign, it proved Focus could truly play the long game.

“Belfast“ – 2021 Best Original Screenplay Winner“Belfast“ checked all the boxes as a traditional, sentimental, and broadly appealing Best Picture favorite, especially when it won the Toronto Film Festival and put Kenneth Branagh in line for his first Oscar. Yet while a more old school Best Picture winner would be crowned in 2021, “CODA“ took that mantle instead after “Belfast“ lost its early momentum to “The Power of the Dog“ – making it another Focus film only to get Best Original Screenplay for its troubles.

As it turns out, this started a butterfly effect playing out right now, this Oscar season. If “Belfast“ had lost instead to “Licorice Pizza“ and gotten Paul Thomas Anderson his first Oscar, then there might be less of an overwhelming push for “One Battle After Another“ to get him his Oscars now, and then Focus’s “Hamnet“ could have reaped the benefits above all.

“The Holdovers“ – 2023 Best Supporting Actress WinnerFocus was shut out of major Oscar wins in 2022 thanks to “Everything Everywhere All at Once,“ but got back in the winners’ circle the next year when Da’Vine Joy Randolph had one of the most dominant seasons of all time. Nevertheless, “The Holdovers“ had hopes for a few more Oscars than that, especially while it was neck-and-neck with “Anatomy of a Fall“ for Best Original Screenplay and after Paul Giamatti won the Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice.

But not only did Giamatti fall off and Alexander Payne get snubbed from Best Director entirely, “The Holdovers” couldn’t stave off “Anatomy of a Fall“ in Screenplay. Once more, a Focus film that started as a potential Best Picture frontrunner would only get one collective Oscar in the end.

“Conclave“ – 2024 Best Adapted Screenplay WinnerThis pattern stayed intact last year, although Focus was strung along longer than usual first. “Conclave“ overachieved at the box office, yielded more than a few memes online, and benefited from a race with no overwhelming leader most of the year. Even when “Anora“ finally pulled ahead by winning the DGA and PGA, and when Edward Berger missed a Best Director nomination at the last minute again, surprise wins at BAFTA and SAG made “Conclave“ at least look like a top two film going into Oscar night.

Even so, as soon as “Conclave“ won its long preordained Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, everything went “Anora’s“ way from there. Whether “Conclave“ was indeed the first runner-up or whether “The Brutalist“ was, the result was still the same for Focus – another Oscar season where it made a lot of noise and won another major Oscar category, but still couldn’t win the only one that’s been out of its reach for over two decades. And now it is “Hamnet’s“ turn, if not “Song Sung Blue“ or “Bugonia’s,“ to try and change Focus’s narrative yet again.

Have you seen “Hamnet” yet? If so, what do you think of the film? Do you believe it will bring Focus Features its first ever Best Picture win or will it be like all of their other contenders over the years? Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account and check out the team’s latest Oscar predictions here.

You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984