Live Poll: Oscars 2019 — Historic Breakthrough of the Year

Thanks.

Technically, it is possible for Marvel to secure a nomination for Best Picture without being its first superhero and/or comic book movie Oscar-nominated for Best Picture. Plus, another studio could have achieved the first superhero or comic book Best Picture movie. So, i think the two options are exclusive of each other. I also think Marvel will eventually expand as a studio and have a non-superhero movie and/or one that does not originate from the comic books. Perhaps, this happens under another nameplate, like Dimension films was for Miramax or Touchstone Pictures is for Walt Disney Studios. Hence, they are distinct options.

In reality, they yet to do that and have a comic book content base so deep that viable projects are shelved for at least decades.Plus, they dominate the comic book genre. Therefore, it is unrealistic to expect one to happen without the other. Regardless, combining them could makes sense. A combined option could look like this:

Breakthrough: Black Panther is the first superhero and/or comic book movie Oscar-nominated for Best Picture from any studio. As well as, Black Panther being the first Marvel film to be nominated for Best Picture.

Although, I think question pivots more on the significance of the specific breakthrough more than the nominee itself. In other options, I have combined more minor breakthroughs into a consolidated answer option. I would prefer for more major breakthroughs to have distinct answer options even for the same film.

This is kind of like the "all poodles are dogs but not all dogs are poodles" totem. If Marvel has not made any other kind of movie except superhero or comic-book films then, like Peter said, the second is covered by the first.  

I can understand the confusion, the question is probably not phrased correctly to ask the question I want to ask. I rephrased the question to be clearer. Which of these notable Academy firsts is the most historic breakthrough from a 2019 Oscar nominee or winner?

Poodles can't  be anything but dogs, but Marvel can choose to make non-superhero or non-comic book movies?

Poll takers real question is not that Black Panther is the owner of a breakthrough, but which most historic aspect for Black Panther is the most significant. I think the reformatted question better asks this question. I am asking voters to choose one these Black Panther options:

A) first superhero movie Oscar-nominated for Best Picture B) first comic book movie Oscar-nominated for Best Picture C) Black Panther’s Hannah Beachler is the first black person to be Oscar-nominated for Best Production Design D) Black Panther is the first Marvel film to be nominated for Best Picture.

I have left major breakthroughs with distinct answer options, but have combined more minor breakthroughs (first Latino and Argentine person) and ones that are overlap quite a bit (comic book and/or superhero) (first Latino and Hispanic person) into consolidated answer options. As, It would be frustrating to ask poll taker to choose between the first Latino or first Hispanic as one being more significant than the other.

corrected
Breakthrough: Lalo Schifrin is first Latino and Argentine person to receive an Honorary Academy Award. * for career contributions including writing scores for more than 100 films.

lol

I think I like it better when the breakthroughs are described in terms of "foreign vs. English speaking" than these ethnicity-related things. Cinema should tend to universalism and when I saw Roma, I didn't think "I wish that Hispanic girl would get an Oscar nomination" but "I wish that actress...". But since we're speaking about "human backgrounds", isn't Rami Malek the first Middle-Eastern (don't know if he's Arab) nominated in the lead role?

Anyway, I'm glad for Spike Lee, it's a shame he got that Oscar nomination thirty years after his masterpiece when QT got so many for just imitating himself. 

Nikolay Yeriomin,

I would agree there has definitely been an uptick over the past few decades and has accelerated in recent years. I would call it more of a trend or reaction than a dramaric breakthrough. Hopefully, it continues and we see more smaller milestones like these fall as a rule each year, rather than being the exception.

List of Asian Academy Award winners and nominees - Wikipedia
List of Latin American Academy Award winners and nominees ...
Lists of Hispanic Academy Award winners and nominees by country ...
List of African Academy Award winners and nominees - Wikipedia
List of Middle eastern Academy Award winners and nominees

ElM.
I am willing to note any race, color, religion, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin/identity, ancestry, disability, ethnic heritage, geographic location or other specific break though in diversity for Oscar nominees and winners.

I agree it should be all about the art, the craft and the result. I dislike having to label, categorize and keep score, so to speak. i do think the Oscars has an Anglo bias and needs to be more universal and have greater diversity in both specific and general measures. So, something like this that asks us to look in those terms is necessary.

