Alright! In preparation for the upcoming Oscars this Sunday, I have taken it upon myself to try and predict the Best Picture winner as I have done the past three years. To most accurately predict the winner, I analyzed nearly 100 years' worth of Oscar data to try and create a formula that one could use to quantitatively predict the winner. In years past the formula has more or less worked - 2022 and 2020 were off by one film while 2021 was spot on.
The formula is less so a mathematical formula and more so a guideline on the six best attributes the Best Picture winner will have, which are as follows:
- Rating
- In the past thirty years, 70% of the films that won Best Picture were R-Rated (That's 21 films).
- Box Office
- For Best Picture winners, a healthy box office is recommended. They want movies that people have perhaps vaguely heard of through word of mouth, but not movies that topped the charts. While the highest-grossing films of the year may get nominated, only two have won - Titanic in 1997, and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in 2003. I set a firm cap of $360 million as the maximum box office the Best Picture winner may earn (That's the box office of the lowest-grossing MCU film, The Incredible Hulk, and the threshold that 1917 passed on the day of, leading to Parasite's victory in 2019).
- Genre
- The Academy is a sucker for dramas, period pieces, war movies, and epics (In that order). Horror is a no-go (The last winner was Silence of the Lambs in 1992), and comedies are also relatively rare (Birdman in 2014). Additionally, sequels are frowned upon, with only The Godfather Part II and Return of the King winning in the entirety of the Academy's history.
- Diversity
- First off, this category isn't what you think it is. While having a diverse cast is a great way to secure a nomination, it's not a great way to win (Only three films starring non-white folk have won - 12 Years A Slave, Moonlight, and Parasite). Being a foreign film is also not great for the odds, as only one has ever won - Parasite in 2020. While times are a-changing, the fact remains that most Best Picture pictures have almost wholly white ensembles.
- Best Director
- Only six films have won Best Picture without being nominated for Best Director - Wings in 1927, Grand Hotel in 1932, Driving Miss Daisy in 1989, Argo in 2012, Green Book in 2018, and CODA in 2022. While it's a worrying sign that half of the exceptions were in the past decade, the God Emperor of Dune once said "If patterns teach me anything it's that patterns are repeated."
- Streaming
- While the category is most definitely geared towards a post-Netflix world, time and time again the Academy refuses the most Oscar-y Oscar movies to ever be nominated. The common link? Streaming. The Irishman and Roma were perfectly crafted Netflix offered Oscar bait and were emphatically refused. Only one streaming film has ever won the category - CODA in 2022.
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The Best Picture/Rating win chart, as of 2022. |
All Quiet on the Western Front
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Banshees of Inisherin
Elvis
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Fabelmans
TÁR
Top Gun: Maverick
Triangle of Sadness
Women Talking
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It's down between Brendan Fraser and Austin Butler for Best Actor. I'm personally rooting for Fraser as 1) I'm tired of biopics winning Best Actor, and 2) It's Brendan Fraser. |
Eliminating the PG-13 movies kills off Avatar: The Way of Water, Elvis, The Fabelmans, Top Gun: Maverick, and Women Talking, incidentally also killing off the sequels and highest-grossing films, and leaving us with:
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything Everywhere All at Once
TÁR
Triangle of Sadness
Because the Best Director nomination is a must, All Quiet on the Western Front is eliminated. This leaves us with four films that could potentially win: The Banshees of Inisherin, Everything Everywhere All at Once, TÁR, and Triangle of Sadness.
Triangle of Sadness
Triangle of Sadness is, according to Wikipedia, "a satirical black comedy" about a celebrity couple on a luxury cruise with wealthy guests... so basically your preview for Knives Out 3. I don't see this one as winning. While it has found great acclaim overseas by winning the Palme d'Or, stateside it came and went with zero fanfare, earning $23 million worldwide. While the Academy is not opposed to it, they typically try to choose things people heard of before the nominations came out, and an English-language debut of a Swedish filmmaker is decidedly not that.
