With the Oscar nominations out and a reflection on the year, it’s easy to see where things were going. Yet, our Contenders series this year was trying to look at the Oscar mathematically and we learned a great deal.
To start, the Contenders series lumped everything together regardless of what type of contender it was. That meant that Best Picture contenders were duking it out with Best Documentary Feature contenders, Best Visual Effects Contenders and so forth. That created a disparity between the top nominees and the bottom. What I want to do in this article is look at how the year’s Oscar nominees fared and then explain where I think we’ll go this next year.
First, let’s look at the final pre-nominations rankings.
Top Twenty Contenders (Out of 100 Points)
1. Killers of the Flower Moon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 84.5
2. The Holdovers (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 80.1
3. Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 79.2
4. Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 79.0
5. Barbie (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 77.4
6. Maestro (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 76.5
7. May December (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 74.7
8. Nyad (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 69.5
9. The Zone of Interest (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 68.4
10. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 67.9
11. The Boy and the Heron (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 66.6
12. American Fiction (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 65.6
13. Napoleon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 63.9
14. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – Part One (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 63.5
15. All of Us Strangers (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 63.2
16. The Color Purple (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 62.9
17. Ferrari (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 62.7
18. Past Lives (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 62.3
19. Anatomy of a Fall (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 62.1
20. Wonka (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+) – 61.2
With that list out of the way, what can we deduce. May December and Nyad clearly overperformed while Wonka, Napoleon, and Mission: Impossible underperformed. And each of these titles did well for different reasons. May December was bolstered by critic reviews while Nyad was given support by its pedigree. Wonka and Mission: Impossible were boosted by their box office performance while Napoleon also benefited due to the pedigree.
Before we get into the by-Oscar-category results, let’s look at the top performers in each of the 6 categories.
Best Pedigrees
Pedigree was worth 20% of the film’s overall grade but was comprised entirely of a judgment factor based on the Oscar/awards history of its cast and primary crew.
10
Killers of the Flower Moon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
9
Maestro (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
8
The Holdovers (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
May December (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Nyad (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Napoleon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Stage 6 of 6; Shortlist)
7
Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Barbie (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Air (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Asteroid City (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
The Little Mermaid (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
The top ten films fall into these ratings. The only ones that, in retrospect, don’t look so good are Nyad, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and The Little Mermaid perhaps being a rating or two too high.
Best Content
The Content category looked at the film’s legacy (sequel, adapted, documentary, etc.), MPAA rating, Length rating, and genre rating. It counted for 10% of the final grade.
10.0
A Good Person (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
9.9
Maestro (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
9.8
The Starling Girl (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Earth Mama (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
9.6
The Holdovers (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Saltburn (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
9.4
Nyad (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Ferrari (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Showing Up (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
A Thousand and One (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
The Persian Version (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Looking over this list, there are a lot of titles that just don’t seem like they would be major Oscar contenders. It is only 10% of the final grade, but lowering it to 5% might be more appropriate. We now start to see a picture of why Nyad placed so high in the final list.
Best Release Strategies
This factor, counting for 20% of the final score, looked at festival releases, release dates, and the overall strategy.
8.7
Ferrari (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Origin (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Next Goal Wins (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
8.3
Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Dream Scenario (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
8.0
Maestro (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Priscilla (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
The Taste of Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Stamped from the Beginning (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
7.7
The Holdovers (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Fallen Leaves (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Society of the Snow (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Blue Jean (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Amanda (Stage 6 of 6; General)
Four Daughters (Stage 6 of 6; Shortlist)
Strange Way of Life (Stage 6 of 6; Shortlist)
Nothing here strikes me particularly important or crucial to the selection process, so looking introspectively at how I felt rating these, I have to say this was not my favorite category to assess. My ratings for the release strategy were a little iffy and may likely be ditched with the 2024 edition. Almost everything was in the same range and a theatrical release vs. a streaming release or a limited platform release vs. a wide release don’t seem to have much as much importance just of where it’s released. Streaming contenders often struggle as do wide releases with limited releases really being the best spots.
Best Critical Response
This category averages the Rotten Tomatoes and MetaCritic score with the former being more populist in its consensus and the latter being more esoteric. This counted for 20% of the final grade.
9.5
Past Lives (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
9.4
The Boy and the Heron (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Mami Wata (Stage 6 of 6; General)
9.3
32 Sounds (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Fallen Leaves (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
The Disappearance of Shere Hite (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Lakota Nation vs. United States (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
9.2
Beyond Utopia (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
20 Days in Mariupol (Stage 6 of 6; General)
Our Father, the Devil (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
All of Us Strangers (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
While there are some important Oscar contenders here, most of these titles didn’t make it anywhere near the Oscars. Only Boy and the Heron, Beyond Utopia, and 20 Days in Mariupol were nominated. I’m not certain at this point if this is a factor that needs to be diminished or will benefit from a categorization method I plan to talk about later.
Best Audience Responses
This rating only counted towards 10% of the overall rating. It was comprised of ratings from IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, CinemaScore, and box office performance.
9.2
Sound of Freedom (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
8.8
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – Part One (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
John Wick: Chapter 4 (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
8.6
Elemental (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Trolls Band Together (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
8.5
American Fiction (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Past Lives (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
8.4
Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Wonka (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Nimona (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
There’s one thing for certain about these factors, the end result clearly benefited blockbusters over critically acclaimed efforts. Past Lives and American Fiction are the only titles here who seem like the box office factor helped them out. Again, this is something I want to discuss in the improvements section later in this article.
