Whenever you hear someone say “that movie can’t win on a preferential ballot,” it’s necessary to nail down what they mean by that.
Some will say “it has a bummer ending.”
Some will say “it’s too divisive.”
Some will say “it’s too controversial.”
And some will say, of late, it doesn’t have a social justice component (made by or about a woman and/or a person of color).
While it’s true that all of these can come into play, sometimes just pure brilliance can drive a movie through. It doesn’t happen often, but it happens enough that we have to remember rules were meant to be broken.
Parasite had a bummer ending. So did Nomadland, more or less. They had other factors that spurred voters to push them to the top of their ballots.
CODA, of course, had both the feel-good ending and the idea that they could do something good with their vote for the predominantly deaf cast.
A happy ending isn’t always the way to Oscar voters’ hearts, as we discovered last year with Belfast. It can help but there has to be other things at play. For instance: what film might make the SAG voters leap to their feet in a standing ovation (Parasite, CODA)? And will that matter when it comes to Best Picture?
What film is going to get attacked in the press? What film or director is going to win the DGA? Are voters ready to abandon the need to “do something good” with their votes and just vote for a film they really loved?
A friend of mine wrote me a minute ago to tell me that a prominent Oscar pundit told him that there was 0% chance a certain film could win Best Picture. There are some films in the race right now that are definitely at 0% chance — but the movie he referenced is not one of them. Some Oscar pundits can become so intoxicated by their own power it blinds them to the possibilities. I kept thinking CODA had no shot because it only had three Oscar nominations. But that was wrong. The Oscar race is fluid, not static. If voters feel themselves being herded to pick the frontrunner, they will often rebel and go with their hearts.
A plurality vote measures passionate support. But a ranked-choice vote measures the overall preference of the majority. To win, you want to be a movie that will be selected by most voters in the 1st or 2nd slot. At worst, you can be 3rd. A movie can’t win if it doesn’t hit the top 3 for most voters. They push films to the top of their ballots because of pure love and a need to do something good. Those two things.
Divisive films that inspire love or hate, whether that is an organic reaction to the movie itself or resistance to the frontrunner, makes no difference. If enough people rank it lower on their ballots, it can’t win. Voters often do the dance of “I loved this movie but I should vote for this one.” Whether people actually thought Argo was the best film of the year, or The King’s Speech or even CODA, is secondary to how voting for the movie made them feel. They have to feel protective of and love for the characters in the film.
We loved the son in Parasite. We loved the family in CODA. We felt badly for Frances McDormand in Nomadland and maybe loved her. We loved the protagonist in Moonlight. Even Green Book’s win was driven by love for the characters. These are all people who struggle with ordinary life and success. That feeling you get when a movie ends, where your heart has grown bigger and you want to hug the characters, the movie, yourself or your friend — that’s the kind of movie that can win.
Who is doing the voting? The Academy is divided up into various branches. Here is the latest count of the branches by the numbers, prior to the most recent addition of voters, per Steve Pond at The Wrap:
Actors: 1,336 (-23)
Short Films and Feature Animation: 844 (+26)
Executives: 681 (+18)
Producers: 634 (+20)
Documentary: 618 (+23)
Visual Effects: 606 (+26)
Marketing and Public Relations: 605 (+18)
Directors: 568 (+4)
Sound: 550 (+14)
Members-at-Large: 554 (+11)
Writers: 504 (+5)
Production Design: 387 (+5)
Music: 383 (+9)
Film Editors: 375 (+4)
Cinematographers: 290 (+8)
Makeup Artists and Hairstylists: 231 (+7)
Costume Designers: 171 (+4)
Casting Directors: 150 (+8)Total voting members: 9,487 (+187)
Associate members: 86 (-9)
Total active members: 9,573 (+178)
Emeritus members: 914 (+33)
Total active and inactive members: 10,487 (+211)
This year, they invited 397 members, according to Deadline.
