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Predicting Oscar’s Best Picture race this year is going to be harder than ever. Apparently, a film has to get 5% of the membership choosing it at number 1 to make the cut. Jeff Wells and I discussed this on our recent podcast but neither of us is very clear on what happens to the ballots whose number 1 choices don’t make the cut during the nominating process. They are discarded? Once a film reaches a magic number (that is, greater than 5%), it is set aside as a nominee. I suppose it works the same way it always does with a preferential ballot.
If you pick, say, Tree of Life for number 1 but only 2% of the Academy agrees with you, and no more number 2 ballots gets added to that pile, Tree of Life is dumped. The member’s number 2 choice is then distributed accordingly. I think what it means is that if a film has NO number 1 votes it can’t get in for Best Picture.
Of the films so far this year, I believe only one has a clear shot at a Best Picture nomination and that’s Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris. Next in line for me would be Harry Potter 7 because it’s very nearly the best of the series and because it’s the last one. After that you have Super 8 and Tree of Life, but they will struggle to hold onto firm footing in the coming months.
What think you? Does anyone have a better idea of how the 5% thing will work and what films could be hurt by this? How many films do you think would have been nominated last year? I think Winter’s Bone and The Kids Are All Right would have been left off the list. But maybe not. Your thoughts?
READ: Steve Pond’s piece on how it could change Best Picture voting