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For years, prognosticators have used their knowledge of film history, Oscar history, and other tools to determine whether a film is going to be a major Oscar threat, a minor competitor, or have no impact at all. While I’m not a statistician, I’ve always looked more empirically at precursors and other factors when making assessments. What the Contender series is intended to do is quantify as much of that as possible. While numbers may need to be tweaked over time, this first year will be a fascinating exploration of the system, putting it to use and seeing how things shake out.
What does it take to qualify for this list? There are five criteria that determine a film’s eligibility for consideration in this series.
- $100 Million+ Box Office
- 80+ MetaCritic
- Festival Award
- Our Prediction Citation
- General Buzz
That last category is a catch-all to try to collect films that might not otherwise be considered. It’s also useful for including films that add some pep and diversity to the rolls. Of these, only the festival award category requires a scheduled 2023 release. With well over a hundred major festival awards to consider, the list would become unwieldy if including them all.
Before getting into the details of the categories and how they are calculated, let’s look at the reasons these five are included.
The box office criteria is the weakest, having diminished over the last few decades. Today, a film like Driving Miss Daisy can’t cross $100 million, but back in 1989 it certainly did, though it did so bolstered by its Oscar nominations. This breakpoint is intended to get the big summer blockbusters that will contend in craft categories into the list and for no other real reason. Our rating based on box office is much more nuanced.
Why MetaCritic? Rotten Tomatoes also aggregates reviews. Not to put too fine a point on it, MC is more selective. While RT does have some appointment criteria for critics and have gotten more selective in recent years, they are more keen on signing up bloggers as well as full-time film critics (no matter how few of them are still out there). I use both in the metrics since RT is much more likely to reflect pervasive positive opinions about a film.
Festival awards have varying impact. If a film plays a festival and wins an award, it’s the kind of movie many will consider supporting. If it doesn’t win anything, it might not have much to go on, so we use a victory as a sign of that support. The reason this is the category we limit to confirmed current-year releases only is because of the tendency for festival winners to lag behind in their U.S. theatrical releases and wait a year to gain traction.
Finally, our predictions. Pete, Tripp, Thomas, and I have plenty of experience in making forecasts and while we aren’t perfect, if it makes our list, it has some measure of buzz to it and so it’s an instant-inclusion.
So, let’s dig into the numbers we’re using and how the information will be laid out on each contender’s page. The overarching Contender Factor is highlighted at the top of the page with individual categories listing information below that. It is broken into six areas as outlined and explained below. Additionally, the weight each area is given is specified as a portion of the Contender Factor at the top. The listed ratings will be added together with four of the six areas having their values doubled.
The Contender Factor base value changes depending on what stage the contender is in. A film that has not yet released will be in either Stage 1 (Pedigree only) or Stage 2 (Pedigree and Content). A film that’s released by has not closed at the box office will be in Stage 3 or Stage 4. Stage 6, which is after the precursors announce, will be the last stage for any film to complete. Stage 1 means the film is on a scale of 0 to 20, Stage 2 is 0 to 30, and so on. The Contender Factor section will state the current tally and what stage the film is in.
Changes for 2024: See this article for updates. This page will be updated to reflect this information as soon as possible.
Contender Factor: 0 to 100 (Stage 5 of 5 complete)
Stage 1 – Pedigree
Director: the film’s director
Writers: the film’s writer(s)
Stars: the film’s stars
Techs: the editor, cinematographer, and composer
Prior Recognition: This is broken into three segments and is the basis for the rating. This is the most subjective of the six factors. Extensive are those who’ve got extensive Oscar experience as nominees, typically four or more; Limited are those others who have at least one Oscar nomination under their belt; and Potential are those who’ve got several citations from other organizations, such as the Emmys, Tonys, or festival awards.
Rating: 0 to 10 (20%-30% of Factor)
Stage 2 – Content
Legacy: This is what its foundation is. Is it an original screenplay? An adaptation? Is it a sequel? A Documentary? What it is determines how likely it is to score nominations. Sequels are less likely than originals, for example. This will be rated with original and adapted at the high end while sequels will get rated mid-tier and documentaries low since we know their only real shot is in their own categories.
Genre: This is whether it’s a comedy, drama, horror, science fiction, etc. Genre really does matter. Although the Academy has been spreading the wealth more in the last few decades, it still loves its straight dramas. Dramas and biopics typically get the highest ratings while horror often gets the lowest.
Length: Incredibly short films tend not to have much Oscar chance and overly long films can tank their chances, especially when they aren’t technically epics. Anything between 90 minutes and 2.5 hours have better shots at nominations than those outside those ranges, so they aren’t nearly as much of a factor as what’s between.
MPAA Rating: While there are few ratings, PG-13 and R are the most important with the latter getting higher weight. PG is seldom-seen as an Oscar nominee and G-rated can generally only figure in Best Animated Feature. Since the invention of the NC-17 rating, no film with that rating has ever been Oscar nominated. As for unrated? Those are usually non-English-language films and will struggle if they don’t get a standard release that requires such a rating.
Rating: 0 to 10 (15%-30% of Factor)
Stage 3 – Release
Festival: Did the film make its premiere at a film festival. Depending on the festival, it could matter. Toronto sits at the high end of the scale while something like SXSW or Karlovy Vary sits at the bottom end.
Release Date: The month a film releases is quite important as studios don’t typically release the films they think will be Oscar no-shows early in the year. January, February, and August are typically the worst month for Oscar-contending releases with March, April, and September being close behind. The best months are November and December.
Strategy: How the film releases can have an impact on its chances. A direct wide release for a non-blockbuster could be disastrous if the box office is poor. A platform release slowly exposing the film to word of mouth is an excellent way to get your film considered.
Rating: 0 to 10 (10%-15% of Factor)
Stage 4 – Critics
MetaCritic Score: This site gives ratings on a scale of 0 to 100. That number is divided by ten to get its half of the rating.
Rotten Tomatoes Score: While this one is also a scale of 0 to 100, they are percentages rather than whole numbers. That’s not really important and the percentage is removed before reducing the same way as the prior.
Rating: 0 to 10 (10%-30% of Factor)
Stage 5 – Audience
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: Of the three ratings used to determine audience enjoyment of a film, this is probably the middle ground for them. Rotten Tomatoes is the choice over MetaCritic because MC has too few readers participating in polling, so their votes are more skewed and often high-brow. This is a percentage and is treated like the RT critics score.
CinemaScore: This organization doesn’t gauge interest in every movie. They only poll for wide releases and ask opening weekend audiences for their impressions of the film. Since those that see a film in that starting frame are the most excited, their voting tends to reflect whether word of mouth can build for the film or if it will quickly disappear. These are rated on a letter-grade scale with “A+” equaling ten, “A” being nine, and so on. Will not count for/against films that do not receive a score.
IMDb Rating: The most broadly used viewer analysis comes from IMDb whose 0-10 scale doesn’t need to be adjusted for adding into the final audience tally. It, along with Rotten Tomatoes, tend to be gamed by people who want to tank a rating for little reason other than spite.
Box Office Tally: While the above three factors reflect opinion, box office numbers can dictate general popularity. While this is true of films that release to wide audiences, it’s equally important to limited releases. Generally, wide releases aim for $100 million at a minimum while indie films hope for $1 million or more. There are separate factors determined based on whether the film only ever released in few theaters or reached thousands. Will not count for or against if no theatrical release.
Box Office Status: This will tell you if the box office number provided above is a final tally or if the film is still earning money. While we won’t be updating this information frequently, you’ll know it’s not going to be updated anymore when the status says “closed.”
Rating: 0 to 10 (10%-25% of Factor)
