Will Any Geek Culture Movies Win Oscars This Year?

The 97th Academy Awards are upon us, but will any geek-oriented movies land any big wins this year? The 97th Academy Awards will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2nd, awarding accolades to films released throughout the 2024 calendar year. While the movies nominated encompass many different genres and styles of storytelling, few nominated for the bigger Oscars such as Best Picture or Best Director would fall into what most would classify as “geek movies.” However, that is not to say that 2024 movies beloved by nerds will be entirely out of the picture at this year’s Academy Awards. Several geek-oriented movies are up for major technical awards, such as for Best Visual Effects and other categories.

Meanwhile, two of 2024’s biggest hits — namely Dune: Part Two and Wicked — are both nominated for Best Picture, and could be the geek culture wild cards of 2025’s Academy Awards.

Geek-Friendly Movies Usually Win Very Specific Kinds of Oscars

When discussing “geek-culture movies” and their relationship with the Academy Awards, it is important to first establish what kinds of movies meet that criteria. For the purposes of this discussion, it is arguably best to classify geek movies as belonging to the sci-fi, fantasy, horror, action, or superhero genres, and which typically derive from a popular source material or intellectual property, such as a novel, comic book, video game, TV show, or other basis. In that respect, geek-oriented movies are almost always relegated to winning Oscars primarily for technical awards, such as sound, visual effects, make-up, costume and set design, or score.

That isn’t to say that geek-culture movies never buck the odds and win Oscars (or at least Oscar nominations) for screenwriting, directing, acting, or Best Picture. 2017’s Logan earned a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay, while Black Panther and Joker both scored Best Picture nominations, with the late Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix each winning Oscars for their respective portrayals of the Joker (posthumously so, in Ledger’s case). Additionally, 2003’s The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King snagged the Best Picture Oscar in what was widely seen as recompense for the perceived snub of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers not being nominated for Best Picture at all.

However, when looking at the history of the Academy Awards, films that fall under the “geek culture” classification that earn major Oscar nominations or wins are clearly the exception to the rule. In some respects, the Academy Awards appear to have acknowledged this and made some rather befuddling attempts to shoehorn in Oscars for blockbusters and tentpoles. The proposed Academy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film, conceived for 2019’s 91st Academy Awards, attempted to create a category for major blockbusters, but ended up going nowhere. Additionally, the Oscars introduced two fan voting honorary awards at 2022’s 94th Academy Awards, dubbed the Oscars Fan Favorite and Oscars Cheer Moment, in what was widely interpreted as an attempt to give some Oscars love to Marvel’s 2021 mega-blockbuster Spider-Man: No Way Home, with the wins in the two fan voted categories ultimately going to Army of the Dead and Zack Snyder’s Justice League. In the end, the history of the Academy Awards clearly doesn’t favor geek culture movies barring either major exceptions or one-off categories created specifically for such films.

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Geek Culture Movies Rarely Get Major Oscars Love (But a Few Might Have a Shot This Year)

2025’s 97th Academy Awards don’t seem to be any more or less favorable to geek-oriented movies than any typical year at the Oscars, but a few key nominees could go against the tide of Oscars history. Specifically, as stated above, 2024’s mega-hits Dune: Part Two and Wicked are both nominees in the 2025 Best Picture category, with each claiming numerous other nominations. With the respective backgrounds of both Dune: Part Two and Wicked, it is fair to classify each with the geek culture movie lexicon.

Dune: Part Two is based upon Frank Herbert’s eponymous novel, which is just one chapter in Herbert’s expansive Dune literary universe, with Dune also being the definition of epic sci-fi. Wicked, meanwhile, is a big-screen adaptation of the popular stage musical that serves as a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, focusing on the origin stories of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda (Ariana Grande) as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good. With a massive fan base, a literary foundation of its own in the novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, and a clear basis in the fantasy genre, Wicked too meets the criteria of a geek culture movie. The question is, will either Dune: Part Two or Wicked pull a Return of the King in the Best Picture category, and to what extent they or other geek friendly movies might make an impact at 2025’s Academy Awards?

Dune: Part 2 & Wicked Are the Only Geek Movies Likely to Win Big at the 97th Academy Awards (But a Few Others Could Score Some Wins)

Given their massive popularity and the widespread love each has received from both critics and general audiences, it seems likely that Dune: Part Two and Wicked each have at least a reasonable shot at taking home the Best Picture Oscar. Meanwhile, both movies are up for other technical nominations, with Dune: Part Two being nominated for Best Cinematography, Production Design, Visual Effects, and Sound, and Wicked being nominated in the Visual Effects, Production Design, Sound, Make-up & Hairstyling, Costume Design, and Film Editing categories. Additionally, both Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande have been respectively nominated for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress for their performances in Wicked, with the movie also landing a nomination for Best Original Score. It seems likely that Dune: Part Two and Wicked will both walk away having won Oscars in at least some of their nominated categories. In the former’s case, the fact that 2021’s Dune nabbed six Academy Awards also likely points to a comparable level of Oscars success for Dune: Part Two.

Of course, with Dune: Part Two and Wicked being the only geek-oriented movies with multiple Oscar nominations this year, they also represent the bulk of geek-culture movies landing a significant number of Oscar wins this year. With that said, a handful of other geek-centric movies have some Oscar nominations of their own. These include Inside Out 2 with its nomination for Best Animated Feature, along with both Alien: Romulus and Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes being nominated for Best Visual Effects. However, when all is said and done, aside from the possibility of Dune: Part Two or Wicked claiming the Best Picture Oscar or other big wins, it’s set to be an otherwise typically quiet year at the Academy Awards for geek culture movies.

The 97th Academy Awards are scheduled to be held on March 2nd.

What movies are you hoping win big at the Academy Awards? Let us know in the comments below!