Additionally, Triangle of Sadness lacks the all-star ensemble many Best Picture winners typically have, starring Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean, Dolly de Leon, and Zlatko Burić. While Triangle of Sadness checks most of the boxes, the odds are still against it due to a general lack of interest, lackluster box office, American audience's unfamiliarity with the film due to it being foreign-ish, and the fact that it won the Palme d'Or, whose winners typically never go on to win Best Picture (The only time that has happened in the past 60 years was Parasite in 2020).
TÁR
Right off the bat, TÁR checks several important categories - it's an R-Rated psychological drama that stars Cate Blanchett, the story of a fictional conductor who has it all and loses it all after an edited video of one of her lectures goes viral. The good news is that TÁR has the buzz - It was selected as the Best Film of the Year by the New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Society of Film Critics, becoming the seventh film in history to be placed #1 by America's top critic groups. Additionally, the last three times it happened - Drive My Car in 2021, The Social Network in 2010, and The Hurt Locker in 2009 - one of them actually did go on to win Best Picture (The Hurt Locker) or are typically seen as the greatest snubs by the Oscars (The Social Network).
But will TÁR win Best Picture? The answer is complicated. While I think that Cate Blanchett will win Best Actress for the role, the movies that win Best Actress rarely go on to win Best Picture (The exceptions to that being Nomadland in 2020, Million Dollar Baby in 2004, and Shakespeare in Love in 1998). The film also failed at the box office, earning only $10 million when compared to the $35 million budget. I think a win from TÁR is possible, but only as an upset. I also think TÁR gets extra voter points since its biggest competition are both comedies, which don't typically win Best Picture.
The Banshees of Inisherin
The Banhsees of Inisherin, starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, is a story set in Ireland about two best friends who abruptly become enemies when one of them decides to unceremoniously end their friendship. It's a movie primed for the Best Picture win through and through, from four acting nominations to a fantastic score to a simple but effective metaphor for the Irish Civil War.
However, the movie bombed at the box office ($33.6 million), and the competition going against it is too strong. If The Banshees of Inisherin wins, it'll be a "neat I guess" Oscar winner (Think: Green Book, Spotlight, Argo). It's not anyone's personal favorite nominee, but if it wins no one (Who has seen it) will be angry.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The big movie to look out for this year is Everything Everywhere All at Once, which is going into the ceremony with eleven nominations, the most of any film nominated, with a practically guaranteed win for Ke Huy Quan in Supporting Actor. Additionally, it's the highest-grossing nominated film that wasn't a bona fide Hollywood blockbuster, most of which was gained through excellent word of mouth that helped it become A24's highest-grossing film.
The film is also generally seen as the frontrunner for Best Picture due to its financial success and general audience interest in the film. What might hold it back is the fact that the movie's a tad bit strange for the Academy. When an organization typically favors realistic, grounded stories about artists and models and aspiring actors, an action comedy that thrives on its own oddness might not fit the mold. A science fiction movie has never won Best Picture, and only one comedy has ever won (Birdman). If Everything Everywhere All at Once is to succeed, the Academy must look outside its own fondness for dramas and tragedies.
In conclusion, my money is on Everything Everywhere All at Once as the likely choice, The Banshees of Inisherin as the boring play-it-safe choice, and TÁR as the "screw general audiences, we're nominating a drama movie no one saw" choice. I'd also look out for The Fabelmans, which, despite its PG-13 rating, is a Spielberg biopic-ish drama about an aspiring director no one saw (Prime Academy material), and Top Gun: Maverick, which is my personal favorite of those nominated.
And, while it was not nominated for anything, Morbius may still sweep the entire ceremony through sheer willpower... speaking of which, where's the #Oscar Fan Favorite? Afraid people will rig it again?
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| Angela Bassett will win Best Supporting Actor, but we all know that Stephanie Hsu deserves it. |
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