The Academy has been trying to change their demographics for several years now by inviting more intentional members, more women, more people of color. At the moment, however, the demographics are as follows:
80% white, 67% male, 30% female (from Statista).
One way to track Best Picture with a ranked-choice ballot is these three things, in order of importance:
- The Screenplay
- The Actors
- Director
2009-2021
Films that won Screenplay along with Best Pic: 10
Films that won an acting prize with Best Pic: 7
Films that won with Director and Screenplay: 4
Films that won with just Director: 3
Films that won Best Picture + Screenplay, but not director (the most):
2012 — Argo
2013 — 12 Years a Slave
2015 — Spotlight
2016 — Moonlight
2018 — Green Book
2021 — CODA
Films with Picture, Screenplay, and Director:
2009 — The Hurt Locker
2010 — The King’s Speech
2014 — Birdman
2019 — Parasite
Acting winners + Picture:
2010 — Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
2011 — Jean DuJardin, The Artist
2013 — Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave
2016 — Mahershala Ali, Moonlight
2018 — Mahershala Ali, Green Book
2020 — Frances McDormand, Nomadland
2021 — Troy Kotsur, CODA
Best Picture winners that won with Director but no Screenplay:
2011 — The Artist
2017 — The Shape of Water
2020 — Nomadland
As you can see, screenplay strength and acting are two key factors that drive a film to win on a preferential ballot. Director matters less in this era because it’s been decoupled from the top prize, and can be considered a major secondary prize. They wanted to award Jane Campion last year but they liked CODA better overall.
With so many directors writing their own screenplays, voters tend to like to spread the wealth more than they like to give all of their awards to one person. Only two movies have done that since 2009: Birdman and Parasite. Both won SAG ensemble. They both had hard-charging passion heading into the race and had the support of the largest branch, the actors.
In terms of original screenplay, all of these films are competing:
The Fabelmans
The Banshees of Inisherin
Everything, Everywhere All At Once
Babylon
Elvis
TAR
Empire of Light
Adapted screenplay so far has:
Women Talking
She Said
Avatar: The Way of Water
The Whale
Only She Said is written by someone other than the director. In general, that movie isn’t going to win both of those top prizes. The only exception to that is pure love. If voters feel pure love for a movie, they will give it everything.
When in doubt, follow the screenplay. I already know which original screenplay I think is the best written. Whether that movie will also win Best Picture we can’t really know until we’ve seen everything.
Does no-one feel beyond Farrell,Butler and Fraser nobody in Best Actor is really assured of the 4 and 5 spots,I keep suspecting Tom Cruise will get in and am certain Curtis will if the film is beloved and gets all the necessary nominations.
Yes, it seems that there aren’t strong contenders beyond the three you mention (I think people might underestimating Diego Calva but even then that would be only four). I’m also starting to slightly lean towards Cruise getting a nomination partly because him, Driver and Jackman seem to be only the actors even vaguely in the race who have been nominated for an Oscar before and the previous time the best actor lineup was all first-timers was in 1934 (Clark Gable won for It Happened One Night over Frank Morgan for The Affairs of Cellini and William Powell for The Thin Man). But who is this Curtis you’re referring to?
I wasn’t keen on EEAAO, in fact it is my least favourite seen so far in 2022. I think Quan could have a narrative in Supporting Actor, but wouldn’t personally nominate it anywhere else above-the-line.
I’ve previously posted about how people of East Asian descent being Best Actress nominees has seemingly never happened. It’s currently the #1 blight on the Academy’s record and out of step with the rest of the west. I don’t think Yeoh was that great in EEAAO (compared to some other performances from her), but the Academy will be keen to rectify that historical silence. But I think Quan in supporting actor has more of a shot at winning and being a key feature of their campaign, especially as Fraser’s ‘comeback’ narrative will be blocked by some frankly more popular rivals in that category. I don’t think Hsu or Curtis will get nominated unless the film is positioned in the top 2, and given my distaste for the film I remain unconvinced that will be the case.
