It’s Awards Season, and one of the favorite past times of film buffs is making predictions on who will win at the Academy Awards this winter. However, making predictions does raise a question: What does a film need in order for it to be crowned the “best”?

Lots of people like making jokes about the biases present within the Academy, but in recent years, those “biases” have seemed to have gone away. Lots of original works have been garnering the attention they vowed for, with recent examples such as 2019’s Parasite and 2022’s Everything Everywhere All At Once.

The process of voting for Best Picture is very different compared to other categories, as the Academy utilizes a preferential balloting system. This means the winning film usually comes not from the first choice, but from the first through fourth choice of a member’s ballot. This explains why films like Green Book and CODA winning Best Picture caused fans to be confused and shocked respectfully. Thanks to how subjective the medium of film can be, the Academy acknowledges the matter by awarding Best Picture to what they presume to be the most important.

So how do movie fans and cinephiles go about predicting the frontrunner for Best Picture? Let’s take a look

Directing and Editing nominations:

If a film is nominated for Best Picture, not only would the general public think of it as a great film overall, but they would also presume it to be one of the best films in terms of its direction. Of the ten films that won Best Picture in the 2010’s decade, half of them also went home with Best Director. Compare that with the previous decade in the 2000’s, where seven of those films also won Best Director. In a weird turn of events, CODA, which won Best Picture for 2021, is currently the only film of the 21st century to not have a Best Director and/or Film Editing nomination, yet would go on to win the biggest award of the night.

Speaking of editing, films nominated for Best Picture have also been nominated/or have won Film Editing. In the 2010’s, the only years where not every nominee of Film Editing has been nominated for Best Picture are 2011, 2015, and 2017. Which shows that the majority of the nominees of Film Editing will compete for the top prize. Why is Film Editing usually looked at? It’s about psychology. When a moviegoer or critic becomes entranced by a movie, they usually walk away thinking “that was a good movie”, but rarely “that was some good editing”. 

Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of editing? By artistic and tech terms, no. To the common viewer, when a film has way too many continuity errors, noticeable jump cuts, or cuts every view seconds, it can hinder the viewing experience  due to pacing issues. Good editing is usually hidden, and is one of the reasons why the viewer’s eyes are glued to the screen. That’s not to discredit films that do have these noticeable edits, as with the right editor and strong execution, even a YouTube-style jump cut can become invisible.

Guild Awards

Even though other award shows like the Golden Globes, Critics Choice, and BAFTA are used as models for predicting the frontrunner, the main issue is the clashing of preferences from the many branches of Hollywood. These awards shows are more so “alternatives” to the Academy Awards to see what each branch thinks is the best film. For many Cinephiles participating in the Oscar Race, they lean towards the many Guild awards present between the months of February and March.

For the best bet, the PGA Awards are looked at as the main Guild award for the best chance of predicting Best Picture correctly. In the 2010s, seven out of the 10 winners of Outstanding Producer of a Theatrical Motion Picture would inevitably win Best Picture. It also parallels the Oscars where Best Picture is awarded to the producers of the winning film. The DGA Awards are another source of the odds of a film, but those odds are much lower compared to the PGA. For comparison, five of the 10 DGA winners for Feature Film went to win Best Picture, a slight decrease of the seven PGA winners who won Best Picture. 

The Guild with the lowest odds for predicting Best PIcture are the WGA Awards. Because there are two awards for the DGA (Original Screenplay/Adapted Screenplay) it becomes more challenging due to the diversity of the winners. To put it into perspective the years 2012, 2015, 2016, and 2019, are the only times where a film that won Original or Adapted Screenplay went home with the Oscar. This is no exception with the SAG Ensemble award, which mainly focuses on the cast of a film.

For the best chances of picking the right frontrunner, the PGAs and DGAs are the main ones to focus on.

Release Dates

The timing of a release date ensures that a film is still remembered fondly when awards season comes around. There is a phenomenon called the Recency Effect. It’s essentially when you declare the most recent film you saw is the best based on only the fact that you may remember it the most. In awards season, films are more likely to be remembered when released towards the end of the year. 

In the 2010s, the release dates for each Best Picture winner ranged between Oct. 11 through Dec. 1. This is not counting film festivals or international releases. The earliest a film can be released in US theaters yet still manage to be nominated is around mid-March, as demonstrated with 2022’s Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All At Once, released on March 11. Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Marvel Studios’ Black Panther remained the only films of the 2010s to be nominated for Best Picture with a late-February US release, premiering on Feb. 16 and 24, respectively.

From the release date of each Best Picture winner, the best date range is from mid-October through late-November, due to December arguably being too late since voting ends around that time.

Rotten Tomatoes scores

Websites like Rotten Tomatoes make it easy to view what critics and audiences think about a film, whether their thoughts line up or not. While lots of people like to ridicule critics for bashing a certain film they like, that’s not what Rotten Tomatoes is about. 

The percentages don’t actually mean that a film is well liked or hated, as they actually measure the amount of positive reviews per demographic. For example, a film with an overall percentage by critics being 30% doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie. It could be, but it just means that 30% percent of the reviews were positive (mainly three stars or more). Why is Rotten Tomatoes entering the mix? For Best Picture, the film awarded isn’t usually critically acclaimed, but rather a crowd pleaser. Movies loved by both critics and audiences tend to get more attention than a film only loved by critics. A movie with a low critical rating, yet higher audience rating tends to receive some love, but is ultimately pushed aside for a more desirable film of the Academy’s liking. 

As for predicting the frontrunner, it’ll more likely be the film with both high scores from critics and audiences, mainly in the 90 percent ratio (or at the very least higher scores from just audiences of 90 percent or more). But that’s not a set-in-stone guarantee. In the 2010s, six of the 10 Best Picture winners were what I’d consider “crowd-pleasers.” That might seem like a lot, but it’s worth noting that critical tendencies have power in them to influence a film for consideration. Mainly, the awards are more lenient to more artist ventures compared to commercialization.

Conclusion

Despite the data proving otherwise, these metrics shouldn’t be taken as seriously, or be viewed as formula for predicting the frontrunner for the top prize. This is merely a date table for the sake of making your predictions more funner, than just being straight forward. As mentioned before, film is subjective. Therefore, surprises are bound to happen, and we’ll see if this year’s nominees have a chance.