Dune: Part Two had big shoes to fill following the glaring success of the first movie. Released in 2021, Dune: Part One was one of the biggest movies of the year. It grossed $410 million on a $165 million budget, and took home six Oscar awards, a phenomenal achievement for a sci-fi movie.
Historically, sci-fi movies don’t fare well when it comes to the Academy Awards, and typically, neither do sequels. So, it came as quite an industry shock when Dune: Part Two bagged itself 5 Oscar nominations in 2025, including a nod for the coveted Best Motion Picture of the Year. While it won in two categories, it missed out on the Best Picture award, and there may be a good reason for this.
Dune: Part Two’s Box Office Success Unveiled
Dune: Part Two was widely seen as a step up from its predecessor. It boasted a larger cast filled with Hollywood titans and rising stars, it grossed $390 million more at the box office, and it currently has a higher rating on IMDB, sitting at a solid 8.5/10. So, many fans were left bewildered when the film received exactly half the number of Oscar nominations as the first movie. However, it was still given the nod for Best Picture.
Typically, big blockbuster movies don’t find themselves nominated for Oscars. Instead, the Academy leans much more towards medium-budget movies and arthouse flicks. Yet, every so often, a film’s massive success at the box office seems to convince Oscar voters that they need to give certain movies more of a thorough look. The most recent example being the Barbenheimer phenomenon, where the two biggest movies of 2023 – Barbie and Oppenheimer – both landed Best Picture nominations. Collectively, these globally acclaimed films grossed over $2 billion worldwide, giving the industry a much need boost post-pandemic. Although Dune: Part Two didn’t quite live up to those numbers, it was still the sixth highest-grossing movie of 2024. Couple that with a wealth of critical praise, and it’s easy to see why it landed a Best Picture nod in 2025. But why didn’t it win?
The 2025 Oscars Were Perhaps Way Too Stacked
The 2025 Oscars saw many first-time nominees. It was also one of the most competitive years in the annals of cinema. Sean Baker made history when he took home a staggering four wins, including Best Director and Best Picture for Anora. When he took the stage to accept his award for Best Director, this is likely where the makers behind Dune: Part Two knew they had lost out on the Best Motion Picture of the Year award.
While the Academy don’t like to admit to trends, there certainly is one when it comes to the correlation between Best Director and Best Picture wins. Across cinematic history, you can almost see producers twitching in their seats when the Best Director award is handed over. For example, Braveheart won both Best Director and Best Picture, as did Unforgiven, as did The Silence of the Lambs – and the list goes on. Considering Denis Villeneuve was not nominated for his directorial efforts, this was an early sign that the voters already had their favorite laid out for Best Picture, and it wasn’t Dune: Part Two.
The Academy Could Be Holding Out for Dune: Part Three
Since the Oscars began close to a century ago, there has only been two sequels to win Best Picture – The Godfather Part II and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The Godfather Part II stands out in the fact that it followed on from its Best Picture-winning predecessor. To that, some might argue that Dune: Part Two never stood a chance at the 2025 Oscars as it was following on from a movie that lost a few years prior. However, on the flip side of that coin, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was not following on from such triumph, but proved to be the more acclaimed, and also the film in the trilogy that resonated the best with the Academy.
Really, there is no clear formula, and if the Dune movies keep getting better, it could be that the Oscars are holding out on handing over that coveted Best Picture trophy. After much teasing, Dune 3 has been confirmed. In June 2024, Warner Bros announced that a previously untitled “event film” was now an “untitled Denis Villeneuve film”. Then, in July 2024, an IMAX presentation revealed that this will in fact be a Dune movie, which will hit movies theaters on December 18, 2026. This will be Villeneuve’s final adaptation of Frank Herbert‘s Dune, the budget will be larger, and the cast will surely grow. So, come the 2027 Oscars, it may find itself winning the coveted Best Motion Picture of the Year award.
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