“That feeling you get when a movie ends, where your heart has grown bigger and you want to hug the characters, the movie, yourself or your friend — that’s the kind of movie that can win.”
From what I have seen so far, that’s: EEAAO, Women Talking, Till, The Woman King, and Thirteen Lives.
But not: Amsterdam, Elvis, Blonde, TÁR
That quote is right. And it explains so many bad to mediocre Best Picture winners (especially in the previous 20 years).
Maybe Academy should change its name and allow only “warm”, feel-good, sentimental crowdpleasers for winning. If they publicly declare that, at least they would be honest.
Banshees for the win then?
I think EEAAO is a bit too odd and idiosyncratic to go all the way. I’d expect a backlash similar to Boyhood’s if it got close to winning.
Boyhood’s backlash was threefold. One, all the 100’s from the critics seemed like overkill (this did in La La Land and Roma to an extent). Two, the emphasis on how the film was made more than the film itself was a major error by the campaign. Three, Linklater’s persona and open disdain for LA rubbed more than a few people the wrong way. Team Birdman pounced by flying Inarritu down from the Revanant shoot every weekend to tell voters how awesome he thought Hollywood was.
EEAAO is going to need a major contender to stumble hard. Yeoh, Curtis, and Quan will do their best to be the Troy Kotsur of this campaign, but I have no faith that the Daniels are going to be able to connect with the voters they need to win.
EEAAO has a similar critical overkill problem. I’m already hearing people complain that the praise for the film is over the top.
I am going to say, what nobody wants to hear…
In a ranked ballot, I doubt The Fabelmans stands a chance in front of EEAAO and The Banshees of Inisherin. Tàr, even less.
Reason for The Fabelmans weakness:
1) AMPAS maybe tired of big name directors reflecting about their own lives, beginning to consider it a stunt/fashion. They would respect the film but not love it.
2) The “film” appeal has to be shared with at least another huge contenders: Empire of Light and Babylon, that approach the bait in different fashion… some will prefer Mendes’ or Chazelle’s films and that works against Spielberg’s.
3) In the case of Tàr, it may be too artistic for the members of the AMPAS that actually normally vote for “simpler”, more “down to earth” films. Again, it may be respected but not loved.
4) If Kubrick never won Best Picture and Hitchcock only won once, does anyone think there’s an “urgency” to give Spielberg a 2nd Best Picture? A 3rd in direction is a different member.
5) It’s the TOO OBVIOUS frontrunner. Sometimes it works out (Titanic, Return of the King, Schindler’s List), but in the end, plenty of times (Saving Private Ryan, La La Land), AMPAS gets tired of the “do the right thing” stuff and chooses something else that surprised or feels less baity (Shakespeare in Love, Moonlight).
Off topic: didn’t know that Jamie Lee Curtis has publicly stated she’s scared because of the threats against her trans daughter…
Babylon is really where this whole race stands or falls, isn’t it? Is Pitt’s situation going to be a problem even if the film works?
That’s heartbreaking to hear that about Curtis. Right wing hatred of the trans really isn’t THIS far away from exploding into horrific and sanctioned violence, isn’t it?
If Babylon does reasonably well, The Fabelmans is toast beyond Director.
The Fabelmans is like, locked, to win Director, but it REALLY can be The Power of the Dog, Part 2. Director is the ONLY likely win – aside Picture, if you’re not reading the race correctly.
Picture: (as I explained already)… the main appeal is the historical AMPAS love for anything that talks about filmmaking and creative arts… that makes possible that man members may rank Empire of Light and Babylon (and I’d include Tàr as well as a syphooner) higher than The Fabelmans. In comparison, EEAAO and The Banshees of Inisherin, seem more unique, stand out choices that are likely to be top 4 in most ballots… The Fabelmans may sit at 6-8 on many.
