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Q: Why do the Oscars honor producers when a movie wins best film? What did they do exactly?
You’re confused for good reason: Producers themselves have a hard time describing their job.
“I do the impossible for the ungrateful,” one cracked when I asked. “You can learn it, but you can’t teach it,” another told me, referencing something the pro wrestler Maurice “Mad Dog” Vachon used to say about his profession. One longtime producer advised me to abandon this assignment entirely. “Forget it, Jake — it’s Chinatown,” he said, using the classic movie line to sum up how difficult it is to demystify the work.
Such drama queens! Fine, conceded: Producing is a complicated, underappreciated job. But there are a few ways to think about the gig that help explain why producers — and not, say, directors — receive the best picture Oscar.
What a producer is, and isn’t
For the purpose of this discussion, toss out anyone credited on a film as an “executive producer” (someone who plays a big role early on, usually by securing funding and crucial rights). Only people credited as “producer” ultimately have the chance to win little gold statuettes.
Producers shepherd films from inception to screen. They identify film ideas, sometimes by reading books or news articles, and work with writers to develop scripts. They woo directors. Some secure funding and help find the right leaders for various departments — casting, production design, wardrobe. Producers also oversee budgets, location scouting and scheduling. They consult on marketing campaigns once a film is complete.
“Everyone produces differently,” said the producer David Hinojosa, a best picture nominee last year for “Past Lives” whose recent films include “Babygirl,” an erotic thriller, and “The Brutalist,” an epic immigrant drama.
“Fundamentally, though, the job is the same,” Hinojosa continued. “You are downloading into your DNA every aspect of the project — financial, logistical, emotional.”
Many producers (but not all) spend a lot of time on sets.
“I show up with my hose and my oxygen and my ax and am ready to fight any fire, to do whatever I have to do to protect a project,” said Peter Jaysen, a founder of Veritas Entertainment, one of the production companies behind “A Complete Unknown,” about Bob Dylan’s ascendance.
It can be a long haul. Jaysen said Veritas started work on “A Complete Unknown” in 2018, when HBO decided not to move forward with a different version of Dylan’s origin story.
How many producers does it take …
Individual producers haven’t always received the best picture prize. In the early decades of the Academy Awards, the honor (then called outstanding production) went to a company. Studio bosses — Louis B. Mayer, Jack Warner and the like — were usually the ones who accepted and gave a speech.
Individual producers were first designated as nominees at the 1951 Oscars. Records at the academy’s Margaret Herrick Library indicate that there was “a lengthy discussion” among Oscar organizers about the adjustment but they do not offer a precise reason for the move. It probably had to do with the postwar breakdown of the studio system; three of the previous four winners for best picture had come from independent production companies or an overseas moviemaker.
Another rule change — how many producers can be awarded the top Oscar — was prompted by Harvey Weinstein. In 1999, five producers, the most ever, trotted to the stage to collect best picture trophies for “Shakespeare in Love.” Weinstein, the since-imprisoned Miramax co-founder, was among them, and he elbowed a colleague out of the way in a race for the microphone. Afterward, an embarrassed academy limited the number of producer nominees to three.
To winnow it down, the academy first relies on the Producers Guild of America: Which producers were the most involved? The guild has an elaborate vetting system that includes an appeals process. You can see which producers were chosen by looking at the on-screen credits; they get a “producer’s mark” next to their names that consists of the lowercase letters p.g.a.
The academy’s producers’ branch then makes a final ruling, including bending the three-nominee rule. In 2024, one best picture nominee, “Maestro,” had five producers authorized to receive hardware. (It lost to “Oppenheimer.”)
And the Oscar goes to …
Producing gets a bad rap because the duties are so vaguely defined and because so many people on the fringes of moviedom call themselves producers when they’re really just charlatans.
But since producers — genuine producers — have such all-encompassing responsibilities on films, maintaining faith even as doors slam in their faces (and working without much remuneration until relatively late in the process), their claim on the Oscar for best picture is a strong one.
“Producers ARE filmmakers,” the producer Mynette Louie (“Land Ho!”) wrote in November on Bluesky. “We are not financiers, executives, managers, agents, etc. We are creatives who also happen to be good at leading, organizing, logistics, business and math.”
“Please get it straight,” she concluded. “We’ve been doing this for well over 100 years.”