CODA

Apple TV Plus' family drama won Best Picture over The Power of the Dog, making Apple the first streaming service to win the Academy Award for best movie of ...

Apple TV Plus is still in its streaming infancy compared to Netflix, but it swooped into Sundance to pick up CODA, and as many Oscar prognosticators have noted in the weeks leading up to the Academy Awards ceremony, strategically rolled it out to maximize visibility. But 2022 was looking like the year for a true sea change, in which Netflix — which pumps out hundreds of movies each year for a slate that rivals the entire American studio industry — could finally become the home of a genuine Best Picture winner. After Netflix’s The Power of the Dog paraded through awards season with frontrunner status, this year’s coveted Best Picture award went to CODA, the Apple TV Plus family drama.

Apple tonight made history after “CODA” landed three Academy Awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the 94th Academy Awards.

“CODA” writer-director Siân Heder was also recently recognized with this year’s WGA Award and BAFTA Film Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. “What an incredible journey it has been since the moment we first saw ‘CODA’ to today’s historic recognition from the Academy,” said Jamie Erlicht, Apple’s head of Worldwide Video. “It has been a true joy to witness the positive impact on humanity that this story and its performances have had worldwide. It has been so rewarding to share this life-affirming, vibrant story, which reminds us of the power of film to bring the world together.”

The win for deaf family drama 'CODA' marks the first time a streaming service took Hollywood's biggest prize.

It is also the first time the directing award has ever gone to women in back-to-back years after “Nomadland” filmmaker Chloe Zhao won last year. Troy Kotsur made history as the first deaf man to win an Oscar, earning best supporting actor for his role in “CODA”. “Art imitates life. Campion, who had been the first woman ever twice nominated in the category (previously for 1993’s “The Piano”), is just the third woman to win best director. Smith later apologised to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and to his fellow nominees as he tearfully accepted the Oscar for best actor for playing the father of Venus and Serena Williams in “King Richard”. “CODA”, the heartwarming movie about a deaf family with a hearing daughter, has won the prestigious best picture prize at the Oscars.

Until a couple weeks ago, nobody really seemed to think Sian Heder's film CODA, the little family drama that could, would pull out any Oscar wins, ...

But as a representative of the topsy-turvy movie year, in a topsy-turvy world, handed out at a remarkably topsy-turvy Oscars, it might not be half bad. You can read the honor the Academy paid to it as a message to the studios: You may not make as much money off these movies, but we still want them. It’s also a movie that placed enough value on the deaf community to surface some of the problems deaf viewers encounter when they watch a film, especially in a theater, and purposely find ways to counteract that. And in a way, the selection makes a lot of sense. But Apple TV+ did pay a lot of money to get it there, long after the independent production was completed. Never discount the power of a movie that makes people feel a little verklempt by the end and feel as though they’re contributing to an overlooked issue — in this case, the difficulties deaf people can encounter in navigating a world overwhelmingly biased toward the hearing. There’s a lot of fear that huge-budget megablockbusters are the only movies that can matter anymore, the only ones that studios will choose to make, since they’re the only ones that make money back. It was Apple TV+, which is low-key maybe the best streaming service out there but hasn’t managed to get a lot of traction with subscribers in the streamer glut, especially for its movies. In recent years, with changes in the Academy’s demographic makeup and films like Moonlight and Parasite (and even The Shape of Water), some of this has changed. On the other hand, it’s hard to see exactly how it fits the Best Picture category. Kotsur won for his performance that night, too, and started to pick up awards: a BAFTA, a Critics’ Choice, an Indie Spirit. And by the weekend before the Oscars, when the film won Best Adapted Screenplay from the Writers Guild and the top prize from the Producer’s Guild, it started to look like the little movie that could was actually a snowball starting to barrel down the hill. CODA, named for the acronym Children of Deaf Adults, is a movie about a hearing teenager who works with her deaf parents and brother in their fishing business, but harbors aspirations of studying music.

The title of Coda comes from the acronym CODA (Child of Deaf Adult), a reference to the plot of the Oscar-winning film.

I’ll always love you. “Dad, I learned so much from you. The term “coda” has various meanings, but it perhaps most commonly refers to “the end of an event'”, a term often it is used in reference to music and ballet, and occasionally to signify the end of a story.

CODA has been named best picture, beating out the likes of Belfast, Drive My Car and Power of the Dog at the 2022 Academy Awards. It's a historic win for a ...

Distributed by Apple TV+, it is also the first best picture win for a streaming service. Eight of the ten Best Picture nominees were available on streaming services in the weeks leading up to the award ceremony. Streaming studios have been building momentum in the years since Amazon Studio's Manchester by the Sea made waves in 2017 with the first nomination for best picture for a streaming studio.