The Oscar race really doesn’t officially start until the beginning of December, when the New York Film Critics and the National Board of Review make their picks. They are usually first out of the gate, and though they are too early on the scene to really predict how the eventual Oscar wins will go, they can sometimes help thin the herd, enough so that Academy voters have an easier time choosing from the vetted contenders.
Not all precursors are created equal in terms of influence. Some have more power to move the needle than others. Lately, the Oscar race has been mostly guided by the guilds. The guilds picks are determined (mostly) by the critics. The critics are determined by the early buzz — the bloggers and journalists and publicists who help shape the consensus. All roads eventually lead to the Oscars, but they are all connected starting with right now.
We are in the early phase, where talk, sometimes box office, sometimes actual buzz, sometimes manufactured buzz makes all the difference. Now is the time to highlight contenders that might not have a shot otherwise. If an early critics award picks up one of those names that could give them enough of a boost to be a viable contender in the race. Sometimes. Other times those names and films die on the vine, only to show up at the Spirit Awards.
A word about that. As the Oscars have become more conventional, less daring, the Spirit Awards offer a healthy alternative. They have become hip enough, and popular enough, so having the cred of “Spirit Award winner” is enough prestige to get that film noticed. Sure, having the Oscar gold label is still the best but the awards race has become about more than just the Oscars.
But if I had to rank the precursors in terms of importance or influence to the Oscar race it would be different today than it would have been when I first started 15 years ago. Back then, the critics had more influence and the guilds had little, if any (minus the DGA). Now, the guilds rule.
I’m taking into consideration influence both on the level of picking nominees and picking winners. Some awards I see as more “important” than others. All in all, the abundance of critics awards that pop up every year from every corner of the world it seems can work together to create a consensus. For instance, this time last year that consensus was building around Zero Dark Thirty. You can actually track the rise and fall of that film by the awards the critics were giving it. At some point, though, the political controversy took the film down. The alternative, it was collectively decided, was Argo and it then began winning awards at the same time Zero Dark Thirty took a fall. While one critics group from, say, Denver or Detroit, doesn’t have much influence on its own, the collective consensus among them does mean something.
Here is how I personally would rank them in terms of importance.
Best Picture
1) The Directors Guild – when it comes to picking Best Picture winner the DGA still rules. It always has, going back 66 years since the DGA began. Even when the Academy didn’t choose Ben Affleck, the DGA overrode that decision, picked Affleck, thus picked Best Picture. The DGA sometimes chooses a winner that the Academy doesn’t agree with and a split occurs. But that happens rarely. Compared to every other group, the DGA rules. This year, like last year, the Academy will be flying blind with their picks, since the DGA won’t announce their nominees until one day before the Academy ballot deadline. Therefore, we’ll probably see another mixed bag of Oscar contenders. But Best Picture will be down to either DGA winner, or the DGA winner and one other film.
2) The Editors Guild – you’d be surprised that the editors have so much to do with determining Best Picture but they do. The Eddies, and the editing category at the Oscars, go hand in hand with Best Picture. It’s even more rare to win without an editing nomination from the Editors Guild. Any film hoping to win the big prize must impress the editors and either win their Eddie award or come close. The editing prize at the Oscars can sometimes be a fluke, and not always match the Best Picture winner. But to want to win Best Picture and not have a corresponding Oscar nomination for editing is never a good thing. Directors and editors are as important to Best Picture as the acting branch. Despite the power and influence of the actors over the Best Picture race, the Screen Actors Guild does not hold the same weight of influence as the DGA or ACE.
