Will ‘Civil War’ march towards Oscars like more traditional war movies?

Alex Garland‘s fourth feature film, “Civil War,” has been out since April 12, so it seems like a good time to discuss what Oscar chances it might have. This is a particularly interesting case, since Garland’s latest could be seen as a war movie — it even has the word “war” right there in its title — but not everyone who sees it will think of it in the same regard as your typical “war movie.” That might be the case with the academy as well.

“Civil War” follows a seasoned war photographer played by Kirsten Dunst, an eager novice played by Cailee Spaeny, and two other journalists played by Wagner Moura and Stephen McKinley Henderson, who are on a road trip to Washington D.C. to interview the soon-to-be-deposed president played by Nick Offerman. As of this writing Garland’s film rates 82% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, which isn’t bad for a movie that seemed like it could be as divisive as the politics in the fictional version of America it depicts. In some ways, “Civil War” is more of a “wartime film,” in that it’s more a story about the journalists and their journey rather than it is about explosions and gun battles, though it has those too.

The academy has a very long history of honoring cinematic achievements when it comes to war movies. In fact, the very first Best Picture winner was William Wellman‘s “Wings” back in 1928, although some could see that more as a “wartime film.” “All Quiet on the Western Front” won Best Picture two years later, followed by films like “Mutiny on the Bounty,” “Gone with the Wind” and “Casablanca.” From there, you’d have to wait until 1957’s “The Bridge on the River Kwai” to see the academy give its full backing to another war movie; it was honored with seven Oscars. After that you get “Ben-Hur” the following year, “Lawrence of Arabia” a few years after that, and then “Patton” in 1978.

After winning multiple Oscars for his “The Godfather” movies, filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola turned his attention to the Vietnam War for 1979’s “Apocalypse Now,” which was nominated for eight Oscars but only won for its cinematography and sound. By 1986 Oliver Stone had already established himself as a filmmaker, but “Platoon,” his own foray into the Vietnam War, was a breakthrough achievement, receiving eight Oscar nominations and winning Best Picture, Director, Film Editing and Sound.

Moving into the ’90s, Anthony Minghella‘s 1996 Best Picture winner “The English Patient” probably falls into that “wartime film” category. Then famously, Steven Spielberg‘s war epic “Saving Private Ryan” lost Best Picture to “Shakespeare in Love” in 1998, but still won five Oscars, including a second directing award for Spielberg (following his trophy for “Schindler’s List,” which was set during World War II but focused on the Holocaust).

You really can’t discuss war movies, though, without mentioning Kathryn Bigelow‘s “The Hurt Locker,” which won Best Picture, Best Director, and four other Oscars at the ceremony that was broadcast in 2010, over a year after its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. It was indeed the last war movie to win Best Picture, and that was 14 years ago, although it wasn’t the end of the Oscars’ love affair with war.

Even the controversial Mel Gibson was able to return to the Oscars in 2016 with his own war movie, “Hacksaw Ridge,” which mirrored “Apocalypse Now” with Film Editing and Sound Mixing Oscars, though it also received Best Picture and Director nominations. Even more recently Edward Berger‘s 2022 German-language re-adaptation of “All Quiet on the Western Front” won four Oscars (out of nine nominations), and probably came close to mirroring the original movie’s Best Picture win over 90 years prior. These are all indicators of the academy still greatly admiring the genre, especially the technical branches, but also the academy’s directors and enough overall members to keep nominating these movies for Best Picture.

But even with its title, will “Civil War” really be seen as the kind of war movie Oscar voters tend to go for? Most of the actual gunfire and explosions you’d expect from the genre don’t really occur until the film’s very last act; the rest focuses on the wartime photographers during the type of conflict we might experience here in the United States, with smaller groups of rebels and the seceded taking on larger military factions.

As with Tom Hanks in “Saving Private Ryan,” Dunst could campaign her way into a lead acting nomination, but much of “Civil War’s” Oscar potential might come down to those technical awards, such as Sound, Editing and possibly Visual Effects. (Note that Garland’s first film, “Ex Machina,” won Visual Effects in a shocking upset.) Mind you, “Dune: Part Two” will give any movies nominated in technical categories some serious competition. Maybe Garland has less of a chance at a directing Oscar nomination given “Civil War’s” super early-year release, but an Original Screenplay nomination seems like a definite possibility.

We’ll also have to see how “Civil War” plays in other countries considering how the Oscars have become far more international in recent years. Will overseas academy members connect with the material in the same way American voters might? Only time will tell.

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