The Academy Awards have celebrated the best in film for 94 years. But a major rethink is needed if the ceremony is going to make it to 100 in good shape. The nominations for 2022 show how out of touch the voters are with public tastes – and that gap needs fixing for the sake of the event. It’s a change in mindset which is needed because, in the 21st century especially, voters have repeatedly dismissed popular films as not worthy of awards recognition and continued to favor more artistic but less commercial choices. As former Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel joked on his US talk show: “The Power of the Dog got 12 nominations – one for every person who saw it!” Box office juggernauts like Spider-Man: No Way Home and No Time to Die didn’t just make big money but received big acclaim too – except from Oscar voters. And so, instead of James Bond v Spider-Man in a battle of the blockbusters, or even House of Gucci v Shang-Chi, Academy Awards viewers were left with Drive My Car v Coda. No wonder TV viewing figures for the ceremony continue to fall. Jimmy Kimmel also asked: “Why do best picture nominees have to be serious? When did that become a perquisite for getting nominated for an Academy Award?” The answer is: about 20 years ago. Among the crowd-pleasing movies to have nominated for the best picture Oscar in the past are Jaws, The Towering Inferno, Rocky (which won), E.T., Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Ghost, The Full Monty and The Sixth Sense. It would seem unthinkable for films like that to be nominated now. But it shouldn’t be the case. Memo to the Academy: popular does not mean bad. Don’t be movie snobs, be movie lovers like the rest of us.