Films that get Oscar's attention usually are not those that win big at the box office

The five biggest movies at the box office last year were "The Dark Knight," "Iron Man," "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," "Hancock" and "WALL-E."

The five movies contending for the Academy Award for Best Picture tonight are "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Frost/Nixon," "Milk," "The Reader" and "Slumdog Millionaire."

You'll note the lack of overlap.

The most popular movies do not get the most Oscar attention and haven't for several years. The last time the Academy Award for Best Picture went to the biggest movie of the year was "Titanic" in 1998.

"The nominees reflect the taste of the members of the academy. They reflect what the membership believes is the best in every area. That can be different from what the mass audience believes is the best," said Jason E. Squire, instructor of cinema practice at the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is composed of more than 6,000 members who have achieved some measure of distinction in making movies. Admission is invitation only.

For the Academy Award nominations, directors nominate directors, actors nominate actors, costumers nominate costumers and so on; but for the awards themselves, everyone votes for everyone.

"That is a very tight community, and it is not necessarily reflective of the broader American culture," said Janet Staiger, professor of radio-television-film at the University of Texas. "Depending on who you are, if you're conservative you say it is very liberal, and if you are liberal you say it is a very conservative group."

M. Thomas Inge, the Blackwell Professor of Humanities at Randolph-Macon College, said, "The awards are from people who are part of the industry. When they do the public-voting awards, the results always come out differently."

Does that mean that the people who make movies have different tastes from the people who are watching them?

"It seems to be that there's a repelling dichotomy that says if you are critically successful, you can't be commercially successful. One negates the other," said Michael Jones, who teaches film at Virginia Commonwealth University.

And yet, no one goes into the filmmaking business to lose money. According to Squire, for movies that are considered potentially Oscar-worthy, studios look for a balance between artistic intent and profitability.

"The idea of making a movie that will be held in higher esteem than other movies, that will be a critical success that will also make money, is always an objective. Management always looks for a mix based on talent and their own projections on what may be profitable. This is where the fascinating convergence of art and business occurs," Squire said.

Squire, the editor of "The Movie Business Book" and a former studio executive, said the movie industry works differently from most businesses. In retail, producers make their product based on previous sales or orders from stores. But studios spend a fortune on their product and then hope people will spend money to see it.

"The miracle of Hollywood is that they manage to make so many wonderful movies while also making profitable ones. This is a much more speculative industry than people appreciate. It's much more risky than other industries.

"The average studio cost is $65 million, and marketing costs on average are about $35 million in the U.S. Put those numbers together and it's a crazy number for what is essentially a prototype."

The movies that have been nominated for Academy Awards this year may seem independent in spirit, and as Inge notes, they may look independent, with low budgets, hand-held cameras and lesser-known actors. But many have been financed by the major studios and all are distributed by them.

According to Jones, "Just a nomination can spur box office. I think that's good, because even a nomination can spur the box office for, say, a Woody Allen film, even if [Penelope Cruz] doesn't win."

And Inge believes that filmmakers do not intentionally set out to make an Oscar-nominated movie. It happens in the course of shooting the film, that people will notice that a performance is particularly outstanding or that the dialogue is especially effective. Once they discover that, he said, the studios start planning to release it at the end of the year to be fresh in academy members' minds when it comes time to vote.

If the movies that do contend seem to be more artistic in nature than in years past, Staiger sees that trend continuing. She noted that the academy has significantly more members now than in the past and that this membership is more diverse than before.

"I think the academy's tastes are broadening as the membership's tastes are changing," she said.

Jones said, "We all know what the Oscars really are. It's Hollywood patting itself on the back."

Contact Daniel Neman at (804) 649-6408 or dneman@timesdispatch.com.