Best Precursors
Counting for the final 20% of the overall rating, the precursors were clearly a factor for a lot of films. This looks at 17 guilds, 15 critics organizations, and 9 miscellaneous groups. The selection criteria is age. Groups that existed in the early days of the internet were included whereas because those numbers exploded as the internet became ubiquitous, later groups are not included. All of the major televised events are here as well as every major guild, so it’s a pretty comprehensive list. What wasn’t comprehensive was how one got credit for this.
9.3
Barbie (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
8.0
Killers of the Flower Moon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
7.7
Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
7.3
The Holdovers (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
7.0
The Zone of Interest (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
6.7
American Fiction (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
6.3
Maestro (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
May December (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Because the Spirit Awards are included and they are nothing if not bad forecasters, a lot of titles made the list that probably shouldn’t. That said, because this year’s series didn’t isolate categories or any other such factors, the awarding of precursor points didn’t pan out the way it should have. Then, each of the three categories (critics, guilds, organizations) were averaged together and that’s another hindrance here. The guilds should clearly get more preference but some orgs and critics are better than others and that’s not adequately addressed. Each grouping was counted based on how many of the different citations the film got, which is a fitting way to run it but it again gave too much credence to organizations that haven’t the credence to give.
That said, the performance of May December aside, these was pretty much the most accurate factor of them all, which means it should probably get a higher percentage of the final grade.
Future and Modifications
I still think the Contender series has promise and with some tweaks, I think it can be very great indeed.
One of the first things I plan to do is start separating films into categories. Films that are overall contenders, films that are craft-only contenders, and documentaries. I may break some of these down further as some films are only competing for Sound/Visual Effects rather than all of the craft categories. Those decisions won’t be made until the first contenders start going out (possibly in March/April), but I expect there to be three to four, maybe five total categories of films and to have slightly different factors/weights depending on which categories they are in.
Earlier, I mentioned that the release strategy factor doesn’t seem to be important and that will likely be excised when the time comes. I also plan to tinker with where films will fall into the wide/limited release box office threshold. After all, a film that does well in limited release will have a fraction of the box office a film in wide release will and will have a different threshold if it platforms to a semi-wide release. On top of, or in place of, that, I may also go with per-screen average. That might work better for limited releases rather than wide releases, but I think it’s something worth exploring.
On top of all of this, I think it might be a good idea to set factors within a category as well. After all, a genre category is going to be more important to a film’s chances than its MPAA rating, which will be a different factor to its length. Rotten Tomatoes and MetaCritic are pretty good factors but Cinema Score is a bit weaker and thus should be a smaller portion of the overall.
If you have any suggestions for improvements or things that we haven’t been thinking about but should be, leave a comment. For now, I leave you all with the final rankings of each film by Oscar category (if available) except the shorts since we didn’t cover most of them.
Best Picture
12. American Fiction (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
19. Anatomy of a Fall (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
5. Barbie (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
2. The Holdovers (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
1. Killers of the Flower Moon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
6. Maestro (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
3. Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
18. Past Lives (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
4. Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
9. The Zone of Interest (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Animated Feature
11. The Boy and the Heron (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
25. Elemental (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
61. Nimona (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
127. Robot Dreams (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
10. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Directing
19. Anatomy of a Fall (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
1. Killers of the Flower Moon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
3. Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
4. Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
9. The Zone of Interest (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Actor
6. Maestro (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
28. Rustin (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
2. The Holdovers (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
3. Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
12. American Fiction (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Actress
8. Nyad (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
1. Killers of the Flower Moon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
19. Anatomy of a Fall (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
6. Maestro (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
4. Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Supporting Actor
12. American Fiction (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
1. Killers of the Flower Moon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
3. Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
5. Barbie (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
4. Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Supporting Actress
3. Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
16. The Color Purple (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
5. Barbie (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
8. Nyad (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
2. The Holdovers (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Original Screenplay
19. Anatomy of a Fall (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
2. The Holdovers (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
6. Maestro (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
7. May December (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
18. Past Lives (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Adapted Screenplay
12. American Fiction (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
5. Barbie (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
3. Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
4. Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
9. The Zone of Interest (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Original Song
109. Flamin’ Hot (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
5. Barbie (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
36. American Symphony (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
1. Killers of the Flower Moon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Original Score
12. American Fiction (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
33. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
1. Killers of the Flower Moon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
3. Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
4. Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Film Editing
19. Anatomy of a Fall (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
2. The Holdovers (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
1. Killers of the Flower Moon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
3. Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
4. Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Cinematography
57. El Conde (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
1. Killers of the Flower Moon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
6. Maestro (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
3. Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
4. Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Production Design
5. Barbie (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
1. Killers of the Flower Moon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
13. Napoleon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
3. Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
4. Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Costume Design
5. Barbie (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
1. Killers of the Flower Moon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
13. Napoleon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
3. Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
4. Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Makeup & Hairstyling
58. Golda (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
6. Maestro (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
3. Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
4. Poor Things (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
39. Society of the Snow (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Sound
60. The Creator (Stage 6 of 6; General)
6. Maestro (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
14. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – Part One (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
3. Oppenheimer (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
9. The Zone of Interest (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Visual Effects
60. The Creator (Stage 6 of 6; General)
48. Godzilla Minus One (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
31. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
14. Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning – Part One (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
13. Napoleon (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best International Feature
114. Io Capitano (Stage 6 of 6; Shortlist)
69. Perfect Days (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
39. Society of the Snow (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
97. The Teachers’ Lounge (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
9. The Zone of Interest (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
Best Documentary Feature
120. 20 Days in Mariupol (Stage 6 of 6; General)
110. The Eternal Memory (Stage 6 of 6; Picture+)
93. Four Daughters (Stage 6 of 6; Shortlist)
Bobi Wine: The People’s President & To Kill a Tiger not rated.
