As the credits rolled following nearly four hours of “The Brutalist,” my grown godson sat back in his seat, a bit stunned. He wasn’t quite ready to talk about it. Finally, Danny turned to me and said: “I feel like I’ve just experienced ‘cinema’ for the first time.”

As someone who has dragged dozens of nieces, nephews and niblings to cultural events for their entire lifetimes, this was a pretty great uncle moment.

Then we elbowed our way past the, oh, 20 or so others who had come out for this Saturday night, prime-time screening at the 944-seat Mayan Theater. Clearly what we had shared was a regrettably isolated incident. One that does not bode well for the beleaguered moviegoing industry in 2025.

“The Brutalist” is a film, like the architectural conceit it draws from, that has been built to stand the test of time. Directed by Brady Corbet, who spent five years of his youth in Glenwood Springs, it articulates the past and present struggles of the collective American immigrant. One imagined here as a visionary Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor who, after fleeing post-war Europe in 1947, is met here by racism and systemic barriers to economic opportunity that reduce him to shoveling coal when he has so much more to offer his adopted country.

Over time, as the rich and privileged use and abuse this everyman’s rising talents, the film grows into a, yes, brutal condemnation of America’s broken promises.

Just as Michelangelo’s sword was his paint brush, Corbet’s cudgel is brutalism, a style of architecture characterized by “a deliberate plainness, crudity or violence of imagery.” Think lots of steel and massive, concrete blocks. (In Denver, think KMGH Denver7’s soon-to-be-demolished sandstone eyesore at Speer Boulevard and Lincoln Street. Or the austere Federal Reserve Branch Bank on the 16th Street Mall at Curtis Street.)

As an architectural movement, brutalism arose in response to wartime destruction and displacement by building structures to endure both time and regimes. These stark and uncompromising concrete behemoths, as my nephew explained it to me, favor survival over style. “They do not seek to charm or please but instead to persist – to bear witness,” he told me in a feverish text-message essay that he cranked out in the immediate hours after the screening.

This unusual film – like brutalism itself – “similarly resists the polish and formula of conventional storytelling,” he went on to say. “Instead, it embraces a raw, fragmented depiction of lives shaped by brutality and survival. It stands as a protest against oppression, against erasure, and against the fleeting nature of life.”

Sounds like best-picture material to me.

Really, it’s not even close. Except that … it is.

A month ago, “The Brutalist” was the presumptive favorite to win Best Picture – but there were cracks in that narrative that have since opened up wide.

Some cinema operators were reluctant to show a four-hour movie with an intermission when they could make more money by offering two screenings of pretty much any other film in the same amount of time. There was open speculation that some busy (or lazy) Academy voters might skip watching “The Brutalist” altogether. Then came the dust storm over revelations that artificial intelligence was used in post-production to enhance the Hungarian spoken by the film’s two lead actors, Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones.

Suddenly, the best-picture runaway was now a three-horse race newly joined by the far-less worthy “Anora” and “Conclave.”

Wait: By what and what?

“Anora,” which oddsmakers are now calling the best-picture fave, starts off as the daring story of a brash young Brooklyn escort who impulsively marries the son of a cartoonish Russian mafia-type. The first half of the film has been favorably compared to “Taxi Driver.” But the second half crumbles into the dust of a very long and very aimless chase to find Russia’s version of Richie Rich. Robert DeNiro’s epic journey to pluck Christopher Walken out of a Vietnamese river cage and bring him back to Pennsylvania – this is not.

And “Conclave” is (in my unpopular opinion) a grossly offensive and irresponsible attack on the Catholic Church that plays out as a cadre of creepy cardinals secretly select a new pope.

So there you have the three films that will go down as the “best” films of 2024. And yet, to date, those three films have combined to earn just $60 million at the box office, even after several months in release. Compared to say, “Captain America: Brave New World,” which just made $110 million in its first seven days.

Which means that, just one week before Hollywood’s biggest night, the Academy once again finds itself celebrating three films that no one has seen. Just one year after the commercial and critical convergence of “Barbenheimer” delivered ABC its highest Oscars ratings in four years, the network has a serious viewership problem on its hands. After all, how many everyday moviegoers will eagerly tune in next Sunday to find out which films are celebrated that they didn’t bother to see in the first place?

