It’s Crazy That Halle Berry’s Oscar Was 24 Years Ago

Today, it’s safe to say that the Oscar is no longer about movies — it’s about recognition. That’s both a good and bad thing: On the one hand, it can bring exposure to a variety of filmmakers and actors who otherwise wouldn’t get it (or it’d take them much longer), on the other, due to that very notion, it dilutes and skews the weight and significance the most prestigious award in cinema used to have. The “Award Campaign” for films/performances often seemed to have become supreme over the actual merit they hold — thank Harvey “Human Cancer” Weinstein for that.

I stopped watching the Oscars when Mickey Rourke lost to Sean Penn in 2009, and I’ll follow my tradition this year because the ceremony doesn’t get me the least bit excited anymore. But the record-breaking nominations (16) for Ryan Coogler’s Sinners made me curious and look up if any Black actress had won the award for a leading role since Halle Berry. Nope, it didn’t happen. In fact, since Berry, there have been only eight Black women nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role in 25 years. That’s pretty shameful and demoralizing, but only if you disregard that there were only 15 Black actresses nominated for the same award in 97 years.

Berry won it in 2002 when the Oscar still meant something — or at least a lot more than the publicity stunt it has become by now. And, funnily enough, 2001’s Monster’s Ball wasn’t even really an Oscar-bait type film (not at the time, anyway). It was made on a shoestring budget of $4 million and only received one other nomination besides Berry’s for Best Screenplay. It was a raw and heavy drama about broken people who found solace in places where they least expected. Despite its unflashy narrative and modest production value, however, it starred a small group of terrific actors such as Billy Bob Thornton, Heath Ledger, and Peter Boyle, who all gave top-tier performances that made audiences notice the film, turning it into a box office success.

Typically, since then, it has become one of the most overlooked and underrated dramas highlighted by the Oscars. Berry’s performance has been heavily criticized due to her sex scenes with Thornton (most of which likely wouldn’t even make it into a movie today), as if she didn’t give a multi-layered, emotionally rich, and devastatingly heart-wrenching portrayal. But despite the Academy recognizing and awarding it back then, it didn’t lead to the change that many (including Berry) thought it would. As the actress said in a 2022 interview,

“It didn’t open the door. The fact that there’s no one standing next to me is heartbreaking. We can’t always judge success or progress by how many awards we have. Awards are the icing on the cake — they’re your peers saying you were exceptionally excellent this year. But does that mean that if we don’t get the exceptionally excellent nod, that we were not great, and we’re not successful, and we’re not changing the world with our art, and our opportunities aren’t growing?”

That will remain the case for the foreseeable future since there’s no Black woman among the Best Lead Actress nominees this year. As Taraji P Hanson said in the documentary Number One on the Call Sheet, “I don’t think the industry really sees us as leads, you know? They give us supporting [actress awards] like they give out candy canes. That just — I don’t know what to do with that.” I’d go even further and say how it is possible that actresses like Kerry Washington and Thandiwe Newton don’t even have a single Oscar nomination? Why does Ava DuVernay not have an Oscar by now? Why do films like 2012’s Middle of Nowhere (which is in the vein of Monster’s Ball) don’t get noticed by the Academy anymore?

And why is it that (on average) Black women are only worthy to get nominated for a lead role if they star in films that are either exclusively about Black culture or Black history? Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that these movies get the attention they deserve, but it really feels like the Academy is solely concerned with highlighting these actresses if they “stay in their own lane” and portray a character that’s culturally pertinent to them. That shouldn’t be a prerequisite to have a chance at all in running for the award.

And then, every once in a while, the Academy makes a move that feels like an overcompensation for excluding people of color for years, as they did with Sinners. Is Sinners really a movie that deserves 16 nominations? Let me put it this way: I don’t think any one movie should receive 16 nominations. Not when the most impactful ones like Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, or The Godfather didn’t get that many in the first place. I think the Academy should have a wider scope and distribution system that’s more careful and balanced about giving out nominations that allow for recognizing smaller films and performances (just like Monster’s Ball) for their greatness, instead of focusing on a few that get the most attention. To some degree, they still do that (see Rose Byrne’s nom for If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), but not consistently enough, I feel.

And this isn’t to say whether Sinners is a good or bad film because that’s beside the point as far as the Oscars go. But that’s precisely what I’m talking about. How can you take the Academy seriously any longer, then?

To bring it back to where I started, what still matters, however, is recognition. And if nothing else, Sinners — and more importantly, the people behind it like Ryan Coogler, Michael B. Jordan, Delroy Lindo, Omar Miller, Wunmi Mosaku, and so on — at least get to have that regardless of how many trophies it’ll win in the end. That perhaps is a victory in itself, but only in light of the Academy’s incompetency, which seems to be growing a little bigger each year.