A few years ago I spent a fair bit of my free time collecting data on all of the films nominated for an Academy Award and I built a statistical model for all 24 categories. In that first year, my model predicted a big win for
The Hurt Locker, and it was right. The next year I decided to publish the predictions of the model on the internet. Unfortunately, the model picked
The Social Network. After that I've been occasionally tinkering with it. It successfully picked
The Artist in 2011, but who didn't? It also picked
Argo pretty early in 2012. So on the whole, the model has been pretty successful. But it isn't as if it has had a hard go of it. In the most contested of these past 4 years, it chose the wrong film. And that brings us to this year.
12 Years a Slave is the consensus favorite. Most experts are picking it to win, and it certainly is the film most favored by the critics. Nine out of the fourteen critics groups I track in the statistical model chose it as the best film of the year. But when you look at the other categories, it looks like a dud. The experts don't think it will leave with more than three, including best picture. That isn't the profile of a winner.
Gravity seems to be the most worthy. It is nominated in 10 categories, and is the favorite to win in 7 of them. And that doesn't include Best Picture. But it does include Best Director, which would suggest an unusual split. It is hard to say that a film had the best directing, best cinematography, best editing, best score, best sound mixing, best sound editing, and best special effects, but wasn't the best picture of the year. Yet it has only managed to win in a tie with 12 Years a Slave at the Producers Guild Awards, which tends to favor movies that made a lot of money, like Gravity.
American Hustle is the most liked. It nabbed 10 nominations as well, including a nomination in all four of the acting categories. The acting branch is by far the largest of the Academy, and it's members chose American Hustle for Best Cast at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. It also won the Golden Globe for Best Comedy/Musical. It's profile going into the Oscars isn't unlike Shakespeare in Love, Chicago, or Crash. All films which upset the more critically acclaimed fare with the support of the actors.
Now. If only we had a way to objectively process all of this information based on their observed relevance among past winners and losers. Oh! Wait! That's what statistics is for!
The model predicts the winner separately based on three areas: other awards, other Oscar nominations, and critics awards. It then combines those predictions into one based on how well those areas predict winners. Here is what it says for Best Picture.
Film
|
Odds
|
Awards
|
Noms
|
Critics
|
American Hustle
|
46.20%
|
38.05%
|
35.30%
|
8.57%
|
Captain Phillips
|
2.91%
|
2.97%
|
14.99%
|
9.04%
|
Dallas Buyers Club
|
9.51%
|
0.76%
|
32.99%
|
9.04%
|
Gravity
|
9.79%
|
58.47%
|
2.65%
|
7.28%
|
Her
|
1.12%
|
0.23%
|
0.61%
|
15.52%
|
Nebraska
|
0.99%
|
0.14%
|
1.23%
|
9.04%
|
Philomena
|
0.98%
|
0.91%
|
0.68%
|
9.04%
|
12 Years a Slave
|
26.50%
|
7.92%
|
21.09%
|
73.02%
|
The Wolf of Wall Street
|
2.00%
|
0.46%
|
11.06%
|
9.04%
|
I've left the sub-predictions for the narrative. American Hustle is winning on it's formidable awards success and the clear love displayed for it in the nominations. You may be wondering why Gravity is doing so poorly with it's 10 nominations compared to an equivalent number of nominations for Hustle, and 4 more than Dallas Buyers Club got. That is because American Hustle was nominated for the "artistic" Oscars like acting and costumes, while Gravity was nominated for "technical" Oscars like cinematography and special effects.
That said, American Hustle is more likely to lose than it is to win. There is a 53.8% chance something else takes the prize, and the most favored of those is 12 Years a Slave, somewhat distantly followed by Gravity. And in this chaos, the model even thinks Dallas Buyers Club has a shot.
Now, here is where I have to give a nerdy caveat. The model is calibrated on past winners and losers, most of which were decided in a different system. A system where you could win best picture with just 21% of the vote. Since 2009, the Academy has used a "preferential voting system" in which voters rank the nominees, and the winner is decided by eliminating the lowest vote getter and redistributing those votes to their next choice. It is a system designed to choose a consensus nominee and avoid surprises like Dallas Buyers Club.
If I had to guess, I'd say that Gravity wins the most first place votes, but not enough to win outright. American Hustle will win the second most, followed by 12 Years a Slave. Then it is just a match to see who wins the "second choice" contest for the members who picked one of the other films first, and that is an incredibly tough call. But I'll try and make it.