In the immortal words of John Adams in “1776”: Does anybody care?

The Academy tried to hedge its snooty bets in 2009 when it opened the best-picture field to up to 10 nominees. Not because anyone really believed that “Batman” or “Avatar” were bonafide best pictures. It was to cynically get their fans to watch the Oscars telecast.

That’s the only reason “Wicked” and “Dune: Part Two” made the field this year. And that’s why you can almost feel the groundswell of growing hope that the merely serviceable Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” might sneak in for the darkhorse win: After all, at least some of us actually saw that one. (About 6 1/2 million of us, anyway.)

Consider: The other seven best-picture nominees – “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” “Conclave,” “Emilia Pérez,” “I’m Still Here,” “The Nickel Boys” and “The Substance” have averaged $12 million each at the box office.

“Inside Out 2”? $654 million.

This is the continuation of a downward trend that some experts say only ends with the end of moviegoing as an American cultural tradition altogether. Attendance at American movie theaters fell a full 24% in 2024, down to 607 million tickets sold. That’s off 61% from the industry’s best year (1.57 billion) in 2002.

Much as the Academy has tried, the Oscars will never be fully in step with the taste of the average theatergoer – as well they should not be. Otherwise, we would have “Deadpool & Wolverine” duking it out next Sunday with “Moana 2” and “Despicable Me.” The Oscars have always been a good way to bring attention to lesser-known films, but the divide between legitimately good films and ones that moviegoers actually want to see has perhaps never been more stark.

Beyond “The Brutalist,” it’s a weak best-picture field – which almost guarantees that “The Brutalist” will not win. And that’s a shame, because, over the course of cinematic time, “The Brutalist” (along with perhaps “The Nickel Boys”) are the nominees that, in the great Brutalist tradition, will still be standing after the rest of us have fallen.

BEST PICTURE NOMINEES/At a glance

(With U.S. box office through Feb. 21. Listed in order of odds to win according to goldderby.com)

“Anora” $15 million, 4.5/1 favorite: A young Brooklyn escort impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch. Once the news reaches Russia, his parents set out to have the marriage annulled.

“The Brutalist”: $14 million (6.5/1): When a visionary architect and his wife flee post-war Europe in 1947 to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern United States, their lives are changed by a mysterious, wealthy client. Not for nothing: This film was made on a $10 million shoestring. Compare that to “Dune: Part Two” ($190 million) and “Wicked” ($150 million).

“Conclave”: $32 million (7/1): When a cardinal is tasked with leading the secretive process of selecting a new Pope, he finds himself at the center of a web of scandals that shake the foundation of the Catholic Church.

“A Complete Unknown”: $71 million (9/1): In 1961, 19-year-old Bob Dylan arrives in New York City with his guitar and forges relationships with musical icons on his meteoric rise.

“Wicked”: $473 million (9/1): In the first of this two-part cinematic adaptation of the Broadway musical, green-skinned Elphaba and popular Galinda become college pals until an encounter with a wizard brings their friendship to a crossroads.

“Dune: Part Two”: $282 million (9/1): Paul Atreides unites with the Fremen while on a warpath of revenge against the conspirators who destroyed his family. It’s one of two nominated films starring Timothée Chalamet (“A Complete Unknown”).

“Emilia Pérez”: (Netflix only, $15 million global, 10.5/1): A Mexican cartel leader enlists a lawyer to help fake her death so she can finally live authentically as her true self. This film was not released in U.S. theaters, yet it leads all films with 13 nominations.

“The Substance”: $17 million (11.5/1): A fading celebrity takes a black-market drug that temporarily creates a younger, better version of herself.

“I’m Still Here”: $3.5 million (12/1): A mother is forced to reinvent herself when her family’s life is shattered by an act of random violence during a military dictatorship in 1971 Brazil.

“Nickel Boys”: $2.5 million (18/1): The powerful friendship between two young Black men navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida. It’s based on the novel by Colson Whitehead, making it the first adaptation of a Pulitzer Prize-winner since 2003 (“The Hours”).

Synopses provided by boxofficemojo.com

Note: Most films above can be seen on iTunes, at area theaters, or online via Fandango at Home