Which Oscar-Nominated Films Are Being Streamed Most Ahead of This Weekend’s Ceremony?
The 96th Academy Awards are coming on Sunday, March 10, and new data from Plum Research is showing which nominated titles are doing the best on various streamers.
Have you got your Oscars ballot all filled out yet? If not, you’ve only got a limited time left to make it happen! The 96th Academy Awards will air on ABC on Sunday, March 10 starting at 7 p.m. ET, and many of the films nominated for Oscar statuettes are already available to stream on top services like Apple TV+, Max and of course Netflix. A new investigation conducted by Plum Research is showing which Oscar-nominated films have been streamed most ahead of this weekend’s prestigious awards ceremony.
- Plum Research indicates that “Barbie” outpaced all Oscar competitors in terms of views in its first week of availability.
- Apple’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” drew a bigger percentage of its streaming platform’s audience than any other movie this year.
- “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” collected 13.9 million unique viewers in its first seven days on Netflix.
The data from Plum Research demonstrates conclusively that it’s a Barbie World, and we’re all just living in it. “Barbie,” the live-action comedy starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling was watched by 4.1 million unique viewers in its first week of availability, according to Plum’s data. That was 45% more eyeballs than were drawn by the second-best performing Best Picture nominee “Maestro,” which accrued 2.8 million viewers in the same time period.
That’s especially notable considering that as of the last report, Netflix has 260.28 million subscribers, whereas Warner Bros. Discovery has just 95.1 million customers between Max and discovery+ (the company does not report subscriber totals for these streamers individually). It speaks to the popularity of “Barbie,” which was the biggest-grossing film of 2023 with a box office haul of nearly $1.5 billion.
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Apple’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” pulled in less than $200 million in theaters, but it has done considerably better for the company now that it’s available on Apple TV+. Plum estimates that the movie has been watched by 17% of Apple TV+’s total subscriber base, beating every film nominated for Best Picture that’s currently available to stream, though it’s important to mention that Apple does not publicize its actual subscriber total, so Plum’s numbers are a bit of an educated guess. “Barbie” has been watched by 11.4% of Max’s viewers, and “The Holdovers” has only drawn 5% of Peacock subscribers in its first seven days. Peacock is the only streamer with two Best Picture nominees, as it also hosts “Oppenheimer,” which drew more nominations than any other movie of the year with 13 nods.
Which Animated Film is Being Streamed Most Ahead of the Oscars?
Netflix has a total of 11 Oscar-nominated titles in its catalog, including two of the three movies nominated for Best Animated Feature. Sony’s “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” drew 13.9 million unique viewers in its first seven days of availability, outpacing “Nimona” and its 4.6 million unique watchers. Disney’s “Elemental” is entrenched firmly between the two, having attracted 6.2 million distinct viewers in its first week on Disney+, but “Spider-Man” bests its numbers and “Nimona“‘s audience combined.
All in all, Oscar-nominated movies available on Netflix have been watched by 87 million people. “Society of the Snow,” the Spanish movie which has a nod for Best International Feature Film brought in 9.8 million unique viewers in its first seven days, more than “Maestro” and “Barbie” combined according to Plum’s numbers. This demonstrates the truly global nature of Netflix’s audience and its desire for a diverse range of content.
Popularity amongst viewers isn’t necessarily an indication of which titles will perform best with Academy voters. Nevertheless, Plum’s data provides valuable insights into which Oscar-nominated films have resonated the most with audiences, and it shows that “Barbie” and “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” are strongly outperforming the competition in their respective categories.
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