List of the Best Picture winners going back to 1990, and their projected format. I can't remember every picture and/or I have not seen everything on the list, but here's what I remember without doing a lot of research. And I am not taking into account whether they were shot anamorphically or in Super 35 (that's a different debate):

Gladiator (scope)
American Beauty (scope)
Shakespeare In Love (scope)
Titanic (scope)
The English Patient (flat)
Braveheart (scope?)
Forrest Gump (scope)
Schindler's List (flat)
Unforgiven (scope)
Silence of the Lambs (flat)
Dances With Wolves (scope)

This year's Best Picture nominees are:

A Beautiful Mind (flat)
Gosford Park (scope)
In The Bedroom (scope)
Lord of the Rings (scope)
Moulin Rouge (scope)

This year's nominees for Cinematography are:

Amelie (scope)
Black Hawk Down (scope)
Lord of the Rings (scope)
The Man Who Wasn't There (flat)
Moulin Rouge (scope)

So [since 1990 anyway] projecting flat does not seem to be any assurance at all that a movie will be better-received by the Academy. In fact the list seems to say the opposite.

Now I admit that some movies are better-suited to 1.85 flat. Schindler's List is a perfect example. It would have been totally inappropriate to the material to shoot in scope.

So even though you may be correct about Spielberg's reasoning, the facts seem to suggest he is wrong. In fact the data suggests the opposite. Spielberg's boxoffice disappointments were mediocre or worse movies period, and their lousy reception by the public and the Academy seemed to have little to do with the format they were shot in.

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Dave, I am a bit confused about what you were saying about Cameron's 4:3 video transfers. How can they show the bottom half of the frame and be 4:3? Super 35 produces a wide aspect ratio, so how does he transfer to video without pan and scan? I am just curious.

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Actually, super 35 does not inherently produce a wide aspect ratio. It uses the silent aperture, which creates a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The only reason it produces a wide ratio is because it is customary to crop out a 2.39:1 rectangle from the 1.33:1 image. Sometimes, a common topline approach is used (the Jim Carrey movie "The Cable Guy") and in other cases the two images have a common center. Actually, super35 could be used to produce movies of any aspect ratio. I believe "Spaceballs" was done in super35 and was 1.85:1. This is a rarity, though. There is no reason that, say, a TV show couldn't be filmed in super35. That would produce a 4:3 image using every bit of area between the perforations.
See Super35 illustration and explanation here.

Back in 1997 and 1998, I could spot a scope movie made in super 35 because they looked grainy. Pushing Tin was a good example of a very grainy super 35 movie. In recent years, the quality of movies made in super35 has improved, but I still prefer Panavision-style shooting for scope movies.

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Evans A Criswell
Huntsville-Decatur Movie Theatre Information Site

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David A: Hook rang up $119M. Adjust that for ticket price inflation and it would be around $160M in today's dollars. Flop? No. Major hit? Yes.

To clarify the 007 reference: The first 3 Bond movies (Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger) are all flat. Starting with Thunderball every Bond has been scope.

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On James Bond films, most have been in 'scope. But in addition to "Dr. NO", "Goldfinger" and "From Russia With Love" being either 1.66:1 or 1.85:1, Roger Moore's first couple Bond efforts ("Live and Let Die" and "The Man With the Golden Gun") were also shot flat. All of the Bond movies after that have been in 'scope.

About home video framing of Super35, it varies a great deal. While the full 4-perf 35mm camera aperture is open for Super35, that full image is not typically what makes it into a "full frame" VHS release. Commonly, the picture has one safe action crop for 1.85:1, taking away some of the top and bottom of the image. Then the 1.33:1 TV frame can be extracted out of the center of that. So you are still losing a bit off the top, bottom and sides. Sure, some shots in a transfer can use that full 35mm frame. But with most scenes the composition will be far too loose. I've seen a number of Super35 transfers to home video that featured shots just as heavily panned and scanned as any anamorphically filmed release. I certainly saw such things with an on-the-fly comparision between "Fight Club" on DVD and a full frame broadcast on HBO. Finally, your visual effects shots are usually rendered/produced in the aspect ratio of the release format, so if it is a Super35 release, pretty much all the effects shots will be in 2.35:1 and heavily panned and scanned.

I think Super35 can only have a chance to exceed anamorphic 35mm in quality when optically enlarged to 70mm. I see it having no quality advantage over anamorphic otherwise. Super35 is a format designed more for convenience rather than quality.

At any rate, I hope Steven Spielberg will shoot the next "Indiana Jones" sequel in 'scope on 35mm like all the others in the saga rather than shooting it flat so it goes to home video easier. I also hope he can convince producer George Lucas not to pull a DLP gag with it either.

And yes, I do think George Lucas has really broke the continuity of "Star Wars" by insisting on videotaping "Episode II" and "Episode III" rather than shooting them on film. It breaks continuity even further since these next two installments will be video-ed using spherical lenses rather than anamorphic elements. I do realize Panavision and Sony tried hard to come up with an anamorphic lens pack that would work with the HD cameras. They just couldn't make it happen. I suppose some software engineers at CineLook could come up with a filter to imitate the depth of field and distorsion effects seen in actualy anamorphic photography, but since so many people think "digital is perfect" why bother?

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Here they are:

Here is a direct capture from the VHS version.

Here is a direct capture from same exact frame of the DVD.

Draw your own conclusions about how Super 35 is transferred to home video.