Last month, the US talk show host Jimmy Kimmel called out Oscar voters for snubbing Spider-Man: No Way Home – the biggest superhero movie of the last year. “Why do Best Picture nominees have to be serious?” Kimmel lamented. “When did that become a prerequisite for getting nominated for an Academy Award?”
Kimmel posed a question with no possible answer: what makes a movie good? If it was down to popularity, then Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige would have a mantlepiece glittering with Oscar trophies. But he doesn’t. A film does not have to be good from an artistic point of view to be popular and yet its popularity should not be ignored either.