Rami Malek was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, to Egyptian immigrant parents. Omar Sharif was the first African and Egyptian to be nominated for an Academy Award in any category. Rami Malek would seem to be the first person of  Egyptian heritage to be nominated for a lead actor Academy Award. In GQ, he self-describes himself as Egyptian "There’s no first-generation, or second-generation removed. I am Egyptian." Why Are We Calling Rami Malek Egyptian?


Rami Malek Bohemian Rhapsody
Breakthrough: Rami Malek is the first person of Egyptian heritage to be nominated for a lead actor Academy Award.

I couldn't find a Wikipedia stub dedicated to Middle-Eastern or Arab winners and nominees. Plus, the definitions of the scope vary (Other definitions of the Middle East). My guess is a first generation Israeli or Jewish actor would likely trump his Middle eastern claim (if not there from another country). Likewise, an Arab claim could be trumped by other first generation Arab immigrants to the US or UK.

As for Africa, Javier Bardem was born March 1, 1969 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain might have a stronger claim as the first African-born to be nominated for a lead actor Academy Award. Chiwetel Ejiofor 12 Years a Slave and Daniel Kaluuya Get Out are first-generation children of African immigrants, like Malek and would seem to trump his claim as first person of African-heritage to be nominated for a lead actor Academy Award.

List of African Academy Award winners and nominees - Wikipedia
List of Middle eastern Academy Award winners and nominees Wikipedia ?
Middle Eastern filmmakers celebrate historic Oscar nominations
7 memorable Oscar moments for the Arab world - StepFeed
List of Arab Academy Award winners and nominees Wikipedia ?
List of Jewish Academy Award winners and nominees

Likewise, I am happy for Spike Lee and saw his nominations as a breakthrough.

Thanks, it is all about the breakthroughs. If one film has overwhelms the poll, so be it.

I will add its breakthrough as the first Spanish, Mixtec spoken Best Picture Oscar-nominee. I like its chances, but so many other Oscar-nominated Best Picture movies spoken mostly in a foreign-language have tried to get a win in the category before.
 
Roma
Breakthrough: Roma is the first Spanish or Mixtec spoken movie nominated in the Best Picture category.

I will consider Black Sheep (2018 Video) Black Sheep is produced and co-funded by Lightbox in collaboration with The Filmmaker Fund. It seems like The Guardian specifically funded a half-dozen docs as a producer. I understand it is The Guardian first Oscar nomination, I wonder if it is also a first for any newspaper?

Black Sheep
Breakthrough: The Guardian’s Black Sheep marks the first time the newspaper has been nominated in the short subject documentary category, as well as, their first Oscar-nomination of any kind.

Olivia Colman, Rami Malek, Mahershala Ali, Regina King The Oscars
Breakthrough: People of color won a majority in acting categories for the first time ever.

Lady Gaga A Star Is Born
Breakthrough: Women set a new benchmark with a record fifteen women winning Oscar awards at a single ceremony.

Mahershala Ali, Spike Lee The Oscars
Breakthrough: Blacks set a new benchmark with a record seven winning Oscar awards at a single ceremony.

Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Breakthrough: Mexico's Three Amigos Oscar continued winning ways have pushed the country into the top five among Oscar producing countries. Mexico raises its total to thirty Oscars and trails worldwide only the United States, United Kingdom, France and Italy. * first among developing countries in the world

Alfonso Cuarón Roma
Breakthrough: Alfonso Cuarón is the first director to win Best Cinematography for his or her own film.

Spike Lee BlacKkKlansman  
Breakthrough: BlacKkKlansman garners a 61-year old Spike Lee his first competitive Oscar win for his BlacKkKlansman (2018) in the Best Adapted Screenplay category.

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin The Oscars
Breakthrough: Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin are the first married couple of Asian descent to share an Oscar-nomination or an Oscar-win.

Domee Shi, Becky Neiman The Oscars
Breakthrough: Domee Shi, director of Pixar's Bao,followed up her milestone as the first woman to have directed a Pixar short film. Shi became the first person of Chinese decent, first Asian woman and first woman of color to be Oscar-nominated or a Oscar-winner in the Best Animated Short category. Domee Shi and Becky Neiman-Cobb are the first pair of women to win Best Animated Short.


Ruth E. Carter The Oscars
Breakthrough: Black Panthers' wins for Best Production Design, Best Costume Design and Best Original Score are Marvel's first, second and third Oscar wins.

Daniela Demesa, Yalitza Aparicio, Marco Graf, Carlos Peralta
Roma
Breakthrough: Roma is Mexico's first foreign-language Oscar win.