3) The Producers Guild – the PGA did not always have that much influence over the Oscar race but since the Academy made the switch from five nominees to ten, and then back to a random number between 5 and 10, the PGA has been the most reliable predictor for Best Picture. Whether it’s a predictor or an influencer cannot be proved but what we do know is that the PGA is the only group that uses what the Academy uses: the preferential ballot with more than five nominees. The PGA still uses a solid ten rather than a random number but it’s their preferential ballot that is really telling. Now, after a film wins the Golden Globe but fails to win the Producers Guild it is stopped dead in its tracks. The last time the PGA did not match Oscar was in 2006 when Little Miss Sunshine beat The Departed (which then won Best Picture). But since the expansion of Best Picture? 100% match of winners and a fairly close match of nominees. As to whether the PGA influences Oscar, they don’t seem to have the same weight as the DGA – but they are a reliable predictor, if nothing else. The PGA also has a group size that matches the Academy’s, or thereabouts – they are at 4,500, where the Academy is at 6,000 or so. The DGA has 14,500 and the SAG has 100,000 or so voting members.
4) The Golden Globes – the reason they are influential is that they serve as a kind of audition for award wins. How a winner “performs” at the Globes can sometimes influence how voters vote. The 100 some odd Hollywood Foreign press aren’t seduced, entertained and catered to for nothing. They matter – partly because, like the DGA and the Eddie, they’ve been around for a long time. They have their own TV show and are well known throughout the world. It lends a certain amount of prestige to see a winner holding the statue but more importantly, they get to give a speech. Whether the Globes match with Best Picture or not (they are hit and miss in this regard) they can and have changed the conversation about a contender. The voters themselves can sometimes be a litmus test for Oscar voters in as much as many of them are on the older side. They also seem to work pretty well now, as we’re living in the era of international cinema; films that do well right now can be seen in any country and be understood. Films specific to America don’t seem to do as well. The latest Best Picture winners have been “plug and play” – with many of the production companies and filmmakers hailing from other countries. The Oscar race isn’t an American game anymore – it’s become somewhat bigger than that. The Globes fit in nicely with this new normal.
5) The BAFTA – the BAFTA have become increasingly annoying over the years. They have cuddled up to Oscar so much that they’ve lost the thing that used to make them cool: their willingness to be different from the Oscars. They moved their date to happen before the Oscars right around the year 2000. They changed their voting last year to be more like the Oscars and they gave Argo their top prize. But because they can sometimes influence the Academy to choose a particular performer or film more so than any other group (The Pianist, for instance, was noticed first by only BAFTA) they have a fairly high place in the line of influencers, so much so that pundits look to BAFTA to figure out what surprises might be in store at the Oscars. Add to that, the Academy’s anglophile streak, and its large contingent of British voters. The BAFTA has become like Oscar’s twin – one year they’re identical twins, another year they’re fraternal twins. But they seem to be moving closer to being conjoined.
6) The National Board of Review / New York Film Critics – it used to be that the National Board of Review was influential because it was the first critics group to announce. It also used to be that the New York Film Critics were an elite enough group that their choices really made a difference in how the Oscar race went. But the NYFCC isn’t what it used to be in terms of membership. It isn’t just that film criticism has changed so that anyone can be a critic now, it’s also that there are so many competing critics groups that, many of them housing the same members even, that it’s hard to stand apart as the critical voice of the season. No group really holds that kind of sway anymore. But the NYFCC and the NBR announce first. That makes their influence still on the stronger side. The NBR can help give a boost to a film that is hovering on the fringes. The New York Film Critics have, in the past, been the better decider of what will eventually be Best Picture.
7) Screen Actors Guild – the SAG is influential for actors, for sure. But often the largeness of its voting body (100,000) dwarfs the Academy’s 6,000 or so. Nonetheless, it can sometimes be the best predictor for Best Actor and Actress, or even the supporting categories. Lately, it feels like the consensus builds and nothing can set it off course. The SAG gave Viola Davis Best Actress recently but the Academy went for Meryl Streep. Still, it is televised, which means a contender can get a healthy share of publicity. A good speech to a large audience will always go a long way towards an Oscar win and in that way, the SAG can be a platform for a potential winner to showcase their respectability. When Jennifer Lawrence won last year she gave a poised, well-coached speech at the SAGs, thus ensuring her slam-dunk Oscar win to cap off her streak.