Actress: Williams is an unlikely winner, for a mostly supporting performance – as it was originally deemed – in front of Yeoh and Cate. Her victory would be a shocker, objectively speaking.
Supporting Actor: Hirsch seems the most viable option for a WIN, but is he even that likely to be nominated, facing internal competition by Dano AND Rogen? Rogen is so popular among his peers that he could actually sleepwalk to a nomination, IF he cared about it. Dano has been snubbed from the nom for way more celebrated work. Some may think he’s better in The Batman, as well. Hirsch seems to have a great scene and… that’s it. I don’t see any of them being an actua competition to Quan’s narrative, sorry.
Original Screenplay: does anyone really think that the winner would be anyone else but Daniels? McDonagh won for Three Billboards, Spielberg is almost locked to win director. The Fabelmans is 3rd in this race, in the very best of the perspectives.
Score: The Fabelmans’ other big option for a win. But not as clear as director.
Other technicals… Film Editing is Top Gun’s and EEAAO as runner up. Production Design, Costume are completely open but The Fablemans looks like an un likely winner. Cinematography… open… from Blonde to Empire of Light, there are many viable winners as contenders. Sound goes to Top Gun (locked, I think)… the rest… unlikely?
Can The Fabelmans win Picture, Director and Score, only? That’s why I am thinking EEAAO may take Picture, unless they go for The Banshees of Inisherin with surprise wins at Actor, Original Screenplay and Cinematography (maybe Supporting Actor as well)… but I think The Banshees may win Supporting Actress (if Williams doesn’t switch again) as its only compensation for being a multiple Oscar nominee…
My bets at this point:
Picture: EEAAO
Director: Spielberg, The Fabelmans
Actress: Yeoh, EEAAO
Actor: Fraser, The Whale
S. Actor: Quan, EEAAO
S. Actress: Condon, The Banshees of Inisherin
A. Screenplay: The Whale
O. Screnplay: EEAAO
Film Editing: EEAAO (or Top Gun)
Cinematography: call it a hunch, but Blonde.
Production Design: Babylon
Costume: Babylon
Sound: Top Gun Maverick
VFX EEAAO (the fact that is done by 5 people…)
Make Up: The Whale
Score: The Fabelmans
Song: whatever goes… at this point, what the heck: Top Gun Maverick
Foreign: All Quiet in the Western Front
Animated: Lightyear (with clever campaigning pointing out how it suffered from bigotry… I don’t see a clear contender)
Three Billboards didn’t win Original Screenplay, Get Out did that year.
That’s disgusting that folx are attacking Curtis’ daughter. 🙁
Honestly, I could see Curtis sneaking in here above Hsu, above Quan. I have felt that since I saw the film, and Halloween helps her. But what to do about the Buckley and Foy in Women Talking? They will likely take two spots because its just too hard to choose between them–and honestly Ivey deserves credit here too.
I’m sure some of you here are bored of me saying this, but the answer to the question in the title, even beyond vague “second and third place votes matter” statements, is basically as simple as this:
1) Figure out what are the top 2 films in the race
2) Ask yourself: if these top two were the only two nominees, which movie would win?
The answer is your best picture winner.
The thing with the preferential ballot is that the winning movie needs to have a majority of the votes related to all the films remaining. In other words, it is relative to all the films remaining, thinking about what someone’s ballot looks like as a block of 10 films, though equally considering everything, is actually throwing out relevant information that the people following the Oscar race build over months and months: what films are likely to be contending to win and which films aren’t. Thus, I dislike the general concept of people talking about where a movie ranks on any ballot simply because if Argo was first place on your ballot, it didn’t matter if Life of Pi or Lincoln were in second and third or 8th and 9th place on your ballot and in which order they were. Similarly, if your top 3 was Beasts of the Southern Wild, Amour and Les Misérables, suddenly the question of whether your fourth place vote was Argo, Lincoln or Life of Pi is extremely important. Instead, if we reduce the race down to those three films, we get the information we need: once it has gotten to this point where only these films are remaining, how will they rank relative to each other and thus which of them will get the majority’s vote.