Brian's Oscar Picks
Best Picture: 12 Years a Slave
My Vote: Gravity
My favorite film of the year was Gravity, and I will be delighted if it wins, but I think both it and American Hustle have lovers and haters, and not a lot in between. In other words, those who don't pick them as their top choice probably won't pick them above 12 Years a Slave, which seems to be the definition of a "consensus" win. But honestly, I think this can go to any of the three. My gut instinct odds are 35% 12 Years a Slave, 35% American Hustle, and 30% Gravity. At least it will be exciting.
Best Director: Alfonso Cuarón
My Vote: Alfonso Cuarón
The model gives him a 99.59% change of winning, and rightfully so. But it is worth re-iterating that the Academy does not often split Best Director and Best Picture. If anything, though, this bolsters Gravity's chances, rather than harming Cuarón's. He's won every award that matters so far, and he will win this one too.
Best Actor: Matthew McConaughey
My Vote: Matthew McConaughey
Unlike the model, which gives McConaughey an 85% chance to win, this is a tough call for me. I think Leo's performance in Wolf of Wall Street is amazing. He is also more deserving. McConaughey is one of the worst actors of all time. He's just terrible, and he should quit. He is bad in everything he does. Except this. In this one role, he turned in a truly spectacular performance. Somehow, he earned it.
Best Actress: Cate Blanchett
My Vote: Cate... no Sandra... no Meryl... Judi maybe?... Ok, Amy Adams.
Blanchett is the 99% favorite here, but what an incredible set of performances! All five were Oscar worthy in my view, but if I were a voter, I think I would probably end up checking the box next to Amy Adams.
Best Supporting Actor: Jared Leto
My Vote: Jared Leto
Leto is a 97% favorite to win, and he ought to. There has been a fourth quarter push for Michael Fassbender, who would be a worthy winner (like Best Actress, all the nominees here are deserving), but I'd pick Leto over the bunch. He didn't hold back. Nobody would admit it, but I'd bet anything that almost everyone who saw this film recoiled when his character was introduced. Transgender is still too taboo, still too weird for most people. But everyone was won over by the end. Through his incredible performance, Leto did for the audience what his character did for the story. He helped us overcome our prejudice by offering a deeply human side to those who are marginalized and discriminated against. That sort of thing should be honored.
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence
My Vote: Jennifer Lawrence
The model gives Lupita a 76% chance to win. Lawrence has a 22% chance. But I'd like to point out something a bit odd. Jennifer Lawrence was the only one from American Hustle to get nominated by the Screen Actor's Guild. That suggests that the actors in the Academy liked American Hustle A LOT more than their fellow SAG actors did. The Academy also has a lot of "money" people. A lot of producers, and even a whole branch of lawyers. Of all the people nominated, Lawrence is almost certainly drawing the biggest number of viewers, and I think many will see rewarding those viewers as enough reason to give her the award. Lupita is the odds-on favorite. But my gut says Lawrence.
Best Original Screenplay: Her
My Vote: Dallas Buyers Club
So... this is where I'm drawing the line on updating the data for the model. You'll just have to do without calculated odds from here on out. But I can guess that it would spit out something close to what the experts say. It is a super close race between Her and American Hustle. The critics and the Golden Globes have picked Her. So has the Writer's Guild, which tracks incredibly well with the Oscar. The BAFTA went to American Hustle, but Her wasn't even nominated. I think Her has the edge. My personal choice would be Dallas Buyers Club though. It was a movie that could have been done very poorly (e.g. Philadelphia), but it wasn't. It told an incredible story incredibly well.
Best Adapted Screenplay: 12 Years a Slave
My Vote: Philomena
This one looks to be the only slam dunk for 12 Years a Slave. And in a way it will be a win-by-proxy for the author of the original work, which is a nice symbolic gesture. But I was genuinely surprised by Philomena, and the screenplay was the driving force behind that surprise. Of all the places where my vote differs from my prediction, this is the one I'd most like to see go the way of my vote.
Best Animated Feature: Frozen
My Vote: Frozen
This is the first category where I haven't seen all the nominees. Unfortunately, I did see The Croods. What an unbelievably terrible film. Nevertheless, Frozen has this one locked up.