8) The Los Angeles Film Critics – I still don’t know what to make of last year’s LAFCA decision making process. They went into the thing vowing to take down Zero Dark Thirty, which had been winning everything. They did just that, but in so doing, they made their choice based on the choice of other film critics that came before them. I don’t think that’s a great way to go about choosing the best. Still, they do have influence, as they’ve been around almost as long as New York and they are here, in Los Angeles. Their Best Picture winners do tend to go on to get nominated at least. Like New York, they have retained a certain amount of respectability by having been around so long, but also like New York, their membership isn’t exactly exclusive as it used to be – and there tends to be a lot of crossover between various voting groups that it renders the whole thing kind of pointless. Still, LA is LA and they hold their place in line of influencers.
10) The Writers Guild – The WGA sometimes matches Oscar, sometimes doesn’t. Getting a WGA nomination doesn’t mean a corresponding Oscar nomination all of the time. Not getting a WGA nomination doesn’t mean not getting an Oscar nomination, particularly since often times the best scripts aren’t WGA eligible. But they do have influence nonetheless just terms of which scripts they pick to win. Their winners matter much more than their nominees.
10) The Critics Choice/BFCA – this group wants to be like Oscar, so much so that it often publicizes this during their press releases. They aren’t so much influencers as they are predictors – on the occasions that they pick a movie out of the blue in hopes that it can be pushed into the Oscar race that never really materializes. Nonetheless, they are trying to be a bigger player with their telecast (the horror, the horror) and if they can manage to be watched by more people, they might become as influential as the Globes. They do draw the same number of stars as the other big awards shows. There is no exclusivity with their membership – the Oscar bloggers, most of them, are BFCA members – Kris Tapley, Jeff Wells, Anne Thompson, Pete Hammond, David Poland, etc. Take it for what it’s worth. Some are legit critics, of course.
And there you have it. Some of the other guilds can sometimes make a difference, like the Cinema Audio Society, the American Society of Cinematographers, the Motion Picture Sound Editors Guild, the Annies, etc. But they are generally specific to their categories – except when you can count how many times a favorite appears on one of their lists. Though it’s not always the case, most of the time the more lists a film appears on the better its chances in the Best Picture race.
The madness begins early in December.
Bill (above):
I’ve often thought there should be an Oscar acting category for “Best Cameo Performance” – regardless of gender. I think it would be quite an interesting category to honor every year. The Emmys have something like that . . . Best Guest Appearance in a blah-blah-blah.
Also, I wish they’d bring back the juvenile Oscars they used to hand out (if I recall correctly, Hailey Mills won the last juvenile Oscar for “Polyanna” in 1960). You would certainly weed out child performances like Haley Joel Osment in “The Sixth Sense” and Justin Henry in “Kramer vs Kramer”. Anna Panquin could have won that award as well for “The Pianist”, leaving the door open for Winona Ryder’s performance in “The Age of Innocence” – which she should have won.
I still say there should be some kind of metric to determine who is a lead/supporting player – like if you appear in 51% of your film’s running time you’re a lead, etc. Sure fire way to eliminate this lead/supporting argument every year.
More interstingly, the studios could “apply” their players for respective categories to a nominating committee. The committee can either accept or not accept the application, and the voters would know beforehand who is considered lead/supporting, as predetermined by the committee.
Oh come on, LAFCA wanted to “take down” ZD30? That’s a bit conspiracy theory-ish…then again The Master was awarded mucho from them and it was my favorite film of the last few years 😛
correction, please… “lots of top ten lists will put 12 years at the top, but slip in a few films before listing gravity.”
for predictions, the top ten lists, which vary quite a bit from rankings one might take from MetaCritic scores.
hundreds of critics doing the same thing as Academy members – ranking films after having seen them.
