After months of viral red carpet moments, chaotic acceptance speeches and the internet collectively begging Mary Beth Barone to host every red carpet until the end of time, awards season is finally wrapping up. But before we can all return to our regularly scheduled programming, we must tick off the final and most extravagant event on the one per cent’s calendar: the Oscars.
On March 16 (March 17 here in Australia), the industry’s A-list will walk the red carpet while the rest of the world watches on with bated breath, waiting to see whose next paycheck will have an extra zero added onto the end.
But while the golden statue may be the ultimate symbol of success in Hollywood, we can’t help but ask, what is the actual price of winning an Oscar?
The Academy Awards may present as a celebration of artistic excellence, but, to be completely honest, the truth is a little less romantic — and far more strategic.
Now, we’re not saying Oscar winners don’t deserve recognition. Talent still matters. Performances still need to resonate. Films still need to be good.
What we are saying is that when it comes to the Oscars, excellence simply isn’t enough.
While you can’t outright buy a golden statue, what you can buy is momentum. And in Hollywood, momentum is everything.
Welcome to the Oscar campaign
You know that moment when a movie suddenly becomes unavoidable? When everyone starts saying, “let’s go see this movie, apparently it could win an Oscar”? Well, that buzz isn’t accidental, it’s manufactured.
It’s a carefully planned, aggressively funded strategy designed to make a win feel like destiny.
The Oscar campaign isn’t just a fancy word for film promotion. Instead, they’re run much more like a carefully plotted political election. Studios aren’t just spending money to get audiences to the cinema; they’re persuading Academy voters that voting for their film is culturally inevitable.
The original Oscars purchase
In 1998, one of the biggest Oscars upsets of the past few decades shocked the world.
Shakespeare in Love made history when the film beat the “unbeatable” Saving Private Ryan, all thanks to a new campaign strategy.
Miramax spent around $15 million on the campaign. While it was only a little over half the film’s budget, spending that amount on an Oscar campaign was essentially unheard of at the time.
The studio kept the film in conversation with daily advertising in industry newspapers and extensive private screenings for Academy members.
The team even adopted some dirty tactics, allegedly starting a “whisper campaign” among voters that Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan was only good for the first 20 minutes. In response to the campaign, Dreamworks spent around $2 to $4 million to promote Saving Private Ryan among the Academy.
In the end, Shakespeare in Love won a total of seven Oscars. Saving Private Ryan took home five.
It was the moment Hollywood realised that a massive chequebook could beat a massive director.
Streaming buys its way into the conversation
Fast forward to 2018, when Netflix proved that if you have enough cash, you can force the industry to take you seriously.
Streaming was never considered prestigious enough for the Oscars, but Netflix changed that narrative when they dropped around $25 to $30 million (some industry reports claim it was as high as $60 million) on the Oscar campaign for Roma.
Alfonso Cuarón’s black-and-white indie film only cost $15 million to make, and Academy voters didn’t consider Netflix as having any cultural or artistic legitimacy at the time, so the distributor was taking a massive swing when they dropped that much cash on the campaign.
Their tactics included sending every single voter a $200 hardcover coffee table book, and holding private tastemaker screenings hosted by prestigious A-listers such as Angelina Jolie and Charlize Theron.
It was a strategy designed to not only buy an Oscar for the distributor but also buy legitimacy for streaming as a whole.
At the 2019 ceremony, the film was nominated in 10 categories and ultimately took home three wins.
The modern relevance strategy
While most major Oscar contenders drop in November in an attempt to stay fresh in the minds of voters, Everything Everywhere All At Once rewrote the blueprint.
The film dominated the 2023 ceremony, taking home a total of seven wins, even though it dropped way back in April 2022.
The $14 million flick was one of the first to target voters through internet relevancy, a strategy seen more and more today — mainly from A24.
Everything Everywhere All At Once is a film that easily lends itself to internet memes, and the studio leaned into that, maintaining relevancy through viral TikTok reaction videos, “multiverse memes”, and the Ke Huy Quan comeback narrative.
The company spent between $10 million and $15 million on the campaign, which saw year-long talent promotion from Jamie Lee Curtis, Ke Huy Quan and Michelle Yeoh, highlighting the cultural importance of the movie and rewriting the narrative around the film being “confusing” to it being a “must-see masterpiece”.
Walking away with a total of seven Oscars, the film not only proved that an April release can sweep if enough money is spent, but it also showed viewers that online cultural relevance is something the Academy is starting to take note of.
The Anora effect
The most recent example of a hefty price tag on a campaign is Sean Baker’s Anora.
Before it was even released here in Australia, you couldn’t escape the narrative online that this new film starring the screaming chick from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was going to be an Oscar winner.
The 2025 indie darling reportedly cost around $6 million to make — essentially pocket change in Hollywood. It was a modest budget for a film that cleared five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actress.
And while there’s no denying it was a fantastic film, things do start to click when you find out that A24 spent a whopping $18 million on the Oscar campaign.
Yes, you read that right. The budget for Anora’s Oscar campaign was reportedly three times that of the budget for the film itself.
Ever since 1998, the Oscar campaign has been a major expense for Hollywood studios, but A24’s spend on Anora showed just how far you can take it.
Rather than campaign costs matching a movie’s budget, studios have now seen that shifting the budget to include a larger spend on the campaign than the film itself can deliver the results that most only ever dream of.
So, why spend so much for a gold statue?
Even though it might seem extravagant, Oscar campaigns are essential to success and longevity in Hollywood.
A single award can extend theatrical runs, boost streaming deals, and permanently elevate everyone involved. Actors gain negotiating power. Directors secure future funding. Studios gain prestige branding that lasts for years. And as soon as a film professional can associate themselves with an “Oscar winner”, their pay begins to skyrocket.
Campaigns are shifting away from targeting voters through traditional trade media and leaning into the idea of creating cultural relevancy through conversation on social media.
Awards campaigns aren’t expenses; they’re investments with massive returns.
What it all means for the future of the Oscars
The myth of the Academy as a purely merit-based institution grows harder to maintain every year.
Winning today requires more than artistry. It requires visibility, narrative momentum, cultural relevance, and a campaign budget large enough to sustain all three.
The golden statue may symbolise artistic achievement, but the journey toward it looks increasingly like a marketing strategy disguised as destiny.
On Hollywood’s biggest night, the real competition isn’t just between films, it’s also between the studios willing to spend the most money in an attempt to convince the Academy they deserve to win.
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