Predictions Friday: Best Picture Is Still Unpredictable

There is the temptation, especially among those new friendos to the Oscar game, to “call it.” But if you’ve been around a while, you know those early premature calls can come back to haunt you. That happens less now in the day-to-day of Twitter madness than it used to. After all, does anyone really care if you can dig up a tweet that says “First Man is going to win Best Picture!”? No one really cares anymore. The page is turned not even daily, but hourly. But back when people used to actually write pieces in print magazines, those “wrong” predictions really could haunt you. We don’t need to go over some of the most notorious ones. For me, though, I’ve been doing this long enough that I already know it’s not really possible to predict how the preferential ballot will go.

For instance, you can use stats and that can take you part of the way. It certainly helped me correctly predict 12 Years a Slave to win. But it hurt when it came to predicting 1917 to win. You can use “buzz” — that helped me correctly predict Moonlight to win, but you had to be paying very close attention to buzz, to note when that buzz shifted from La La Land to Moonlight.

The preferential ballot is tricky because we are all still conditioned to think that the Best Picture winner is decided by #1 votes. Sometimes it is: The Hurt Locker, The Artist, Argo, Birdman, Parasite. Sometimes it isn’t: Spotlight, Moonlight, Green Book. Sometimes the reason a movie wins is that it earned more #2/#3/#4/#5 votes than #1 votes. It messes with your head when you look at how larger groups voted when they voted by plurality, prior to 2009.

The only other group that uses the preferential ballot, and has roughly the same number of voting members as the Academy, is the Producers Guild. Now that the Academy has gone back to an even ten nominees, they will likely match the PGA even more. The biggest difference is that in the Academy there are ACTORS. There are some actors in the PGA because more actors have been producing their own movies and movies overall. Theoretically, though, it is populated entirely by producers. Actors dominate the Academy, and there are twice as many of them as the second most-populated branch.

So today I’d like to look at the PGA compared to the Oscar for Best Picture — when did it match, when didn’t it match. Let’s go all the way back to PGA’s beginning:

1989 — Driving Miss Daisy was the only nominee, and won both the PGA and Oscar.
1990 — Dances With Wolves was the only nominee, and won both PGA and Oscar

When there were five PGA and Best Picture nominees:

1991 — The PGA had six nominees. The Silence of the Lambs won PGA, DGA, and Oscar. Bugsy, its only competition, did not have a PGA nomination.

1992 — The Crying Game beat the eventual Best Picture winner, Unforgiven (which won DGA).

1993 — Schindler’s List swept the season, winning PGA, DGA, and Oscar. 

1994 — Forrest Gump swept the season, winning PGA, DGA, and Oscar.

1995 — Apollo 13 won PGA, DGA, and SAG, but Braveheart won the Oscar.

1996 — The English Patient swept the season, winning PGA, DGA, and Oscar. The Birdcage won the SAG.

1997 — Titanic swept the season, winning PGA, DGA, and Oscar. The Full Monty won the SAG.

1998 — Saving Private Ryan won the PGA and the DGA, while Shakespeare in Love won the SAG and the Oscar.

1999 — American Beauty swept the season, winning PGA, SAG, DGA, and Oscar. 

2000 — Gladiator won the PGA and Oscar, while Traffic won the SAG and the Best Director Oscar, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon won the DGA.

2001 — Moulin Rouge! won the PGA, Gosford Park won the SAG. A Beautiful Mind won DGA and Oscar.

2002 — Chicago won the PGA, SAG, DGA, and Oscar. Roman Polanski won Best Director for The Pianist.

2003 — Lord of the Rings: Return of the King swept the season, winning PGA, DGA, SAG, and Oscar.

2004 — The Aviator won the PGA, Sideways won the SAG, Million Dollar Baby won the DGA and Oscar.

2005 — Brokeback Mountain won the PGA and DGA, Crash won the SAG and the Oscar.

2006 — Little Miss Sunshine won the PGA and SAG, The Departed won the DGA and Oscar.

2007 — No Country for Old Men swept the season, winning PGA, SAG, DGA, and Oscar. 

2008 — Slumdog Millionaire swept the season, winning PGA, SAG, DGA, and Oscar. 

When there were ten PGA and Best Picture nominees (preferential ballot):

2009 — The Hurt Locker won PGA, DGA, and Oscar, Inglourious Basterds won SAG.
Nominees match 8/10 — PGA nominees Invictus and Star Trek were replaced by The Blind Side and A Serious Man at the Oscars.

