Find Your Best Picture Nominees via the PGA Announcement

The Producers Guild has a membership of around 4,700, representing “representing television producers, film producers and New Media producers.”  What it has in common with the Academy is that they use the preferential ballot to determine their winners for Best Picture.  Where they differ from the Academy, other than the make up of their membership (for instance, the Academy is dominated by actors), is that they choose a solid ten for nominees rather than five. Oscar voters changed their practice two years ago to have somewhere between 5 and 10. So far, we’ve seen a maximum of 9 every year.  Can there ever be a ten? No one has been able to prove it yet.  But who knows.

The big shock this morning was no nomination for the Coens’ Inside Llewyn Davis.  That means it didn’t sit atop many ballots in the 1 – 5 slots (I’m guessing).  When you only have five slots you have to really pick and choose and rank.  Where you might put Llewyn Davis at #6 on a 10 slot ballot you might pick it at #5 if you only have 5.  It just depends on how you think. Some would put down the films in the same rank no matter if they had 10 or 5. Me, I would rank them very differently if I had 5.

Either way, going by their very short history we have to conclude that:

1. at least one of their movies listed will likely be left off Oscar’s list.
2. The Academy is more Coen-friendly.

Therefore, I would guess that, in a competitive year like this where there is some wiggle room, Inside Llewyn Davis makes Oscar’s list.  I also think it will be among the five in the Best Director branch, even if it doesn’t make Best Picture.

Let’s look at our collection of top tens.

Place 2

Going back to Oscar’s choice to expand from five to ten, then from ten to a random number between five and ten, you have to at least be nominated for all of these to win.  That selects out American Hustle. Although this might be the first year that rule is broken.  Either way, you can plainly see what are the top picks starting with the NBR and five out of six of the titles would likely be your Best Picture nominees.  It’s surprising to see how popular both Saving Mr. Banks and Wolf of Wall Street are.

In this short history there has not been a movie that hit all of these markers for a nod and not gotten a best picture nomination.

That means the films that are very likely locked — and your Best Picture winner — barring a break in the pattern — are:

Gravity
Her
Nebraska
Saving Mr. Banks
12 Years a Slave
Wolf of Wall Street

Add to that:

American Hustle
Captain Phillips

That gives us one more slot.  That slot might include:

Inside Llewyn Davis
Dallas Buyers Club
Fruitvale Station
Blue Jasmine
Philomena

2013

2012

2011

2010

*AFI special award

2009