Of course this attitude gets slightly more difficult if you can’t choose a distinct top two or top film. But even then, I would argue that at most we’ve had three major contenders by the time voting comes around, and then you can simply run through all three combinations of two movies from the major contenders for the final top two and that should at least give you an idea of what you actually would fare well on a ballot like this.
I think everyone thinks it’s Fabelmans or EEAAO
I think it’s actually EEAAO vs Banshees
So, I go with EEAAO, which makes sense after CODA’s debacle.
We really can’t ignore that EEAAO is with extraordinary chances to earn 3 acting noms, maybe even 4, as Curtis’ is right now in hot campaigning to promote the final Halloween film, right in precursor campaigning (and how extraordinarily due for recognition she is).
(I find it hilarious that almost every pundit tags Ke Huy Quan as the frontrunner for Supporting Actor or a surefire nominee and this site avoids his name… in what it is almost a yearly tradition of diminishing the chances of someone that is raved, liked, surprised and has a huge buzz… look no further than Bakalova, that only was included in the tracker after she started winning critics awards)
1) EEAAO extremely stands out from the competition – Banshees as well!
2) Both films are likely to earn 3 acting noms and with a possible 4th one
3) Both are almost locked for an Original Screenplay nom and faves for the win
4) Both are almost locked to be nominated for 6 or more Oscars
5) Both could be labelled as “anti-CODA” films, meaning not bland, not safe.
6) Both seems to have an undeniable charm that flows not only from the screenplay, but also from an extremely likeable ensemble
Why I think EEAAO can prevail? Diversity, taking bigger risks (Moonlight, anyone?), Banshees is more traditional filmmaking, EEAAO basically reinvents itself every 20 minutes which is one of the aspects that has awed the industry.
About Quan, I can’t help but get the feeling that he might be another Willem Dafoe/Kodi Smit-McPhee type early “cool” frontrunner that the industry will eventually not really want to give the win to (especially as despite his narrative and him being “the heart of the film”, Michelle Yeoh feels like the person people come out of that movie praising, which makes me doubt whether Quan could really have the momentum to win along with her or especially win if she loses)
Concerning your other points:
2) Is Hsu really that likely to get a supporting actress nomination? I feel like she’s already being pushed off of the main list of contenders in that category despite it being very much in flux (which is also why I wouldn’t descibe Condon as an extremely likely nominee either at this point)
4) I think I currently have neither getting 6 or more Oscar nominations. I wonder we’re running towards another Get Out-type situation with Everything Everywhere All at Once where the campaign will center so strongly on getting this slightly non-traditional Oscar choice certain nominations above the line that the below the line push will not be as strong and with the film being less “polished” in someways compared to similar fare from larger studios due to these being smaller-budgeted films, some of the branch members of the tech categories might be more snobbish about the achievements. Thus I have Everything Everywhere All at Once getting 5 nominations: picture, director, original screenplay (which I’m predicting it to win), actress and supporting actor. As for The Banshees of Inisherin, I think the writing and the performances will be appreciated but it doesn’t really seem like the film would get many nominations in the craft categories: the cinematography isn’t the kind of pretty that the Academy likes and the design elements are solid but not that showy. The score might be a possibility and if it happens to do very well, editing is an option. But since I’m somewhat less convinced about the film’s chances than you seem to be, I have it getting the following four nominations: picture, original screenplay, actor and supporting actor
There’s always one way out of nowhere acting nomination, maybe it’s Curtis?
Should #2 be amended to “Ask yourself: if these top two were the only realistic contenders, which movie is least disliked by the #1 voters of the other nominees?”
