Lots of times, new Netflix movies have fans hoping that they'll be in with a chance of winning an Academy Award or Oscar, but Society of the Snow is a little different: it's such a hit that it's already on Oscar lists.
Society of the Snow was added to Netflix on Thursday, January 4 (that's today, at the time of writing), after a debut at Venice Film Festival and a brief theatrical run in certain countries.
The movie tells the real-life story of the 1972 Andes flight disaster: in October of the year, a plane flying from Uruguay to Chile crash-landed in the Andes mountains. Some of the 45 people in the plane died on impact, but many more survived, with the survivors spending more than 2 months after the crash surviving in the mountains until... well, that'd be a spoiler!
Directed by J. A. Bayona (of The Orphanage, The Impossible, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power fame), the movie stars mostly new actors, and was filmed, amongst other places, at the actual crash site from the real events.
Immediately upon release, Society of the Snow was lauded by critics, and a day prior to release had a critic score of over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes with many critics calling it "harrowing" yet a surprisingly heartwarming tale of people coming together against adversity.
Just watch out because the movie is two and a half hours long, and deals with some dark topics!
If you don't believe Rotten Tomatoes scores, then maybe Oscar nods are better. The movie was picked by Spain to be its entry into the Best International Feature Film category (as each country can pick one movie to represent it), and it made the award's shortlist cut in December 2023. It's also shortlisted for Best Original Score, Best Makeup and Hairstyling and Best Visual Effects.
An Academy Award shortlist doesn't necessarily mean that a movie has been nominated for an Oscar, just that it's in contention. The longlist is for every movie put forward for a certain award, with usually well over 100, and fifteen movies go onto the shortlist for each category.
The actual Oscar nominations will be announced on Friday, January 26, and then we'll know whether Society of the Snow is among them. Other shortlisted movies for Best International Feature include the UK's The Zone of Interest, Finland's Fallen Leaves, Bhutan's The Monk and the Gun and Ukraine's 20 Days in Mariupol.
Only 10 Oscar categories have had their shortlists unveiled so far, and Best Picture isn't among them. Netflix doesn't have too many movies in the current lists, other than Maestro for Best Hair and Makeup, a Best Original Song nod to "Road to Freedom" from Rustin, Roald Dahl adaptation The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar for Best Short Film and both The Killer and Maestro for Best Sound. Oh, and Rebel Moon managed to make the cut for Best Visual Effects.
When the full nominations are announced, Netflix movies will likely be acknowledged in many more categories with the likes of The Killer, Maestro, Rustin and May, December all expected to net loads of awards. But for now, the streamer is losing the nomination war to Apple TV Plus with its double knock-out blow of Napoleon and Flowers of the Killer Moon.
At the time of writing Society of the Snow has the most shortlist appearances of any Netflix movie, which could be a sign that it's one to watch.
