The only horror film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards

Horror and the Oscars are notoriously (and unfortunately) strange bedfellows. Which is strange on the face of it, because even casual movie fans can recognize the huge importance that the horror genre has to the medium. Many of Hollywood’s most accomplished filmmakers got their start with horror films, many technical innovations were made because of horror films, and the rules of cinema itself would not be as advanced as they have become without the horror genre. To ignore or remove horror from any study of the medium is to fundamentally misunderstand cinema.

If all that is known, then Why does the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences continue to treat horror so poorly?? The reasons for this are too long and varied to go into detail here, suffice it to say that it has to do with a combination of old (puritanical) views regarding culture and art that have been sublimated in the never-ending debate about high art. Opposite low art, the war between elite arrogance and corporate populism. Horror films are generally dismissed under the lens of classicism: they are viewed as “cheap”, dubbed “B films”, and in some extreme cases labeled as morally irresponsible.

However, sometimes, a horror film’s ingenuity, popularity, and overall impact are too great to deny. That’s exactly what happened in 1992 at the 64th Academy Awards when Jonathan Demme’s 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs won Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay, but also became the first horror film ever to win Best Picture. image. Even now, in 2024, it remains the only horror film to receive this honor.

A film that wins Best Picture at the Oscars tends to be canonized in one way or another. Some taking home the award sparked endless debate about their actual quality (hello, 2004’s “Crash”), while others (Like Oppenheimer last year) Inspiring a sign of approval for choosing the academy. The Silence of the Lambs falls into the latter category, and for good reason. Demme was a filmmaker who slid effortlessly between many genres throughout his career, thanks in large part to his formative years as a director working for producer Roger Corman (who appeared in a cameo in The Silence of the Lambs) and New World Pictures. During the seventies. This period allowed him to hone his craft while learning how to create a film that contained artistic richness while still being able to please the widest possible audience. By the time he made 1991’s “Lambs,” Demi had a few cult hits — including the concert film “Stop Make Sense” and the romantic comedy “Married to the Mob” — and he brought it all together. From his love of showmanship to influence on Thomas Harris’ novel Hannibal Lecter.

Lecter and Harris’ novels were already popular when The Lambs were produced. Famously, the film was not the first cinematic adaptation of the character, with that honor going to Michael Mann’s “Manhunter” starring Brian Cox as Lecktor. yet Anthony Hopkins’ brilliant performance in Lambs as Lecter The character has been forever imprinted on the public consciousness, so much so that the cannibal killer eclipses the primary murderer, Jimmy Gump (Ted Levine), in the film’s legacy. Although this character and other aspects of the film are problematic in hindsightit seemed quite progressive (or at least transgressive) in 1991 to have a mainstream film that openly tackled such thorny topics as serial killers and the staunch feminism of FBI agent Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) as she battles misogyny in her career.

Not to mention the fact that “The Silence of the Lambs”. Just a very well made movie. Its procedural thriller has an appeal that never lets up, its characters are convincingly portrayed, and features some sequences (most notably the night-vision goggles climax) that remain terrifying to this day. In terms of a horror film that so clearly declares its tone, themes, and stakes and then delivers them all perfectly, it’s a platonic ideal, which is probably why it proved such catnip for Academy voters.

While “The Silence of the Lambs” winning Best Picture is certainly deserving, it’s still strange, if not depressing, to realize that it’s been more than 30 years since a horror film has taken home the honor. To be fair, horror is a genre that should never try too hard to be legitimized by society at large. After all, one of the functions the genre provides is no-frills social commentary; Like its science fiction cousin, horror allows artists to comment heavily on topical issues without going into too much detail, The quality that inspired Rod Serling to make “The Twilight Zone.” The difficult problem with horror being an accepted part of culture is that it must always strive to stay on the sidelines, even slightly, enough to still be able to bite when it needs to.

So, while it’s ridiculous to claim that a horror film should have won Best Picture more often between 1992 and now, it’s also equally ridiculous to claim that no horror film of that era deserves the honor. David Fincher’s “Se7en,” M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense,” Ari Aster’s “Hereditary,” and Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” are just a few of the films we can cite that reach the same level The depth and craftsmanship of “Silence of Demme.” “The Lambs,” and while most of these films received some nominations, none were deemed worthy of the grand prize.

This year alone has been a great year for horror films, so much so that it can be said that the genre almost single-handedly saves the box office as the majority of buzzy new horror releases draw crowds and make a cultural splash. Waves. The Academy’s voting system is what it is, and there can only be one winner each year, so horror falling by the wayside every so often is an understandable phenomenon. But it’s been a long time since a horror movie won Best Picture, so listen up, AMPAS: This could be the year that Hannibal Lecter is finally dethroned.