Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Adapted Screenplay 2020

The Contenders:

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm
The Father (winner)
Nomadland
One Night in Miami
The White Tiger

The Rooster Coop

Films: The White Tiger
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on Fire!

Say what you will about NetFlix, but they have started going more and more out of their way to bring in shows and movies that aren’t from a Western perspective. The White Tiger, which was ultimately nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, is such a film. While the film is at least partially in English, this is very much a film that is thoroughly enmeshed in Indian culture. In fact, the use of language is a big part of that. The characters shift between Hindi and English naturally and constantly, and it becomes something akin to its own language, a sort of Delhi pidgin.

The White Tiger is the dark shadow of Slumdog Millionaire. Like the film that won Best Picture more than a decade ago, this one is about a young man who began in terrible poverty and ends as a success. Don’t worry—that’s not a spoiler. We start knowing that our main character is a man of means when the film begins.