“F1” is a perfectly fine, entertaining, disposable, summer, theatrical spectacle, popcorn flick. The blockbuster film, starring Brad Pitt, is the highest-grossing of the 62-year-old Oscar-winning actor’s career, and he plays a character competing at the highest levels of motorsport, where the average age of professional drivers is somewhere between 27 and 29. It is a silly, breezy and wildly successful movie. The kind of flick that puts bottoms in the seats at a time when fewer people are going to see movies in the theater.
It is also an Academy Award nominee for best picture — and that is just ridiculous. The character development is kiddie pool-level deep, the dialogue is as wooden as any “Star Wars” movie and the satisfying conclusion never feels really in doubt. Just as the actual stars of “Top Gun” are fighter jets, racecars do much of the entertainment-lifting of “F1.” It’s standard Hollywood blockbuster fare, executed very well. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a movie geek who appreciates both the high and the lowbrow. I’m as averse to the academy’s historic snobbery against fun as anyone — but come on guys, “F1”?
Just as the actual stars of “Top Gun” are fighter jets, racecars do much of the entertainment-lifting of “F1.”
For much of the Oscars’ history, best picture nominees have been limited to five — as it was and is with pretty much every other Oscar category. From the late 1920s until 1943, the academy nominated between eight and 12 films for best picture. But from 1944-2008, there were just five nominees. A nice, accessible number, one that — if you were a fan of the Oscars — made it fairly easy to remember the nominees even years later.
But after a backlash over “The Dark Knight” and “WALL-E” — two hugely popular 2008 films that were also critical darlings — failing to get best picture nods, the academy expanded the roster, eventually settling on 10. The idea was to generate more broad interest among the masses in the stuffiest of awards shows. And that’s how “F1” ended up a best picture nominee.
It didn’t work, but that’s not really the fault of the academy. The terminal decline of broadcast television has culled the audiences for all awards shows. And watering down the prestige of a best picture nominee by adding to the mix films like “Top Gun: Maverick” (from the director of “F1”) did not spark a renaissance in Oscars ratings or box office draws. While the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon of 2023 — when “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” dominated both the summer box office and critics’ year-end lists — was a boon for Oscar ratings, it doesn’t seem to have sparked a lasting trend, largely because the success of films in the vein of those two movies has yet to be replicated. And it’s hard to believe there’s a substantial number of diehard “F1” fans that are going to make it a point to tune in for Conan O’Brien’s monologue.
But the Oscars do have their diehard fans, and they’re a type. I’d know; somewhere in the archives is a column from my high school newspaper lamenting the academy’s choices at the 1995 Oscars (honoring films released in 1994). The soppy boomer nostalgia of “Forrest Gump” won best picture (and a bunch more), which to my teenage film-obsessive mind was an outrage when pitted against the revolutionary-for-its-time frenetic dark comedy of “Pulp Fiction,” the timelessly rewatchable sentimentality of “Shawshank Redemption,” the charming and sophisticated romantic comedy of “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and Robert Redford’s criminally forgotten requiem for a certain kind of 20th century American innocence, “Quiz Show.” (I’ve softened a bit on “Gump” with time, but only a little.)
Five nominees made it easier to even pit certain years against each other in critical conversation. How does 1974’s crop of best picture nominees, including “The Godfather Part II,” “Chinatown” and “The Conversation,” stack up against 1976’s “Taxi Driver,” “All the President’s Men” and “Network”? That’s a debate no one could ever win, but it’d sure be fun to watch.
The Academy Awards are still the gold standard of American show business prizes. The Golden Globes are usually good for a laugh, but hardly anyone remembers who won anything. The Grammys are capable of putting on a good show (the music helps on that front), but like the Emmys, they still don’t quite carry the cultural gravitas of the Oscars. This is unlikely to last forever, though. “Going to the movies” as a standard pastime enjoyed by the majority of the entertainment-seeking public is just not a thing anymore since the rise of streaming — a trend exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, fewer movies are being made by studios, and the “mid-budget” movie — an adult drama, a sophisticated comedy, a quirky indie with a recognizable star — has practically gone extinct at the cinema. There’s no rational reason why “top ten” lists of the best films of the year should be perfectly acceptable for film obsessives, but 10 best picture nominees are too many — and yet, that appears to be the case. As John Young wrote for Entertainment Weekly in 2012, “It’s better to be loved by a small and passionate group instead of liked by a much larger group.” I get that the problems of movie fanatics who like to argue about obscure Oscar trivia don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world, but the specialness of the Oscars still remains its greatest asset. And opening up the best picture academy to both the “pretty good” and the “kinda ok” hasn’t done any favors to preserving that specialness.
Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and opinion columnist for MS NOW, often covering free speech, civil liberties and extremism. He was previously the senior opinion editor for The Daily Beast and a politics columnist for Business Insider. 
