In one of the few surprises of the evening, Parasite won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The 92nd Academy Awards were defined by safe choices, peppered with a few keen surprises. The entire season has been driven by big names mixed with the unexpected, from major A-List acting winners doing a clean sweep from the Golden Globes onwards to Parasite beating Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to the Best Original Screenplay prize. One major shock came when Bong Joon-ho, already a two-time winner by this point in the evening, was victorious in a very tough Best Director category for Parasite, a moment that brought the entire theater to its feet in applause and almost broke Twitter!
Best Picture was jam-packed with greatness this season: The scathing satirical drama Parasite; the technical dazzle of 1917; the tonal tightrope walk of anti-hate satire Jojo Rabbit; Joker’s billion-dollar grosses coupled with months of divisive discourse; Greta Gerwig reinventing a classic in Little Women; the rollicking racing of Ford v Ferrari; heartbreak made fresh with Marriage Story; the full-throated ode to old-school cinema in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood; and an iconic director’s return to the gangster genre as an old man with The Irishman. This was a year where any one of these nine films could have taken home the top prize and at least a sizeable portion of film fans would be happy with the result.
The ultimate winner, however, was a truly ground-breaking choice that delighted everyone. Parasite made history by becoming the first film not in the English language to take home the Academy Award for Best Picture in 93 years! Bong Joon-ho had one hell of a night, taking home no fewer than four Oscars. By the time he was on stage for award number three, even he seemed baffled and delighted by the surprise. Best Picture, an award most experts had tipped to be a near-lock for 1917, elicited gasps and cheers across the world, and for good reason. Even the most optimistic Oscar lovers had to admit that it was unlikely the deeply archaic Academy would break tradition to celebrate a foreign-language film outside of its own category. For now, as Director Bong heads towards the bar for a much-deserved night of celebration, we’re taking a look at why Parasite won Best Picture.
Buzz for Parasite began way back in April when it was announced as one of the films premiering in competition at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. In a year where the film faced off against the likes of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Pain and Glory, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, it was Parasite that was quickly deemed to be not only the best film of the festival but a future masterpiece in the making.
Bong Joon-ho became the first South Korean director to win the prestigious Palme d’Or and it didn’t take long for that feverish sense of anticipation to spread across the globe. Neon, the indie distributor that held the North American rights to the film, put forward an excellent and deeply savvy promotional campaign that worked to not only introduce the movie to Hollywood but to open the doors of South Korean cinema to a wider audience.
The cast and crew for Parasite were everywhere this season, attending glitzy parties, giving glossy magazine interviews, and being photographed with the best and brightest of the business. It’s never enough to be a merely excellent film in Oscar races: You have to put in the fight too.
Reviews and Box Office Were Strong
Parasite's reviews frequently called the film a masterpiece and it was near-impossible to find a critic willing to say the film was anything less than excellent. It's just that good! On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 99%. More than that, the film also made serious money at the North American box office, with many sold-out screenings in key locations and a current domestic gross of over $35 million. That's higher than Jojo Rabbit.
Commercial appeal isn't the top priority for the Academy but they do love to reward success with more success, and celebrating a true break-out hit is par for the course for them, albeit typically with English-language works. It’s easy to strengthen your campaign when you can show off box office receipts and brag about the records you’re breaking, and that doesn’t even include the fact that its total worldwide gross is well over $167 million.
The Power of Bonghive!
Online fandom and grassroots support isn’t something that sways the opinions of the older Academy voters but Neon and Parasite were able to translate the internet passion for their movie into a tangible industry presence. A lot of that had to do with the charisma and enthusiasm of the director, Bong Joon-ho. He appeared on American talk shows (always accompanied by his wonderful translator, Sharon Choi), he appeared on directors roundtables and interviews, and he made plenty of big-name friends.
Director Bong was one of the most coveted party guests of the season and it was tough not to be wholly won over by him. He proved to be the perfect center of focus for the campaign, particularly since, sadly, none of the film’s actors received any nominations this season from the American or British awards shows. Bonghive reigned supreme!
Parasite Was a Chance to Make History
The Academy often runs away from progress. Think of last year, when the voters, presented with the opportunity to break down barriers by choosing Roma or Black Panther for Best Picture settled on Green Book, the very definition of the social and cinematic status quo. This was one of the reasons that 1917 was considered the Best Picture front-runner: Love it, hate it, or remain totally ambivalent on it, but it was exactly the kind of film the Academy loves to celebrate over and over again. Still, for many Oscar voters, it seemed that this was the year to buck that archaic trend and celebrate international cinema, putting it front and center rather than leaving it as a niche to be discussed next to the ‘real winners.’
Parasite isn’t just the first film not in the English language to win Best Picture. It’s also the first South Korean film ever to take home Best International Feature, as well as the first one to even be nominated. Given the seismic impact that the works of South Korean directors like Bong, Park Chan-wook, and Lee Chang-dong have had on Hollywood, this has definitely been a long time coming. In a year where the lack of diversity was, once again, the elephant in the room, the Academy seemed self-aware enough to understand that leaving their comfort zone now and then could reap amazing benefits.
Of course, there’s also another far simpler reason that Parasite won Best Picture: It was genuinely the best picture of 2019. Every now and then, the film that deserves to win actually does so. We should enjoy those moments when we can.