The organisers of the Academy Awards have doubled up the Best Film category for next year’s ceremony.

Since 1944 there have been only five nomination slots in the Best Film category. But now the Academy has decided that next year there will be ten candidates vying for the most coveted Oscar. Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President Sid Ganis has stated, “After more than six decades, the Academy is returning to some of its earlier roots, when a wider field competed for the top award of the year. The final outcome, of course, will be the same - one Best Picture winner - but the race to the finish line will feature ten, not just five, great movies from 2009.”

Presumably this will be a way for the Oscars to nominate bigger Hollywood fare alongside art house productions. This year, one of the biggest controversies surrounding the Academy Award nominations was the shutting out of The Dark Knight in the Best Film category, while less commercially successful productions like Frost/Nixon and The Reader did get in. With ten slots to be filled, expect Hollywood to get their mainstream blockbuster titles in the mix for next year.