Rajkummar Rao’s political satire, Newton, which was India’s official entry to the Oscars failed to make it to the final list. Since Newton was the unanimous choice of the jury as the official entry, expectations from the Film were sky-high. In fact, Rajkummar had earlier said, “I really want Newton to break India’s dry spell at the Oscars. I can’t say, obviously, if it will happen or not. But I wish it does.” The film was competing with 91 international films but was crashed out of the list by nine movies. Newton had beaten films like Baahubali 2 and Dangal to become country’s official selection but it seems didn’t manage match to the expectations of Oscar’s jury members.

There were reports that suggested Newton was a rip-off of the 2001 Iranian film “Secret Ballot”. But the reports were quashed with filmmaker Anurag Kashyap’s timely intervention. He reached out to the director and the producer of the Iranian film to clarify that “Newton” bore no similarity with their project. But did you know before Newton big Bollywood films like Barfi, Paheli, Eklavya, Rang De Basanti and others which were official entries from India also didn’t manage to make it to the top 5 and we know the reasons why? (Also Read: Newton crashes out of Oscar 2018 race but Twitter is not surprised at all)

Coming to Ranbir Kapoor’s Barfi!, which was loved unanimously by the audience and critics let down the Academy Awards jury members as it was an amalgamation of various Hollywood films. Talking about Paheli, the decision of choosing this film as the official came out as a shocking news to the industry. The jury has even faced the backlash from the audience for selecting Paheli over films like Black, Swades and Page 3. Considering films like Court, Eklavya and Rang De Basanti, these film might have impressed us but didn’t appeal to Oscar’s jury as their parameters didn’t match up to their level.