It’s good to be back. I scaled things back last year, but I’m ready to resume my tradition of overly in-depth Oscar predictions for each category. The guilds, BAFTAs, critics, and supposedly Golden Globes have all made their picks. Now it’s my turn to figure out what it all means with my multi-part-Oscar predictions.
I'm going to go through each of the Oscar categories, tell you what has been nominated and won elsewhere, and order the nominees from who I think is most to least likely to win on Oscar night. That doesn't mean I'll be right, but it does mean I'll be informed. Wish me luck.
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Before I get to that though, I want to explain my methodology a bit. There are many, many awards given out before the Oscars. I don't use them all for my predictions. Some precursors are better than others. I don't bother with the ones that aren't very indicative of where the Oscars will go.
Some the awards I don't use:
Critics Awards - Critics groups are essentially useless for this. There are too many different groups giving out awards. They vary wildly in winners and nominees, if they even bother to announce nominees. The Critics’ Choice Awards tries to combine all the critics groups into a single event. That ceremony has been far too inconsistent over the years. Categories change, split, or disappear far often. It’s been a few years since I really looked at their results though, so it could be here by next year. Bigger picture though, critical consensus doesn't match the industry consensus very often. A movie (say, Boyhood) gobbling up critical awards gives the false impression that it's an Oscar favorite, when it often can be something else (Birdman, in this example), that takes home the Oscar.
The National Board of Review - This group only hands out wins, not nominations, which also isn't very helpful for how I do my examinations.
Satellite Awards - I spent a lot of time in the past trying to determine if I could pull any useful information from the Satellite Awards. Ultimately, they weren't consistent enough as predictors nor popular enough to be considered influencers.
Gotham and Independent Spirit Awards - While the profile of these awards has gone up, they only look at a subset of the eligible films (independent or low-budget films). The only value to them is in the negative (i.e. if a movie is nominated for but doesn't win the Gotham award, it has no hope at the Oscar). That information can be inferred from other sources though, making the indie awards redundant.
What awards do I trust then? I'm glad you asked. For each category, I'll be including a glossary of all the precursor awards that matter to it, but it's basically the Golden Globes, the BAFTA Awards, and the assorted guild awards. I nearly excluded the Golden Globes this year due to not televising the ceremony. Their value has always been in their visibility. I’m mainly keeping them here out of curiosity if this is a one-year blip and because there’s a lot of historical data to be pulled from them. The BAFTA Awards are about as thorough as the Oscars in terms of matching categories. In recent years, they have taken steps to differentiate themselves from the Oscars with a convoluted nomination process. However, they remain valuable for that overall structural similarity. The guilds are a great reflection of how the branches will vote. For example, who knows Sound Mixing better than the Sound Mixers guild? Many voters belong to both the guilds and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences, so that's helpful. Also, all these awards list their nominees, not just the winners. That's useful, because you know what a movie won against. If a film wins the BAFTA for Costume Design but none of the other BAFTA nominees are nominated for the Oscar, it doesn't tell me very much about what will win the Oscar. None of these awards are perfect. Nothing could’ve predicted the Ex Machina win for Visual Effects for 2015. However, you'll get more right than wrong by reading the award tea leaves beforehand.
I only look back 20 years for most awards. So much change happens in the Oscar voting and membership over time that the returns diminish the further back you go. 20 seems like a good place to stop.
You should be able to figure this out on your own, but when I refer to a year, I am speaking of the year being awarded, not necessarily when the ceremony took place. The films being awarded this year are films released in 2021. In my book, that makes this the 2021 Oscars despite it currently being 2022 right now. I find it easier to talk like this because it's the films that matter the most. Also, despite an odd eligibility window, for simplicity, last year’s Oscars were the 2020 Oscars.
Finally, I can’t promise how robust these posts will be from year’s past. I’m only one man and I have a full time job, not to mention this Oscars is directly overlapping with the NCAA basketball tournament, which I am also obsessed with. Given that these posts will max out at about 50 views, I can only justify so much time spent. Anyway, I hope you still enjoy.
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Glossary:
BAFTA - British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards
Golden Globe - Presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Award
Best International Film
(In Order of Likelihood)
1. Drive My Car
BAFTA - Foreign Language Film – Winner
Golden Globe - Foreign Film – Winner
2. The Worst Person in the World
BAFTA - Foreign Language Film – Nominee
3. Flee
4. The Hand of God
BAFTA - Foreign Language Film – Nominee
Golden Globe - Foreign Film – Nominee
5. Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom
The BAFTA award can be misleading since Oscar and BAFTA eligibility often happens on different years. The Globes, as I’ll say many times, are fairly meaningless. That said, the 4 times in the last 20 years that the two have agreed on a winner that was also nominated for the Oscar, that movie won the Oscar. More importantly, Drive My Car is the only international film nominated for Best Picture. That locks it up. There are a few others with good arguments though. The Worst Person in the World has the rare Screenplay nod for an international film, not to mention that it’s a critical darling. Flee has the unique triple nomination for International, Documentary, and Animated film. It feels like it should win somewhere. The Hand of God has both a BAFTA and Golden Globe nod with the Netflix backing. Anyway, it’ll be Drive My Car. Bet everything on it.
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