The film “Titanic” received 14 Oscar nominations, “Gone With the Wind” received 13 nominations, “Forrest Gump” received 13; and in 2025, “Emilia Pérez” received 13 Oscar nominations. What do the first three films have in common? They are some of the greatest films and most iconic films of all time. In contrast, “Emilia Pérez” has been panned by audiences and is now being hailed as one of the worst movies of all time with a 17% from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes as of writing this article.
The 97th Academy Awards Ceremony takes place on Sunday, Mar. 2, at 7 p.m. and will be hosted by Conan O’Brien. The nominees have been pretty controversial with “Emilia Pérez” taking the lead. Some of the most notable snubs include Lily Rose Depp for best supporting actress in “Nosferatu,” Margaret Qualley for best actress in “The Substance,” and Denis Villeneuve for best director for “Dune: Part Two.”
The most controversial pick is “Emilia Pérez,” which is about a Mexican lawyer helping a cartel boss retire and transition into living as a woman. Even though the film takes place in Mexico, it was made by a French filmmaker and it is quite evident that he did not do any research.
The film managed to offend the minority groups it was trying to represent. The film was also nominated for best musical, pairing it up with “Wicked.” However, it was revealed that the film used AI to enhance the actors’ singing capabilities. Not only that, but the musical numbers were terrible and some of the worst I have ever seen. According to a Forbes article, “the purpose…was to increase the voice range of the film’s title character (Karla Sofía Gascón), who sings in director Jacques Audiard’s musical crime drama.”
This goes hand in hand with another controversial pick for best picture, “The Brutalist,” which also came out as using AI to aid in some parts of the film. According to the same article, “AI was used to tweak certain parts of the Hungarian dialect spoken by stars Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones in ‘The Brutalist’ for the sake of accuracy.”
The Academy may find themselves in a tough spot when it comes to nominating films, as they try to nominate movies that are different but end up being controversial. “I think the Oscars find themselves in a tough point, where if they nominate and award a controversial film, they get a lot of slack for it, but if they go basic, they get slack for not being unique enough,” senior Brandon Bartee said.
To sum up my point, the Academy has shown that they don’t understand what makes a great movie. They try to nominate a film like “Emilia Pérez” to seem like they are progressive, but in actuality, they are propping up a film that has no respect for the very people that it’s trying to represent. “As much as they try to appreciate the changing landscape of film, it’s clear through their lack of nominations for movies like ‘Challengers’ in favor of movies like ‘Emilia Pérez’ that the Academy doesn’t really understand what makes modern movies great,” Bartee said.
