Will a superhero movie ever be good enough to win the Oscar for Best Picture? It's a question that many critics and fans of the genre have been asking, especially in recent years as the popular movies have become more loved by critics as well as audiences. Back in February, the question came up again as many thought that Marvel's Black Panther could be the movie that changes the game. This morning the film took its first step on that road when it received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture - Drama.
While Black Panther isn't the first comic book movie to be nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture, the original Deadpool was nominated in the Comedy or Musical category back in 2016, the Golden Globes are viewed as an almost necessary step to being nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and the drama category is usually a better indicator of what movies usually end up on the nominee list than those on the Comedy or Musical side.
By securing this nomination, the other thing that Black Panther does is remind everybody else that it's out there. There's a reason that the vast majority of "awards bait" gets released in the last quarter of the year. People have better memories of the movies they've seen more recently, so a film betters its chances of nomination by being released closer to the end of the year. Black Panther came out back in February and has even seen two more Marvel movies come out since then. Some may have sort of forgotten that the movie was eligible for nomination, but now it will be part of the conversation for every other end of the year list.
The film will have some stiff competition, to be sure, when it goes up against Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, If Beale Street Could Talk and A Star Is Born.
In addition to its nomination for Best Picture, Black Panther also received a pair of musical nomination, one for Best Original Score and one for Best Original Song, for "All The Stars."
Of course, the Golden Globe nomination is far from a guarantee of an Oscar nomination and even farther from a win, but if Black Panther hadn't secured the nomination this morning, the odds of it being an Oscar contender would have gone down significantly.
Of course, the real front-runners for the Oscars will be the movies that win the Golden Globes when the awards are handed out early next year, so we'll have to wait and see what happens.
Check out the full list of the 2019 Golden Globe nominees here.
