Whether it’s about lending gravitas to the patently commercial, or because such stories seem new and different in a marketplace saturated with remakes and franchise expansions, true-story films often excite Academy voters, if not occasionally audiences too.

Six of the eight Best Picture nominees this year provide portraits of people who have lived. They might be highly stylised, like Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, or with a swathe of sexy Sapphic liberties like Yorgos Lanthimos’s The Favourite, but each distinguish themselves from Hollywood’s more typical Black Panther blockbuster fare that dominates box offices.