That is a possibility though it does make the structure much more complicated to actually wrap your head around (you’d need to assess first-round votes for the top two contenders as well as make predictions about which is less disliked by the people who voted for each specific other film and how much weight that carries through the original votes). And on top of this, the two-film system should be equivalent to the winner of the entire ballot in all cases (as long as you have the correct top two). But I’d imagine that the approach you mention gives an idea of what the landscape is like, and thus what will drive each contender.
About why I still think the two-film ballot is equivalent to considering the entire ballot: as you know, with the preferential ballot we drop films one at a time until one film has a majority of the votes. The reason for this is not that the majority itself is some kind of interesting factor but because at that point this film is unbeatable. If a film were to have a majority of the votes for example in round 4, it would mean that no matter what happens in the next rounds where we’d drop more films, it would never be the movie with the least votes under consideration. Thus, it continues to round 5, 6,… and eventually to round 9, which is between the two films, wins that round and then is the only remaining and thus the winner. But instead of considering each possibility on round 4, and then doing that for every other round, the ballot will in theory always go to round 9, and all other points of a film winning can be generalized into the film winning in round 9. Thus, as long as we choose the correct top two (if we don’t, then we’re merely transitioning the focus into an imaginary best picture race and the structure becomes useless in assessing the actual winner), we know that a film will win best picture if and only if it wins that specific round (the notion that you mention of whether this happens because the film that wins is beloved or less disliked can of course be factored into this but this way it’s just a simple new element to add to the kind of assessment that people are used to doing when predicting the Oscars). On top of this, round 9 is a plurality ballot, which people seem to have a better grasp of so the top two approach would make comprehending the race much easier even to people who haven’t studied preferential ballot behavior that thoroughly through ballot simulations. Also, I like it as something to point to whenever people demand the return of the plurality ballot and the notion of having only five nominees as a way to “fix” best picture: the ballot these people so profoundly dislike can eventually always be shrunk into a plurality ballot with even fewer “wasted spots”, it just presents alongside that top two a wider array of films that the Academy thought were deserving.
I don’t think Campion won by very much to be honest. The film was absolutely DYING in the guild awards and it was clear by SAGA that Kotsur was singlehandedly pushing CODA over the finish line. Frankly if Apple had realized a little earlier the path they had, Heder could have scored both a director’s nod and maybe even a win. POTD was done the minute Sam Elliot said what he said. No, not THAT thing, but what he said about how New Zealand wasn’t Montana clearly landed with a lot of voters like a glass breaking moment. Campion was correct in defending her film, but she kind of went a bit too hard at Elliot which likely turned some people off. The Critics’ Choice speech was unhelpful as well. I’m not seeing any evidence that her Oscar was grooved for her for any political reason. Her win was the equivalent of a football team having a 30 point lead at the half, but only winning by stopping their opponent at the goal line on the game’s last play.
All this Banshees/Everything talk is great, but we haven’t seen Babylon/Avatar/Wakanda yet. If any of those three exceed expectations AND light up the box office, the race changes.
I’ll be curious if any other actors from contending films end up hosting SNL while the nominating ballots are out, because it seems like one or two SNL hosts get Oscar nominations that year. Gleeson already did his part. Who will be next? Yeoh? Curtis?
Power of the Dog’s Oscar chances were done the minute the end credits came up.
I’m still not sure what the main campaign message for the film was supposed to be given that even the people who saw it couldn’t really concisely describe what it was supposed to be about.
I can understand someone not liking POTD, but to not understand “what it was supposed to be about” is just pure stupidity on their part.
In Campion’s defense, the “New Zealand isn’t Montana” complaints were utter nonsense, so it’s surprising to hear that any voters took them seriously.
Years of “anonymous voter” articles have kind of tipped off that more than a few voters base their final votes on pretty trivial metrics. In the preferential era, if 20 voters took Elliot’s comments about art direction to heart that could have been deadly. But losing 11 out of 12 nominations kind of tells me that the support wasn’t that emphatic to begin with.