2010 — The King’s Speech swept the season, winning PGA, SAG, DGA, and Oscar.
Nominees match 9/10 — PGA nominee The Town was replaced by Winter’s Bone.

When there were ten PGA nominees but a fluctuating number of nominees for Best Picture (between five and 10):

2011 — The Artist swept the season, winning PGA, DGA, and Oscar. The Help won the SAG.
PGA had 10, Oscar had 9.
Nominees matched 7/10.
Out were Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Ides of March, Bridesmaids, in was Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

2012 — Argo swept the season, winning PGA, SAG, DGA, and Oscar. 
PGA had 10, Oscar had 9.
Nominees matched 8/10.
Out were Moonrise Kingdom and Skyfall, in was Amour.

2013 — 12 Years a Slave and Gravity both win PGA, Gravity wins DGA, American Hustle won the SAG. 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture.
PGA had 10, Oscar had 9.
Nominees matched 8/10.
Out were Blue Jasmine and Saving Mr. Banks, in was Philomena.

2014 — Birdman swept the season, winning PGA, SAG, DGA, and Oscar. 
PGA had 10, Oscar had 8.
Nominees match 7/10.
Out were Foxcatcher, Gone Girl, Nightcrawler, in was Selma.

2015 — The Big Short won the PGA, The Revenant won the DGA, Spotlight won the SAG and Oscar.
PGA had 10, Oscar had 8
Nominees matched 7/10
Out were Ex Machina, Sicario, Straight Outta Compton, in was Room.

2016 — La La Land won PGA, DGA. Hidden Figures won the SAG. Moonlight won the Oscar.
PGA had 10, Oscar had 9.
Nominees matched 9/10, only Deadpool missed Best Picture.

2017 — The Shape of Water won the PGA, DGA, and Oscar. Three Billboards won the SAG.
PGA had 11, Oscar had 9.
Nominees matched 7/11.
Out were The Big Sick, I, Tonya, Molly’s Game, Wonder Woman, in was Phantom Thread.

2018 — Green Book won the PGA and Oscar. Roma won the DGA. Black Panther won the SAG.
PGA had 10.
Nominees matched 8/10.
Out were Crazy Rich Asians and A Quiet Place.

2019 — 1917 won the PGA, DGA. Parasite won the SAG and Oscar.
PGA had 10. Oscar had 9.
Nominees matched 9/10.
Out was Knives Out.

2020 — Nomadland won the PGA, DGA. Trial of Chicago 7 won the SAG. 
PGA had 10. Oscar had 8.
Nominees matched 7/10.
Out were One Night in Miami, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Borat. In was The Father.

Look, man — when you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you get excited about the little things. In our tiny corner of the world, expanding to 10 nominees for the Oscars is an interesting change. As you can see, in 2009 and 2010 there was high overlap between the PGA and Oscar. It matched less when the Academy went to a fluctuating number of BP nominees. But at least you can see what might have gotten in had they stuck to an even ten. It certainly would have saved them a great deal of headache. They gained nothing from moving it to an unfixed number. They still had the albatross of the preferential ballot and they could not include many of the films the general public liked.

Most people have already been thinking ten. So it won’t be that hard to switch to the new (old) system. A few wonks here or there would try to game the system and predict the exact number, although it was only ever eight or nine nominees.

The preferential ballot leads to unpredictable outcomes. The Oscar race is FLUID, not static. So if you are coming out of the gate in September declaring one film the winner, you MIGHT turn out to be right. You MIGHT not.

If you look at all of the Best Picture winners since 2009, can we find one thing about them that is 100% true across the board? I would say yes, there is. That is that all of them had at least one SAG nomination, whether it was for an actor or an ensemble. Even back when there were five nominees that certainly helped. But there’s no doubt about it, the actors drive the difference. If someone is winning, like Mahershala Ali for Green Book, it can make a difference. Parasite was clearly driven by actors, as it won the SAG ensemble award against The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

The thing is predicting Best Picture was easier when there were five. It was easier when there was no Twitter. But Twitter connects a lot of people who experience the same emotions at once. That is why it’s such a good way to humiliate people and why it has power. It should not have power. It can bring out the absolute worst in people and expose the weakness in those who can’t stand up to it. But it does seem to move the needle.

