Awards season loses its shine when no one can go to the cinema

Here it is again, a couple of months later than usual but back nevertheless. It’s the time of the annual jamboree that is film awards season, a three-month extravaganza that predominantly revolves around three key events: the Golden Globes, the Baftas and the Oscars. All three of these celebrations of artistic excellence and mutual backslapping have been delayed due to Covid. The Globes took place — virtually — three weeks ago, Bafta revealed its shortlist last week and the Oscar nominees were announced on Monday. The starting gun has been fired — while all our cinemas remain closed. Have you seen Nomadland, The Father or Promising Young Woman? Of course you haven’t. No one, apart from the critics, has been afforded the opportunity.

Much as culture industry insiders might decry the boiling-down of all their brilliance into something as prosaic as a mere list, for punters these shortlists are a godsend. From the infinity of possible choice there comes a way-marker, to be followed or indeed consciously ignored. Critics and film buffs love to sneer at these lists and pick holes in them — outrage in Best Editing! Egregious idiocy in Best Adapted Screenplay! — but everyone with even a passing interest in film is forced, for a few weeks, to pay attention.

I, for my sins, am a long-term slave to the Oscars’ often whimsical pronouncements and take it upon myself each year to watch every film nominated in the main eight categories. The upshot of this is that my cinematic horizons get a vigorous stretching, in ways that are more often positive than not.

The traditional timing of awards season — January/early February — is also perfect.