The recent history of the Academy Awards is littered with puzzling and short-lived plans. Remember the pandering popular-film Oscar, or the show’s decision to present several categories during the commercial breaks? Both ideas were so roundly derided that they never made it past the point of a news release.

Such tweaks are usually desperate moves meant to goose ratings, and the same could be said of another radical change, when the academy announced after the ceremony in 2009 that it would expand the best-picture field to include more than five movies. Against all odds, it’s an experiment that has managed to stick, and your Carpetbagger is willing to give credit where it’s due: 10 years after the first expanded lineup was released, I’m convinced it should be considered one of the best moves the Oscars have ever made.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say it saved the show.

Of course, the decision to blow up the best-picture category wasn’t greeted with nearly as much enthusiasm in June 2009, when the academy president at the time, Sid Ganis, declared that the best-picture category would suddenly field 10 nominees. Industry veterans worried that the expansion would sap a nomination of its prestige factor, and many of the publicists and producers who had won previous best-picture fights felt particularly aggrieved, like high achievers learning that the SAT had become easier after they took it.

Still, the best-picture formula had by then become stale, too often finding spots for twinkly Miramax films like “Chocolat,” ”Finding Neverland” and “The Cider House Rules.” Without big hits in the mix, viewer interest was fading, and after the 2009 best-picture lineup snubbed well-reviewed blockbusters like “The Dark Knight” and “Wall-E” in favor of middlebrow dramas like “Frost/Nixon” and “The Reader,” Ganis huddled with academy decision makers to figure out a new path forward.