The Oscars (2019) Breakthrough: Alfonso Cuarón is the first person to be a first quadruple producer-director-writer-cinematographer combination nominee.

Alfonso Cuarón Roma

The Oscars (2019) was a breakthrough in more than a number of ways, so you can look at it however you like (individual, company, industry, nation, demographic, etc.).

I agree, a quintuple producer-director-writer-cinematographer-editor nomination would have been cool. Regardless, his quadruple on Roma, I think compares favorably to Orson Welles contributions on Citizen Kane.

FYI, (by comparison)
Only one person, Warren Beatty has "officially" secured a rare Oscars "Big Five" quadruple by securing four out of a possible four "Big Five" acting, writing, directing and producing nominations for the same film. Amazingly, he repeated the feat just three years later. Prior to 1950, only one other person, Orson Welles "unofficially" secured the same quad, but at that time Best Picture nominees were in the production company's name and not in the name of the credited producers.

Warren Beatty Reds
acting, writing, directing and producing nominations

Warren Beatty Heaven Can Wait
acting, writing, directing and producing nominations

Orson Welles Citizen Kane
acting, writing, directing and producing nominations
* predates producers being "officially" named in Best Picture nominations

Only one woman has come close, Sofia Coppola has "officially" secured a rare Oscars triple by securing three of the "Big Four" acting, writing, directing and producing nominations for the same movie, Lost in Translation.

Sofia Coppola 
writing, directing and producing nominations

Funny, I've never been impressed by that "director/producer" combo, it even seems like a logical situation to a certain degree, a real director likes to have some control on his work so the more successful he is commercially, the more likely he's going to become a producer and some become producers from the start and make their own company. Unless you're a friend of your producer or a sure value, you better be your own producer (which you'll be if you happen to be a sure value)

For me the real deal is to be nominated for writing, acting and directing, these are the Big Three, these are three real creative and distinct talents (producer's talent? the only artistic value it will have will also belong to the director) it's one thing to act, another to write and another to direct. Even great actors/directors/producers like Redford or Eastwood were never nominated for writing. I'm not sure they even wrote that many scripts.

I really thought Bradley Cooper would join the 8-club with O. Welles, K. Brannagh, R. Benigni, J. Casavettes, G. Clooney, J. Huston, W. Allen and of course, W. Beatty. One director's nomination and he was in (and I would have updated that poll:
https://www.imdb.com/poll/SXvEAcusvEc/)

Greta Gerwig might be the first woman to join the club when she'll get an Oscar nomination for acting, if I was here, I would have directed myself in one of these Oscar-baity roles just like Bradley Cooper did. I mean the hardest part is over, she was nominated for the most difficult category, even Chaplin was never nominated for Best Director (only Writer, Actor and Music Score)

Thanks for the data, since we're talking about Welles and Chaplin, I like the fact that they are the first two performers who were both nominated for writing and acting for the character they wrote (and created)... and the third actor to achieve the same fate was Sylvester Stallone in 1977 right before Woody Allen in 1978. Similar examples include Matt Damon for Will Hunting... I wish I could add Clooney or Beatty but they didn't "create" the character they wrote for. Billy Bob Thornton would be eligible, he won for an adapted screenplay but it was a character he created.

Corrected, I thought I had gotten them all. Thanks, your help is appreciated.

I am trying to play it safe on the claims and only makes ones that are confirmed by a secondary source. I only used the "people of color" term since it was used by Here are the history-making wins from the 2019 Oscars | Entertainment Weekly.

I had a similar thought about LBGT firsts, but was reluctant to make any claims. I agree the argument could be made and may even be true or "more likely than not". I think unless all three had made public confirmations on the topic it would not be fair to cite it as fact. Also, past ceremonies may have also met that benchmark, but their sexuality was never disclosed. It can be even trickier when getting into fictional movie or book characters. I didn't find any secondary source making the claim either.

No pb, I was also thinking of that famous French poem, here's a link:https://threeleggedduck.wordpress.com/2009/06/28/dear-white-brother/

The term is applied equally to Eygptian descent Rami Malek and Chinese descent Domee Shi.I am comfortable with the terminology, as it avoids labeling issues in areas of the world where mixed race cultures are commonplace. But, I share your concerns about it being a misnomer, as well as, its use in general. Thanks.

Thanks, much appreciated. It is nice to see this one go live.