I’m guessing that 12 years will open up a big lead over Gravity in the top ten list compilations, whereas, now, they have nearly equal scores from MetaCritic, that a lot of lists will put Gravity at the top, but slip in a few films before listing Gravity….. and that a different film will be seen as the #2 film of the year.
not a knock on Gravity, just a prediction. Fine by me if a film as good as Gravity wins it all – beats the shit over the big winners of the last three years.
I always look forward to the choices of two film critic organizations: LAFC and National Board of Review.
Why?
Because only the Los Angeles Film Critics had the courage to anoint “Brazil” best picture-best director-best screenplay in 1985 – a film AMPAS egregiously overlooked. Brazil, for me, was easily the best film of 1985 and it stands up rather well over time . . . in fact, it is still a timeless, insightful, thought-provoking film.
And I will always respect the National Board of Review for choosing 1969’s Best Film: “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”. It is still in the record books as the film with the most Oscar nominations (NINE!) to never be nominated in the Best Picture category. And what did AMPAS choose instead? “Hello Dolly”. Christ, that still makes me angry just writing it.
It may seem a little trite to give these two groups the weight I do, but over the years they have chosen some out-of-the-ordinary picks. And I like their ability to stretch beyond the ordinary in choosing their picks.
“I kinda like that the Academy will fly blind again this year when choosing the best 5 among directors. No doubt that if they manage to nominate the eventual DGA winner, they’ll go for him thinking, “Oh, shit. At least we got that guy right this year”. But I’ll take Haneke and Zeitlin over Hooper and Affleck anyday. It was very boring to see the same 5 names over and over again, sometimes with a slight change of one.”
I like that the Academy will fly blind, too. But I would’ve surely taken Bigelow over Zeitlin. I don’t know, there’s something about indie film directors that seems derivative; and I think in Zeitlin’s case he made a wannabe Malick movie. I don’t get why so many young filmmakers are fascinated with Malick of all directors. That’s not the right path to take…you’ll never find commercial success that way, and be able to make your next movie. Controversy or no, I would’ve relied on the director’s branch to nominate Bigelow for her outstanding direction in that film. Usually they are the branch that nominates the best in the field. Last year, unfortunately, they didn’t.
Sonja, she wasn’t changed. they just voted for her that way, the right way.
@Aragorn
Well, we all know Kate Winslet was pushed in lead the very last minute. Technically she won the SAG in 2009 too, only in the supporting category.
As for others, Jodie Foster, Annette Bening, Reneé Zellweger and Julie Christie have won the SAG but lost the Oscar, like Viola Davis.
Aren’t the voters for the SAG Awards selected out of the +10 000 members? I’ve heard they are a bit more than 2000, or is that wrong?
So it could be that those voters, who have selected the SAG winner, are not the same members at the Academy.
Or simply said, the race was VERY close (at least the races between Cristie/Cotillard and Davis/Streep) and the Oscar winner just had more votes. How much, we’ll never know.
I am an American. And yes, the BAFTAS used to be better with variety of their noms/winners. But I still like the,m an awful lot. The ceremonies are lots of fun, mercifully short, big names show up (now), speeches tend to be less rehearsed, and you still do get a variety of noms, while still being a very interesting indicator of whats to come with Oscar.
There has been one more significant change when it comes to the DGA this year. This year Paris Barclay became the DGA’s first black and first openly gay president.
I think the BAFTA’s get some unfair criticism. Yes they are becoming more and more the big Oscar precursor and as you say if there are any shocks in store then BAFTA will finger point them. BUT in the past when the Brits did not follow Oscar’s lead then they were criticised for being “too British”. A Brit won an award and people would dismiss it as “well it is a British awards show what do you expect”. Personally, I think the BAFTA’s have a broader view of cinema and USED to be much more daring in their choices. Nowadays, probably a very high percentage of members who vote for BAFTA also vote for Oscar which is why there are so many similarities.
i like that too. i’d really love to see what the academy would choose if they weren’t so influenced by everything else first. if they could somehow vote before anyone else, or at least turn ballots in first. in the old days it was just them (even though there have always been critics awards and the globes are pretty old now, but no one used to care about any other awards body, so the oscars still did what they wanted). i’d be interested in seeing what they chose without feeling any kind of pressure from other groups, or being told what’s good by others so that they don’t have to see it.
