The recently held Academy Awards honored the foreign
language film, Parasite as the ‘Best Picture.’
Although foreign films have a category of their own since 1956, this is the first time a non-English film won the top prize in the prestigious ceremony.
Besides winning the ‘Best Picture’ trophy, the South Korean film
by Bong Joon-Ho also bagged the top honors for Best Direction, Best Screenplay,
and the Best International Feature Film. The movie also did pretty well in
commercial terms and earned $165 million at the global box office.
However, this number is a far cry from the figures a traditional
blockbuster is able to accumulate in today’s date. In fact, the highest-grossing film of 2020 earned approximately $2,798 million worldwide, while similar trends
were seen in previous years as well.
Take a look at the chart below that illustrates how a
commercial success and a critically acclaimed film don’t go hand in hand. The
last movie that saw both – success at the box office and top honors at the
Oscars was Peter Jackson’s The Lord of
the Rings final trilogy. The movie earned around $1.1 billion at the
worldwide box office and won the ‘Best Picture’ at the 2004 Oscars.
Infographic by: www.statista.com
