It’s hard to believe it has already been 10 years since La La Land danced its way into cinemas, charming audiences and critics on its way to multiple awards.

The film, which charts the romance and struggling careers of actress Mia (Emma Stone) and jazz musician Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) was one of the movies of the 2016 awards season, battling it out with the likes of Moonlight, Arrival and Manchester by the Sea

It is an awards season that has gone down in infamy for that envelope mishap, but even before then, the La La Land awards season lifespan is a fascinating one and is a prime example of the kind of fate a heralded movie can receive once it arguably becomes too acclaimed.

So join us as we head out to revisit the city of stars and its journey from festival favourite to an almost historic Oscar sweep.

Another Day of Sun: Venice 2016 premiere and release

The Venice Film Festival takes place this week for 2026, bringing with it our first look at such highly anticipated films as Primetime and Ink. But it was also the place where La La Land began its rollout.

Premiering at the festival on August 31, 2016, Damian Chazelle’s follow-up to his 2014 film Whiplash had been a long time coming. Written by Chazelle in 2010 at a time when he was struggling to break into Hollywood himself, the film was designed to be an ode to the dreamers who came to LA to pursue a career in showbiz.

Following both the critical and commercial success of Whiplash – itself earning five Oscar nominations, including best picture – all eyes were on his next project, and for Chazelle there was only one option: La La Land.

The adoration was immediate following its first screening, with Oscar glory quickly predicted.

Everyone was floored by the first one-shot sequence on the freeway set to the toe-tapping Another Day of Sun, with Variety critic Owen Gleiberman calling it ‘one of the most extraordinary sequences in years.’

Praise was also heaped on the performances of Stone and Gosling, while Chazelle was heralded for reminding audiences of the malleable and eclectic capabilities of the musical genre.

The film continued its rollout across other autumn festivals, where more and more praise was garnered for it, ahead of beginning its wider cinema release in the United States and beyond from December 2016. It would go on to gross nearly $450million (£332.5million) worldwide during its original theatrical release.

It seemed to be resoundingly beloved by both audiences and critics, holding a 91% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes – and that was very much reflected in the nominations at the major awards.

At the Baftas, La La Land was nominated for 11 awards, more than any other film that year, while at the Academy Awards, it scored a total of 14 nominations, tying the record for most nominations by a single film with All About Eve and Titanic.

La La Land was king of the world going into the awards season, even going on to win all seven of its Golden Globe nominations. So, it seemed (to some), it needed to be taken down a peg or two.

Start a Fire: The backlash

As sure as death and taxes, any movie that starts to emerge as a popular frontrunner in the awards season race will get its inevitable surge of backlash – and La La Land was certainly no exception.

It wasn’t like the film was universally praised upon its release and initial festival run; there were always early signs that a backlash would be coming sooner rather than later.

Much of the criticism pointed towards Seb’s arrogance when it came to his endless ‘jazzsplaining’, with many cirticising Chazelle for choosing to voice much of the opinions on jazz and its current state through a white protagonst, with Ira Madison II at MTV News at the time writing: “If you’re gonna make a film about an artist staying true to the roots of jazz against the odds and against modern reinventions of the genre, you’d think that artist would be black.’

The film itself is more nuanced than that, as it never really fully endorses Seb’s perspective – it often criticises it – but it was a legitimate criticism that began the wave of discourse online, as its popularity placed it under more of a magnifying glass and more problematic elements were expounded upon.

More was written on the film’s racial politics, and its gender politics too, with Morgan Lewis of the LA Review of Books wiritng at the time that depsite the film behind a two ahnder between tis male and female leads, ‘Sebastian’s drive and dedication are more textured than Mia’s, and it is his melody that recurs through the film to denote particularly important moments in their relationship.’

So while that shine of the initial burst of praise was certainly still on La La Land going into Oscar night, the rhetoric and (again, largely online) discourse had soured some of the lustre and allure around it.

It is impossible to tell how much actual award voters care about conversations online surrounding the film, but there was the sense in the air that La La Land making a sweep wasn’t as sure a thing as it had seemed to be after those glowing Venice reviews.