Needless to say, when Kevin Feige talks about awards season, people tend to listen. This time around, however, he did not simply heap praise on a movie. In a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Kevin Feige, President of Marvel Studios, stated Ryan Coogler’s Sinners should be given the Best Picture award. However, he did not simply stop there. In addition to giving props to the movie, he subtly dissed the Oscars: “The Academy doesn’t always, in my opinion, recognize the movies that are most relevant for audiences today. But, boy, did they hit it with this one.”
Of course, this is as close to throwing shade as Kevin Feige gets.
The Marvel chief called Sinners culturally significant
Needless to say, however, the movie Sinners is not simply any movie. In addition to being a critical darling, it has managed to break the record for most Oscar nominations ever received by a movie. In total, Sinners received 16 Oscar nominations. This beats out previous nominees like Titanic, All About Eve, and La La Land. What is more interesting, however, is that it is a supernatural horror movie, which has never before been considered a Best Picture contender.
On top of all that? It’s a box office behemoth. Since it opened in April 2025, it’s been the highest-grossing original live-action movie in North America since Inception. Not a sequel. Not a franchise reboot. Not IP. That alone makes it a cinematic landmark in the current era of franchise filmmaking.
Feige singled out the score by Ludwig Göransson, calling it something that “left me with my jaw on the floor.” He even went so far as to say that the movie deserves the Best Picture award just for the score. That’s high praise indeed from the creator of the MCU.
There’s even a certain level of irony to all of this as well. Feige has even joked in the past that Sinners was partly to blame for the delays in the upcoming Marvel movie Blade because Ryan Coogler used some of the vampire-era costumes and props that were originally slated for the MCU movie. According to reports, he basically told the director to use what he needed, saying, “Take them, man… We’ll hold off on our movie.” Clearly, there are no hard feelings between the two.
What he’s really saying with all of this, though, is that it shows that it’s possible for a movie to be culturally relevant, a commercial success, and artistically ambitious all at the same time. For one thing, prestige and commercial success aren’t mutually exclusive. And according to Feige, the Academy would do well to remember that.
