Firsts of Cinema in the 2010s

The first superhero film to have an almost entirely black cast, it was also the first superhero movie to earn an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.

The first major motion picture to intentionally be in production for so many years (12). Instead of production problems, it was an artistic choice that prolonged its filming. Keeping it in production for so long allowed the characters to age authentically with the actors.

It was not the first critically acclaimed, popular, and (Best Picture) Oscar nominated movie with two gay male characters as the lead protagonists but it was the first that was openly erotic.

This was the first Oscar winner to tell the story of a transgendered protagonist with an openly trans actor portraying her.

Never before had a film, successful at the box office as well as in the awards circuit, so openly taken white liberals to task for racism. There are no white heroes or saviors, nor any white redemption, and the movie was widely praised as a roast of the privilege and superficiality of so-called progressive whites.

The first popular and (Best Picture) Oscar-nominated movie with a cast led exclusively by women of color.

This documentary marked the first time a Netflix-distributed movie won an Oscar in any category.

This film with the title of one of the most iconic comic book characters ever includes no superheroes nor even a supervillain. No super power is seen in this first DC movie that is a character study instead of an action flick.

One of the first "triple F-rated" (female director, female writer, and female lead actor) films to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. ('The Piano' and 'Lost in Translation' came close but many argue that the difference is that those movies also had male roles integral to the plot whereas the lead and most significant supporting actor in 'Lady Bird' are both women. Also, unlike its important predecessors, romance is not central to 'Lady Bird' and it is not categorized as a Romance.)

The first fully CGI movie to seem like live action.

'Moonlight' was the first film with an all-black cast to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It was also the first LGBTQ-themed movie to get the Best Picture Oscar.

It was the first Netflix film that wasn't a documentary to be nominated for an Academy Award.

First international (foreign language) film to win the Best Picture Oscar.

It was the first film to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar to which Netflix had distribution rights.

First film from a Muslim country, in which the country's culture was both central to the story and not simply co-opted by a non-Muslim production, to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

This stylistically unique movie pays homage to Spider-Man and comic books while subverting superhero movie norms. The Harvard Crimson explains that "the multiverse premise allows for an iconic and traditionally Caucasian male hero to instead be represented by a young Afro-Latin American, a woman, and an Asian American on the silver screen ... Each character’s differences and unique backgrounds are not merely incidental, and contribute to their stories and capabilities."

Sean Baker's film that preceded, and probably allowed for, 2017's 'The Florida Project' is the most acclaimed, most widely seen, and most financially successful movie filmed entirely on an i-Phone, which probably does more to democratize film-making than anything else in decades. It also made strides by using mostly non-professional actors and focusing on transgendered characters of color, as well as a protagonist who is a sex worker.

It is possible that no other film has grappled with matters so vast. It is possible that no other film has illustrated these struggles and questions with such vastness. What is more certain is that no other film has dealt with such vastness right alongside such personal and intimate matters and, in fact, conjoins the two.

It actually was not the first major motion picture in which the lead superhero is a woman -- but it was the first successful one. (Both the box office and the reviews were strong; many expected it to be the first superhero film to be nominated for an Oscar Best Picture Award. Although it was not, many posited that it helped to make way for 'Black Panther' to earn that honor the very next year.) It was also directed by a woman.