I kinda like that the Academy will fly blind again this year when choosing the best 5 among directors. No doubt that if they manage to nominate the eventual DGA winner, they’ll go for him thinking, “Oh, shit. At least we got that guy right this year”. But I’ll take Haneke and Zeitlin over Hooper and Affleck anyday. It was very boring to see the same 5 names over and over again, sometimes with a slight change of one. Right now it might go all over the place and I consider that a good thing, taking into consideration that there’s a lot of (new) talent in directing this year. This actually means that Ryan Coogler, J.C. Chandor or even Abdellatif Kechiche stand a chance to be nominated.I allways had the feeling that the DGA usually goes with the usual suspects when it comes to theis choices and whenever the Academy thinks different it turns out to for the good. There are exeptions – it’s a crime that Chrostopher Nolan hasn’t been nominated yet, but this is really one of the few times the Oscars got it wrong. They’re the ones who went for Greengrass instead of Condon, they’re the ones who apreciate the talent of Mike Leigh, they’re the ones responsible for the wonderful nominations for Fernando Merielles, Pedro Almodovar, Robert Altman (twice), David Lynch (twice), Atom Egoyan, Krzysztof Kieślowski, John Singleton and many more that were overlooked by the DGA, precursors and quite often didn’t even pop up on the Oscar radar. I like the fact that the Oscars are “doomed” to think by themselves when it comes to picking directors, because IMHO only good things might come out of it.
However I’m starting to fear, I don’t know why, that Alfonso Cuaron is going to miss out the directors nod. Don’t ask me why, it’s a gut feeling and probably my crown NGNG for this season, but something tells me he might get snubbed Nolan style.
12 years a slave has already stole it’s thunder
……MANDELA isn’t going to win a single award at the Oscars
ALERT, ALERT:
Mandela may be a new player in the Best Picture race.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2013/11/president-obama-harvey-weinstein-mandela
That’s kind of wrong that some Oscar bloggers are part of the process. That is like insider trading. I’m gonna go call the SEC right now!
BAFTA ….BEST PICTURE …..12 YRS A SLAVE
BEST DIRECTOR …..MCCQUEEN
BEST ACTOR …EJIOFOR
BEST SUPPORTING ….FASSBENDER
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS …NYONGO
seems a pretty safe bet
but did you notice how eerily prophetic the Golden Globes were last season predicting ARGO and Waltz when Lincoln and Tommy Lee were riding high ?….I for one will be paying close attention to their awards in January
Coinciding really wasn’t the word I wanted to use there, it’s close but not right. Sometimes two things can have the same result without one having influenced the other. I don’t think Nate Silver would approve of this article.
I think sometimes people confuse influence with coinciding outcomes.
Since I will be doing this this season for the 26th year!(and counting) on my television show in New York, click on my name to see what you’ve been missing(or are watching), it’s interesting that sage Sasha points out how much has changed. AND HOW!
Harvey Weinstein single-handedly changed everything and then every body else copied him.
Campaigns now exist FROM THE GET-GO. And they HAVE to.
There are “Oscar strategists” now who are paid an ungodly sum, to wrangle all this. Six figures? That could be possible.
The rise of the NYFCC to be FIRST! Yes. It IS more important now that it is. Thus signaling the subsequent demise of the National Board of Review. They are not FIRST now. So they are what now? Simply confused? Though it must be noted that this group is the only one that has a predominately female/gay membership.
The rise of BAFTA, as Sasha notes, but being of British descent myself and rabidly Anglophilic, I think it’s just grand that every year the British voting bloc gets more and more influential.
