Not remotely beautiful.

The "study" attributes an inherent correlation between the best picture nominees and the decline of the box office. But it's not accounting for the greater box office trend - the rise of blockbusters.

The relationship between Metacritic and Box Office inverts around 2004, it looks like. You know what came out the previous year? Return of the King. (Though I think Spider-man in 2002 is a more relevant data point.) Since then, there's been a bigger focus at the box office on spectacle-driven films, which are rarely going to be Best Picture types. And that goes even further in the past decade with the shift to streaming; last year's winner made $1.6 million at the box office because it was straight to Apple+.

This says nothing about the movies quality. The only possible conclusion to draw from here - and that's if you take the data at face value - is that good movies aren't making as much money, not that Best Pictures are getting worse.