Oscar nominees usually a mystery to moviegoers

While the Oscars may be one of the country’s most-watched awards shows, people usually haven’t seen the nominated movies.

Zac Gershberg, a professor in Idaho State University’s communication, media and persuasion department, said that’s because the films typically aren’t released when moviegoers are going to theaters. Instead, films are released later in the year so that they’re fresh on voters’ minds for the awards.

“The artsy movies that typically are Oscar-nominated will appear in the late fall and in the winter season,” Gershberg said. “So Hollywood has this marketing plan kind of down to a science.”

To see how locals fared this year, we made a list of Oscar nominated movies from six categories (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Director) to find out what people have seen, or at least heard of.

Most people only heard of the movies on the list.

“I’m a mom of two kids, so I don’t get to go to the movies very often,” Kimberly Romriel said. “It’s primarily just seeing the ads on TV for them.”

But not knowing the nominees doesn’t stop people from seeing who the Oscar goes to.

“I love cinema and everything like that and I haven’t seen all of these, or even probably half of these,” Gershberg said. “I am excited to see who wins.

According to Gershberg, individual companies, like Carmike Cinemas, also make decisions on what or what not to show independently of Hollywood’s agenda.