Streamers and indies are redefining the Academy Award landscape

After powering the pivot to CTV over the past decade, a handful of streaming companies are in the process of reshaping the Academy Awards—a move that requires audiences to see movies in a theater, not in a living room.

With two best picture nominations this year, Netflix continues to grow its presence at the Academy Awards, contributing to a shift in the cinematic landscape that has been underway over the past 10 years. Since 2017, when Amazon received its first best picture nomination for Manchester by the Sea, Netflix has earned 12 best picture nominations, followed by Amazon with four, Apple with three and Mubi with one. Notably, a Netflix film has been nominated for a best picture award for eight successive years, just behind Warner Bros., with a streak of nine.

But the streamers aren’t alone in the shift. A handful of independent film studios are breaking through as well, with A24 earning 10 best picture nominations over the past 10 years, followed by NEON with six. This year, across all categories, Netflix, Apple, A24 and NEON have secured a total of 53 nominations across 17 films. That represents 42% of the total 125 nominations.

The paradigm shift is a direct reflection of the broader video landscape, which has become digitally dominated and incredibly fragmented through the widespread adoption of CTV and streaming services. CTV became the undisputed king of the living room in 2025, growing its share of TV time to 51.2% by Q3 2025¹. And by December, streaming had grown to account for nearly 48% of total TV use in the U.S., well over the 41.6% of cable and broadcast combined². 

The massive shift in TV viewing behavior has provided companies like Netflix, Apple and Amazon with the opportunity to transition from small screen to silver screen.

From a business perspective, movies are foundational for streaming services. At the beginning of 2026, movies accounted for two-thirds of the unique video titles distributed by the five global streaming providers³ tracked in Gracenote’s Data Hub. Movies are also the top reason people sign up for streaming services, with 92% of global audiences saying they subscribe to stream movies⁴.

And as evidenced by the nomination trends of the past decade, movies from streaming companies are having a similar impact with the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In fact, movies released by Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and MUBI over the past 10 years have received 41 Academy Award nominations for the eight major award categories⁵.

Films from independent studios⁶ have also made strides during award season, as their share of the major Oscar nominations⁷ increased to 22.2% from 18.8% a decade ago. In fact, NEON made history with this year’s nominations by securing 18 nominations across five international titles, including two best picture nominations. Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value is at the center of the nominations, which garnered nine of the total, including best picture, making it the most-nominated Scandinavian film in Academy history.

As significant as Hollywood’s big studios are, the democratization of content distribution over the years has effectively leveled the playing field with respect to movie prestige. The explosion of internet connectivity and streaming adoption has broadened the wealth of content available, allowing new voices to reach content-hungry audiences. And here, as nominations continue to diversify, the audience is the real winner, who now enjoys a more diverse and creative cinematic landscape than ever before. 

Notes

1. Nielsen Audience Insights Data (Nielsen NPOWER, Nielsen Media Impact)
2. Nielsen’s The Gauge
3. Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Disney+, Netflix and Paramount+
4. Gracenote 2025 Streaming consumer survey
5. Best Picture, Best Director and all acting and writing categories
6. In this article, independent studios are those that are not affiliated with the big five studios: Disney, Paramount, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros.
7. Nominations for the eight major award categories: Best Picture, Best Director and all acting and writing categories