Has Hollywood Softened Toward Netflix?

As "La Bola Negra" opens in theaters for a 47-day run, the Spanish Oscar entry is not only the frontrunner for Best International Feature, but also the best shot the streamer has so far for a Best Picture win.

Remember “Roma”?

The 2018 black-and-white Mexican autofiction was Best Picture-bound with nine nominations, eventually winning three, including Best International Feature and two for its director and cinematographer Alfonso Cuarón. Nearly a decade ago, streamer Netflix was poised to win its first Best Picture Oscar.

But Academy voters instead rallied behind a popular but less critically hailed movie from Universal, Peter Farrelly’s “Green Book,” starring Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen as a Black musician and his driver touring the South. That award season, the antipathy toward Netflix was palpable. Academy governor Steven Spielberg championed “Green Book” behind the scenes and argued that Netflix films should qualify for Emmys and not Oscars.

At the Governors Ball after the Oscars, there was a sense of relief.

Year after year, Netflix’s crack awards team has racked up multiple nominations, only to lose out on Best Picture. Since 2019, nine movies have lost that gold statue, including Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog,” and Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” which scandal derailed. Netflix’s two Best Picture nods last year, lauded period narratives “Train Dreams” and “Frankenstein,” were beaten by Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” from Warner Bros.

For some time, many Hollywood players have been negative toward Netflix, mostly because of the widely-held belief that Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos was out to kill theaters. Over time, he has tried to communicate his love of cinema, along with his preference for the streaming model over theatrical.

This year, after Netflix chased and lost the Warner Bros. merger, the mood changed within the industry. In the wake of Sarandos’ learning experience looking under the hood at Warners’ numbers, he has made a decisive U-turn to embrace theatrical runs — mostly for likely Oscar contenders.

Why? There’s money to be made. Filmmakers to be wooed. And Oscars to be won.

This weekend marks the start of that pivot, as Javier Calvó and Javier Ambrossi’s (Los Javis) $17-million Cannes Best Director-winning period gay epic “La Bola Negra” hits theaters in New York and Los Angeles on October 16.

This isn’t a “Knives Out” or post-Netflix “KPop Demon Hunters” theater stunt. This is the first time that Netflix will not only be fully reporting box office numbers, but supporting a traditional platform release along the way — like A24 or Sony Pictures Classics — rolling out to four theaters and expanding to six to ten, then 30 in its third week.

By November 6, the movie will be playing in more than 75 markets. Of course, playability will determine how wide it goes until it hits Netflix on December 2. If theaters still want to play it, they can.

Coming off warm receptions at the fall festivals, including the predictive People’s Choice Award at Toronto, “La Bola Negra” has momentum. It will be at the top of awards voters’ screener piles. It’s not only the frontrunner in the International Feature race, but has shots at Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Score, Song, Supporting Actor and Actress, as well as craft nominations. It could land 9 or ten nods. (Now that Oscar rules allow two nominations for a single performer in a category, Penélope Cruz could land nominations for both “The Invite” and “La Bola Negra.”)

The movie is breaking box office records in Spain, climbing week after week.

Netflix has other fish to fry this year. Korea’s Oscar entry, Lee Chang-dong’s Venice Silver Bear-winning “Possible Love,” also came out ahead at the fall festivals and is in the running for International, Picture, and Best Actress for Jeon Do-yeon. Year-end critics groups will likely give it some love.

The two Netflix titles will vie in the international category with Neon’s Palme d’Or-winner “Fjord” and “All of a Sudden” and MUBI’s “Fatherland” and “Minotaur.” The shortlist of 15 is the first stop, announced December 15.

Where the David Fincher-directed Quentin Tarantino-scripted sequel “The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth,” starring Brad Pitt, winds up with Oscar voters is anyone’s guess. While Fincher has been tinkering in the editing room, Netflix confirms an IMAX-exclusive run for two weeks starting November 25, 2026, ahead of its December 23 streaming date.

We’ll see if Netflix fares a tad better with Oscar wins this year. The tide, it seems, may have turned.