“Five years ago, ‘Parasite’ would have never won best picture,” said the producer Mark Johnson, who is an academy governor and ran the foreign-language committee for close to two decades. “The idea that a foreign-language film was seen by enough people to win is extraordinary.”

Still, there was something special about “Parasite” from its initial debut at the Cannes Film Festival back in May, where it nabbed the coveted Palme d’Or. That helped propel the film to its $130 million international box office, before it came to the United States and collected an additional $35 million.

Miky Lee, the heiress-turned-media mogul who financed and distributed “Parasite” through her role as vice chairwoman of the Korean media conglomerate CJ Group, has seen the film 18 times. “The first time I watched it, I thought the low-income people are parasitic to the high-income people,” she said in an interview at the Governor’s Ball. “I watch it a second time and realize that they are parasitic to each other. This is something that affects everybody, how to coexist with respect and without crossing the line.”

Also contributing to the movie’s success was Neon, the indie film company that distributed “Parasite,” and its spirited campaign, academy governors said. The studio, led by Tom Quinn, turned awards journalists into evangelists by opening its doors wide to them, in contrast to the more controlling larger studios. On the trail, “Parasite” became draped in an almost irresistible narrative: the little engine that could.

What Neon lacked in resources — Netflix, for instance, has 60 people in its awards and talent department campaigning for films like “The Irishman” and “Marriage Story” — it made up for with buoyancy and heart.