Before Dune: Part Two picked up a Best Picture nomination at the 2025 Oscars, there had only been 15 science fiction films ever to get that Oscar nod. One of those includes Dune: Part One, released in 2021 and nominated for Best Picture in 2022. It didn’t win, but then again, sci-fi movies rarely win Best Picture at the Oscars. Famously, even Star Wars lost in 1978 to Annie Hall. So, historically, it's unlikely that Dune: Part Two has even an outside chance of winning Best Picture, despite being nominated. And yet, this nomination is historic for one major reason: It represents the first time that the same science fiction story has been nominated for Best Picture twice.
On January 23, the nominations for the 97th Academy Awards featured a lot of horror films in the mix, and some sci-fi in the VFX category (Alien: Romulus.) But in terms of full-on, outer space sci-fi movies, only Dune: Part Two got the Best Picture nod. You may think this is the first sci-fi sequel to get nominated for Best Picture, but you’d be forgetting Mad Max: Fury Road’s nomination in 2016. (We’re also not counting the various Lord of the Rings Best Picture nominations, because those films are fantasy, not science fiction.) Avatar: The Way of Water was also nominated for Best Picture, and that’s a sci-fi sequel, too.
