What is the Best Genre for Best Picture?

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(5 minute read)



It goes without saying that winning an Oscar or Academy Award for Best Picture requires earnest dedication and relentless diligence, but some genres seem to perform better than others.

Using data from the winners from 1927 to 2019, the last two decades suggests that there are converging preferences among audiences in the 21st century.

Looking back at the Genres


In a previous post, I wrote a deep-dive report on the Best Pictures over the last 93 years. One of the biggest takeaways was the distribution of awards by genre, illustrated above. 

Take a look at the frequency of winners each year per genre. Here are some takeaways:

1. Action (3) and Fantasy (2) have garnered the fewest Oscar Wins for Best Picture despite their mainstream popularity. 

2. Biographies (20), Historical films (14), and War movies (16) are consistent winners, as are Comedies (16).

3. Romance (33) has been by far the most successful, but the genre hasn't been as decorated in the last 20 years as it was from 1927 to the 1960s.

4, Thrillers (12) are becoming more popular. They have won 7 Best Picture awards in the past 15 years, after having only won 5 in the 78 years prior to 2005.

5. Musicals (9) and Westerns (3) haven't seen much success.

Keep in mind a film can own multiple genres and there were no Sci-Fi winners according to the data sourced from IMDb's database through OMDb. The closest thing to Sci-Fi would be Fantasy.


Where are Action and Fantasy?

It's very shocking to see how lonely Action and Fantasy films look in the view above. Only 3 wins for Action movies and only 2 for Fantasy. The Shape of Water (2017) is considered the FIRST ever science-fiction winner for Best Picture after 93 years of Oscar ceremonies.

Action Film Winners (3):
Gladiator (2000)
The French Connection (1971)
Wings (1927)

Fantasy Film Winners (2):
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
The Shape of Water (2017)

Surprisingly, Action films are the second most popular genre behind Comedy, according to a 2018 survey conducted of 2,200 people, yet the genre has only won three times.

And it goes without even citing a statistic that some of the most memorable films to date have been of Science Fiction or Fantasy: Planet of the Apes, Star Wars, Blade Runner, Alien, Avatar, The Martian, Arrival. 

Mainstream Hollywood films can't seem to win "Best Picture", which makes sense. Movies like Transformers and Thor: Ragnarok are meant to entertain a very broad demographic that includes kids, which may make for extraordinarily epic and fun movies but not necessarily Best Pictures, which are typically chosen by an older demographic of experienced moviegoers.

If you look at the all-time list of big-budget Hollywood films sorted by box office success, you'll see that in the top 100, none have won an Oscar for Best Picture although a number have certainly won other prestigious awards like Best Supporting Actor (The Dark Knight) and Best Cinematography (Avatar). 

According to the famous film critic Roger Ebert, 

"If I have a criterion for choosing the greatest films, it's an emotional one."
"The cinema is the greatest art form ever conceived for generating emotions in its audience. That's what it does best." (source)

Mainstream big-budget films are fun to watch but are they serious and moving enough to win an Oscar for best film? Maybe not. 

All-Time Genres that Don't Fade

Biographical, Historical, War, Romance, and Comedy genres have had very consistent Oscar performances. Here are the all-time averages to date:

1 out of every 3 films won was a Romantic picture.
1 out of every 5 films won was a Biographical film.
1 out of every 6 films won was a War movie. Same stat for Comedies.

Comedies are the #1 most popular movie genre according to the same 2,200 person survey mentioned before.

Recent Sample of Comedy Best Picture Winners (16 total):
Parasite (2019)
Green Book (2018)
The Artist (2011)
Terms of Endearment (1983)
Annie Hall (1977)
The Sting (1973)

Meanwhile, Romance absolutely dominated the Oscars from 1927 to the mid-1960s. It wasn't until after The Sound of Music (1965) when Romance finally stopped winning every 2-3 years.

Romantic Comedies rank 5th in popularity among female audiences while Romance films (dramas) rank 8th. Among men, Romance films rank second to last in popularity, so why were there so many wins early on? Well, one guess is that Romance is slowly declining in popularity. The market share of Romantic Comedies and Dramas have been slowly declining over the last 20+ years, according to The-Numbers. Another guess is both historical and stereotypical. France is known for their fine taste in romance, and France is also the birthplace of cinema when it began with the Lumière Brothers in 1895. Go figure.

Overlapping Genres

One of my personal favorite films, Casablanca (1943), while it was a Romantic film, was also a War movie that took place during WWII and also began production at the time the US entered the War.

Overlapping genres is common but nowhere more common than between Biography and History films, which sound like they should be 100% mutually inclusive. Biographies and Histories overlap in 10 Best Picture films, which makes up 50% of all Biography Oscar winners. 

