A still image of the film Parasite. [Photo/Mtime]

Streaming Service

Another pattern to this year's awards was the lavish bestowing of nominations on the films and television shows of the top streaming platforms, such as Netflix's 24 Academy nominations and 34 Golden Globe noms. Amazon lagged a bit, with only one Oscar nom and 13 Golden Globes noms, while Apple TV+ got three nominations, as did Hulu.

Moreover, these steaming service helped the American audience to adopt the subtitles than before. Backstage at the Oscars, Bong Joon-ho, director of "Parasite," amended the comment he made at the Golden Globes about subtitles being a "1-inch barrier," telling Xinhua, "With YouTube and steaming media, foreign language won't be much of an issue anymore ..."

But member-voters were far stingier giving out actual awards to online distributors, boxing Netflix out of all but two Academy awards and two Golden Globe wins. Amazon and Hulu both had only two Golden Globe wins each and no Oscar glory this year.

"To qualify for an Academy Award, traditionally a film must be released in a theater to be considered. Some streamers are getting around that by putting them in theaters for a week or releasing them online and theatrically at the same time," producer, Jeff Most, explained to Xinhua.

"Some voters resent that, because they feel it is undermining the motion picture industry," he added. There is little doubt that streamers are reshaping the industry, but it remains to be seen how richly they will be rewarded for it.