The rise of the Producer’s Guild to be now a major force as Sasha duly notes is HUGE.
The putting/jamming of more leading actors and actresses into Supporting categories where they really shouldn’t be. Just get Robert Osborne going on THAT topic! It’s now such a commonplace people just accept it. Although Helen Hunt WAS a lead in “The Sessions” last year found her in Supporting, which many resented. Whereas Anne Hathaway’s winning role in “Les Miz” was exactly what that category was designed to honor. An all-too-brief but spectacular turn.
The rise, and respect, for international nominees in all the top categories, as Sasha points out. The international box-office is now considered AS important if not MORE important than the domestic take. IF THE FILM IS IN ENGLISH.
And one main thing that has changed and that changed the Oscars, too, is the interneting of everything. We wouldn’t be here with Sasha talking like this to each other in this e-manner 25 years ago.
The decline of the Best Actress race to being something more akin to the Best Leading Role race. Or the ONLY leading role for a woman race.
And Supporting Actress is now almost an after thought. The booby prize. No pun intended.
But I don’t think even the Internet has had the same impact on all this that singly Harvey Weinstein has had. Although this year, he’s got nuthin’
Why the big bold BEST PICTURE halfway through this article?
Is this a ranking of the guilds influence over all of the Oscars, or just the Best Picture race?
I’m glad you’re here to do this, Sasha. Because in all my years, I’ve never understood how this stuff works. That’s why I just use my vibes and root for my favorites. I know I won’t ever be “right”.
Really ? I would have guessed that SAG and BAFTA are considerably more important Oscar-wise than the HFPA and especially the NBR. I was under the impression that while the latter two usually try to predict what Academy voters will do, the former two actually do what the Academy voters would…considering a lot of them – unlike the HFPA/NBR/BFCA people – ARE Academy voters.
Oh, and:
Golden Globe Best Picture Drama – Gravity
Golden Globe Best Picture Comedy/Musical – Saving Mr. Banks
I dont know why whenever SAG is mentioned here, it seems that the only example used is Viola Davis winning SAG but then losing Oscar to Meryl Streep…What about Meryl Streep winning SAG in 2009 and then losing the Oscar to Kate Winslet in 2009???
Just a thought:
NYFCC Best Picture: 12 Years A Slave
runner up: Gravity
LAFCA Best Picture: Nebraska
runner up: 12 Years A Slave
NBR Best Picture: 12 Years A Slave
DGA Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron
BAFTA Best Film: 12 Years A Slave
PGA Best Picture: Gravity
BFCA Best Picture: 12 Years A Slave
Love your write-up!
I might add more weight to the PGA Awards, especially over the last few years. That was the show where we knew The Hurt Locker was winning and that dropped the bomb that (gulp) The King’s Speech, The Artist, and Argo were winning. Especially The King’s Speech. I remember the reactions that night, when the entire awards season changed in 2011. And then the accounts of Kathryn Bigelow’s reaction when Tom Hooper won the DGA.
Big shame about the BAFTAs! I agree. They made some inspired choices in the 80s and 90s. Sean Connery won best actor for The Name of the Rose, a great film and performance that received no attention from Oscar. British men have won there. Peter O’Toole, Michael Caine, and Richard Burton have lead awards too! Judi Dench has 10 BAFTAs. Is there a specific year we can target the change took place? Was it simply when it was moved to before the Oscars?
Also agree with your point that the award precursors for actors are different than for Best Picture. SAG has huge impact, as does BAFTA now.
I think you nailed it Sasha. Well done.
Thanks for this article! I think it lays the rules of the game (if there really are any rules to speak of) perfectly. For those of us who look at this as sort of a blood sport – this is where the drama really begins. The films that win the early precursors become just as vulnerable as those films that don’t make the final round in the precursors.
Remember the line Awards Daily quotes from All the President’s Men – ‘the trick is not minding’. The time for having a favorite film in the race is less important in the greater scheme of things. It’s now about having a solid PR campaign.