Sample of Historical AND Biographical Best Picture Winners (10 Total):
12 Years a Slave (2013)
The King's Speech (2010)
Braveheart (1995)
Schindler's List (1993)
Gandhi (1982)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

We can hypothesize why both these genres performed so well, especially when the story takes place in a period like the Holocaust or the slavery era. The historical context adds significant depth to a film that does not need to reinvent a new universe but rather anchors on a real historical event that resonates on an emotional level with a broad audience.

War films can be considered historical as well but for some reason they have minimal overlap according to the encoding of the data. Films like Casablanca and The Hurt Locker, which take place during war eras, are not considered history films, perhaps because they are more story-driven rather than educational. 

War films in fact are the second highest rated genre with at least 3 Oscar wins and an average Rotten Tomato score of 91%, falling just short of Thrillers.

Biography, History, and War Overlap (2):
Braveheart (1995)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 


Best Genre by Ratings



Thrillers are In.

From the illustration above, Thrillers rank highest on both the Rotten Tomato and IMDb scale, and that is based on 12 Thriller Best Pictures, which you should trust over the competing average for Fantasy films, which only boast 2 Best Pictures to date.

The genre popularity survey reports that Thrillers are enjoyed by Men and Women almost equally, 83% of men and 84% of women said they have a favorable impression of this genre, which ranks above average on the list.

A big indicator of its popularity is the frequency in the last two decades. 7 of the Best Pictures in the last two decades were Thrillers. That means 1 out of every 3 films in the 21st century fell into that genre, the best among all genres.

Thriller Best Picture Winners in the 21st century:
Parasite (2019)
The Shape of Water (2017)
Argo (2012)
The Hurt Locker (2009)
No Country for Old Men (2007)
The Departed (2006)
Crash (2005)

Our friend Wikipedia defines a Thriller as "a genre of fiction, having numerous, often overlapping subgenres. Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety. Successful examples of thrillers are the films of Alfred Hitchcock."

Two words, "heightened feelings", sound like Ebert's definition of great films. With the wide range of movies and streaming services available, one could argue that people are more desensitized than they were in the 50s and 60s. In order to stand out in the crowd and stop thumbs from scrolling, directors need to create a story that elicits a more powerful emotional response from their audiences.

It's definitely no surprise then that Horror films are So Popular Now. They have a large ROI (return on investment) so studios keep making them, and they create a rush of dopamine that largely fits today's demographic.

Citing from the author: “people who enjoy horror films are also more responsive to dopamine, which is produced in high-intensity situations, and is released as a result of rewarding, and sometimes sinful experiences”. People nowadays are more responsive to dopamine than ever before as a result of social media and smartphones, which complements the rush that horror films can deliver.

Let's Face It, Westerns & Musicals aren't your First Choice

Westerns and Musicals are irrelevant now and have been on the decline for years. They rank the lowest in IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes Ratings among all genres. A full breakdown and history lesson of their decline can be found HERE on StackExchange for some Sunday afternoon reading. 

How many Western films have you seen in the last decade? The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018) and Django Unchained (2012) are some of the more popular films that come to my mind. Westerns haven't won a Best Picture since 1992 and have only won 3 awards all time. 

I'd argue Westerns translate to very slow-moving cinema, which does not fit with the quick, anxiety-filled society we live in today. Also, with big pockets of the population growing up in cities and suburbs, watching cowboys in the 19th century does not seem like it would resonate with the majority of the country. 

Western Best Pictures (3):
Unforgiven (1992)
Dances with Wolves (1990)
Cimarron (1931)

When you hear Musicals, you might immediately think of La La Land (2016), which almost won Best Picture and even had its name called on accident in that famous blunder at the Oscars. 

Unlike Westerns, there were actually a decent number of popular Musicals produced in recent years including The Greatest Showman, A Star is Born, Cats, the Pitch Perfect Trilogy, and Frozen 1 and 2. 

Musicals however haven't won since 2002 and before then their last championship was in 1968. The downfall of Musicals is very interesting that the Stack Exchange link explores.

Musical Best Pictures (9):
Chicago (2002)
Oliver! (1968)

Too Long, Didn't Read

The Best Genre for Best Picture can be summed up for directors as follows:
  • Think Thrillers because their popularity has climbed at the Oscars
  • Consider Histories, Biographies, War films, or Romances because all four are consistent favorites
  • Steer Clear of Westerns and Musicals because it's extremely rare for either genre to win a Best Picture
Naturally other factors need to be properly executed in order to produce an Academy Award-winning film, but betting on the "winning" genres may increase a director's chances.

And when you're thinking about what should be crowned Best Picture heed film critic Ebert's advice, "my greatest films must be films that had me sitting transfixed before the screen, involved, committed, and feeling."