Oscars 2024: ‘Barbie’ might be the belle of the ball, but it looks like ‘Oppenheimer’s’ night

While “Barbie,” the year’s biggest box-office winner, will get plenty of attention at the 96th Academy Awards, it looks destined to be “Oppenheimer’s” night.

If you drink every time someone mentions “Barbie” at this Sunday’s Oscars, you probably won’t be awake to see the best picture category presented, even with the show’s earlier start time. Yet while the year’s biggest box-office winner will get plenty of attention – due in part to its much-debated “snubs” – the 96th Academy Awards looks destined to be “Oppenheimer’s” night. For “Barbie,” despite the omission of star Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig as actress and director, respectively (both are nominated in other categories), the lesson from this year’s nominations is an old one. Comedian Martin Mull famously observed that Hollywood is just “high school with money,” and based on recent awards history, the most popular kid in school seldom gets to be the valedictorian, too. The Oscars serve various functions, among them delivering a three-hour commercial encouraging people to go to the movies – an imperative that has taken on extra urgency amid an extended slump triggered by the one-two punch of Covid and streaming. Still, award telecasts also need to attract an audience to ensure the networks airing them will keep paying big bucks for the privilege, and nominating movies more people have seen provides a stronger rooting interest and a potential means of boosting (or at least sustaining) TV ratings. Award-show organizers have wrestled with this calculation in what might be called Hollywood’s superhero era, since “Iron Man” launched Marvel’s until-recently invulnerable run at the box office. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences increased the number of best picture nominees in 2009 (after “The Dark Knight” didn’t make the cut) and flirted with adding a “popular film” award, hoping to invite more blockbusters to the party. While few superhero or genre movies have managed to break through (“Black Panther” being an exception), “Barbie’s” mix of stars and social commentary nabbed eight nominations, including best picture. As awards season has progressed, though, voters from the industry’s guilds as well as journalist groups have gravitated toward “Oppenheimer,” a weighty historical film that, despite its own commercial success as the other half of “Barbenheimer,” hews closer to the template of past Oscar winners.