This year, instead of writing about my own personal Oscar predictions, I thought I’d do something a little different. I started thinking about how many zillions of magazines and blogs would be doing their own predictions, which made me wonder just how predictable the Oscars really are. If you were to put together every single website’s and every single magazine’s predictions and then figure out the top voted nominees amongst them all, could you actually predict this year’s Academy Awards?
Though it would be impossible for me to gather that amount of information, I’m going to try it out on a smaller scale. Below, I’ve focused on ten of the film industry’s top publications. I combined their Oscar predictions and used them to predict an ultimate winner in each category. By the end of the day, we’ll see just how predictable the Academy Awards have become.
Here are the 10 publications I pulled from, with links to each site:
The Hollywood Reporter, Moviefone, Entertainment Weekly, Metacritic*, Deadline Hollywood, Cinema Blend, Awards Circuit**, Vulture, Rotten Tomatoes, Indie Wire
*Metacritic’s predictions were established by “[aggregating] the predictions of 45 entertainment writers and awards experts”
**Awards Circuit provided the predictions of 7 of their staff members, which I combined into 1 average prediction
I did my best to draw from the most respected / most notable film sources possible, but I may have missed a couple. I searched for Variety‘s predictions but if they put them out, I couldn’t find them. Now, without further ado, the results:
Everyone is picking "The Artist" to win Best Picture, and you should too
BEST PICTURE: THE ARTIST
Picked by 10/10 of the publications
BEST DIRECTOR: MICHEL HAZANAVICIUS
Picked by 10/10
BEST ACTOR: JEAN DUJARDIN
Picked by 8/10, Runner up: George Clooney with 2/10 picks
BEST ACTRESS: VIOLA DAVIS
Picked by 10/10
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER
Picked by 10/10
Both Viola Davis (above) and Octavia Spencer seem to be locks for their performances in "The Help"
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: OCTAVIA SPENCER
Picked by 10/10
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: THE DESCENDANTS
Picked by 9/10
Runner Up: Hugo with 1 pick
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: MIDNIGHT IN PARIS
Picked by 10/10
ART DIRECTION: HUGO
Picked by 10/10
CINEMATOGRAPHY: TREE OF LIFE
Picked by 5/10,
Runner Ups: Hugo with 3, The Artist with 2
Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher in "The Iron Lady"
COSTUME DESIGN: THE ARTIST
Picked by 5/10,
Runner Ups: Jane Eyre with 3, Hugo with 2
FILM EDITING: THE ARTIST
Picked by 10/10
MAKEUP: THE IRON LADY
Picked by 6/10
Runner Up: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 with 4 picks
ORIGINAL SCORE: THE ARTIST
Picked by 10/10
There's a 50/50 chance that "Man or Muppet" will win this year's Best Original Song category
ORIGINAL SONG: “MAN OR MUPPET”
Picked by 9/10
SOUND EDITING: HUGO
Picked by 5/10
Runner Ups: War Horse with 4, Transformers: Dark of the Moon with 1
SOUND MIXING: HUGO
Picked by 9/10
Runner Up: War Horse with 1 pick
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
Picked by 7/10
Runner Ups: Hugo with 2 picks, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 with 1 pick
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE: RANGO
Picked by 10/10
"Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory" became an important part of the efforts that eventually lead to the release of the "West Memphis Three"
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: PARADISE LOST 3: PURGATORY
Picked by 6/10
Runner Ups: Undefeated with 2, If a Tree Falls with 1, 1 N/A (“Awards Circuit” vote was a 3-way tie)
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT: SAVING FACE
Picked by 5/10
Runner Ups: The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom with 4, God is Bigger than Elvis with 1
BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: A SEPARATION
Picked by 10/10
BEST SHORT FILM ANIMATED: THE FANTASTIC FLYING BOOKS OF MR. MORRIS LESSMORE
Picked by 7/10
Runner Ups: La Luna with 2, A Morning Stroll with 1
BEST SHORT FILM LIVE-ACTION: THE SHORE
Picked by 8/10
Runner Ups: Raju with 1, Pentecost with 1
Well, that’s all the categories for you. Check back after tonight’s Academy Awards to see how accurate this system was. Best of luck with your own ballots!
