Netflix films should compete at Emmys, not Oscars, says Spielberg

Veteran filmmaker Steven Spielberg believes that when it comes to awards, movies made by streaming giant Netflix should compete at the Emmys instead of the Oscars.

In an interview with ITV News, the 71-year-old director addressed the debate that whether the films premiering on the streaming platforms qualify to compete at the awards functions with movies that get a theatrical release.

"I don't believe that films that are just given token qualifications, in a couple of theatres for less than a week, should qualify for the Academy Award nominations," Spielberg said.

He stressed that smaller filmmakers were allowing streaming platforms to support their films which confine them to the small screen.

"Fewer and fewer filmmakers are going to struggle to raise money, or to compete at Sundance and possibly get one of the speciality labels to release their films theatrically, publicly," Spielberg said.

"More of them are going to let the SVOD (Streaming Video On-Demand) businesses finance their films, maybe with the promise of a slight, one-week theatrical window to qualify for awards, as a movie. But, in fact, once you commit to a television format, you're a TV movie. It's like television. A good show deserves an Emmy and not an Oscar," he added.

The debate around Netflix-backed projects competing at award functions peaked last year at the Cannes Film Festival.

Bong Joon-Ho's "Okja" and Noah Baumbach's "The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)" both were screened at the Cannes.

After much debate, the festival organisers announced that they would be banning movies which did not have a French theatrical releases in future, making films from streaming platforms ineligible to compete.