Remember, the main goal of people on the Left who control Hollywood, the Oscars, advertising, big corporate, etc. is simply one thing: to look “good.” They want to look like good people doing good things. That informs everything they do. They want to look good so badly that they need to throw out into the public square people who are “bad” just to show how “good” they are. And herein lies the main question when it comes to the preferential ballot: what do they push to the top of their ballots and why?

If you want to knock out a movie in contention, you have to make people potentially voting for it feel like they’re not voting for something “good,” but for something “bad.” This worked like a charm for Green Book, Three Billboards, even The Revenant and La La Land. But in Green Book’s case, the attacks were so bad that they backfired, handing it the win.

I bring this up because the one movie many are predicting to win Best Picture when they saw it in Telluride, Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, is a movie that makes you feel GOOD. Good enough to express love when voting to push it to the top of the ballot. But this community, Twitter, activists, and rival studios aren’t done with Belfast. They are going to target it. The more it rises, the harder it will get hit. Green Book was not really a target until it started winning stuff.

That is why it is hard to predict the trajectory of the race this far out. We just don’t know how this will go. Some movies will be ignored, some will be attacked, and some will be pushed. It just depends how successful those campaigns are. That is why I hesitate to go along with strong proclamations in September.

If you follow Oscar Twitter, you will see a lot of Oscar folks making sweeping proclamations with each new eruption in the race. Like, say, if an expected movie doesn’t win somewhere, like the Toronto Audience Award, or even the PGA or the DGA. You want to say, hold on. Just wait. And then wait. But waiting is not something people want to do when Oscar watching. They want to know NOW.

Remember, a movie can look really strong heading in, or look not very strong heading in, and still win. But in general, following the actors is not a bad way to go. You also have to follow the writers and the directors. But they come secondary to the actors.

To that end, here is a very preliminary list:

Best Picture

If I was picking five right now, I’d go with:
Belfast
King Richard
The Power of the Dog
Nightmare Alley
West Side Story

To pair that with the DGA Five:
Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
Reinaldo Marcus Green, King Richard
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Guillermo del Toro, Nightmare Alley
Steven Spielberg, West Side Story

My 6th place would be Ridley Scott, House of Gucci

Then, we look at the Best Director lineup at the Oscars potentially:
Kenneth Branagh, Belfast
Jane Campion, The Power of the Dog
Guillermo del Toro, Nightmare Alley
Paul Thomas Anderson, Licorice Pizza
Denis Villeneuve, Dune
Alt. Joel Coen, The Tragedy of Macbeth

I do not know if it will go this way. And that means there are still two open slots.  Now let’s look at potentially the SAG ensemble five to see if any others might pop up there. My own idea of how it might go:

Belfast
Don’t Look Up
CODA
King Richard
West Side Story

So put that all together and you have ten:

Belfast
King Richard
The Power of the Dog
Nightmare Alley
West Side Story
House of Gucci
Licorice Pizza
Dune
CODA
Don’t Look Up or Tragedy of Macbeth

With alts being: The Last Duel, Cyrano, Tick, Tick… Boom!

Best Actor:
Will Smith, King Richard
Denzel Washington, Tragedy of Macbeth
Peter Dinklage, Cyrano
Benedict Cumberbatch, The Power of the Dog
Leonardo DiCaprio, Don’t Look Up or Bradley Cooper, Nightmare Alley

Best Actress:
Jennifer Hudson, Respect
Kristen Stewart, Spencer
Jessica Chastain, The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Lady Gaga, House of Gucci
Frances McDormand, Tragedy of Macbeth

Alts: Cate Blanchett, Nightmare Alley; Penelope Cruz, Parallel Mothers; Haley Bennett, Cyrano; Jodie Comer, The Last Duel

Supporting Actress:
Aunjanue Ellis, King Richard
Kirsten Dunst, The Power of the Dog
Ann Dowd, Mass
Marlee Matlin, CODA
Ariana DeBose, West Side Story

Supporting Actor:
Richard Jenkins, The Humans
Jared Leto, House of Gucci
Jesse Plemons, The Power of the Dog
Kelvin Harrison, Jr., Cyrano
Bradley Cooper, Licorice Pizza

Adapted Screenplay:
The Power of the Dog
Nightmare Alley
The Last Duel
CODA
The Lost Daughter

Original Screenplay
Belfast
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
Parallel Mothers
The Card Counter

In Documentary, not enough of that race has been nailed down but early frontrunners are: The Rescue, Summer of Soul, Cow.