Best Foreign Film: The Great Beauty
My Vote: None.
This is the first category where I haven't seen any of the nominees. But the signs point to The Great Beauty from Italy. This is a notoriously hard category to predict, however, and I am a prime example of why. Not a lot of people actually watch these movies, so the voting pool is a bit random.
Best Cinematography: Gravity
My Vote: Gravity
Emmanuel Lubezki has been burned before, but this time I think he has it locked down. Gravity was undeniably the best shot film of the year.
Best Editing: Gravity
My Vote: Gravity
I always feel weird about editing. I don't know how to judge the category. Editors can be incredibly important to the filmmaking process. They help choose between takes, they help set the pacing of the film, and they help tell the story. They are essentially co-directors. So I tend to default towards giving it to the same film as Best Director. Incidentally, the Academy often does the same. But watch out for Captain Phillips here. It picked up the award from the Editor's Guild, which also tracks well with the Oscars. It would also be a very worthy winner.
Best Production Design: The Great Gatsby
My Vote: Her
When it comes to production and costumes, the Academy loves excess, and The Great Gatsby had excess. I just wish it weren't such a bad movie. The production design for Her is what makes the film Oscar worthy. Forget screenplay, this is where Her should be competing. Unfortunately, the BAFTAs and critics forecast a victory for excess.
Best Costume Design: The Great Gatsby
My Vote: American Hustle
I'd really like to be casting my vote for Gravity here. Apparently the Academy forgot they were in space suits. Ask me to make you a 3-piece suit from the 20's and I think I could probably do it. Ask me to make you a space suit, and I think I'd have a better chance of becoming an actual astronaut and lending you mine. Seriously, this category is always super lame. Gatsby is winning this award elsewhere, so it is good bet here as well. But American Hustle is making a play for it (and I think its the most deserving of the nominees).
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Dallas Buyers Club
My Vote: Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa
American Hustle won this at the BAFTAs, but wasn't nominated at the Oscars. Beyond that there is little to go on. Voters probably won't have seen Bad Grandpa and The Lone Ranger, so Dallas Buyers Club is the safe bet here. I'll be rooting for Bad Grandpa though, which I think is truly deserving. Those makeup artists didn't just have to convince the audience, they had to convince the people standing next to Johnny Knoxville, and they did.
Best Original Score: Gravity
My Vote: Gravity
I'm a huge John Williams fan, but The Book Thief felt like a minor effort. Gravity was the only indispensable score of the year, though I don't think it was particularly masterful. In fact, none of the nominated scores were particularly impressive. Gravity has the edge with previous awards, though, so you should feel comfortable marking it down on your ballot.
Best Original Song: Let It Go - Frozen
My Vote: Let It Go - Frozen
This category is turning out to be fairly competitive. U2 has been promoting their work, and Pharrell is getting the "no backlash" boost from not campaigning and being incredibly popular right now. Nevertheless, I think Disney will win the category they have long dominated.
Best Sound Mixing: Gravity
My Vote: Gravity
This film is a candidate for the best sound mixing of all time. Richard Donner once said that it was John Williams' score that made us believe Superman could fly. We saw it happening on screen, but Williams is the one who sold it. Gravity's sound mixing is what put me in space, and previous awards predict the Academy will agree.
Best Sound Editing: Gravity
My Vote: Gravity
See above.
Best Visual Effects: Gravity
My Vote: Gravity
Are there even any other films nominated in this category? I'm surprised the Oscar's aren't giving a special award for the special effects achievements in this film.
Best Documentary Feature: The Act of Killing
My Vote: The Square
This category is missing a lot of winners from the other awards. The expert opinion is for 20 Feet from Stardom, but I can't figure out why. It was a decent documentary, but not particularly great. The Act of Killing was the most impactful of the nominees, and it won at the BAFTAs. I think it will win the Oscar. The Square was the best though.
Best Documentary Short: The Lady in Number 6
A 109 year old Holocaust survivor plays the piano. Sounds like a winner to me.
Best Animated Short: Get a Horse!
Tough call, but this one features the voice of the king of the Oscars: Walt Disney.
Best Live Action Short: The Voorman Problem
Your guess is as good as mine, but The Voorman Problem is the only one in English. It also has Martin Freeman in it. Steve Pond made a good case for Helium though.
