Do statistics suggest previous award success presage an Oscar?

Do statistics suggest previous award success presage an Oscar?

By Michael Gales Jan 31, 2014

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Oscars betting is a popular market before the Academy polls close on February 25th. This article looks at historical data to see if it’s possible to predict the winner of these prestigious awards by looking at other key ceremonies?

As we approach the end of the film awards season, bettors turn their attention to the main attraction: The Oscars. The nominations for the prestigious accolades were announced on January 16th, and that same day odds for the winner of the Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress were posted at Pinnacle Sports.

Predicting the outcome of the Oscars

The key question for bettors is can you predict the winner of these prestigious awards by looking at other results? Three influential awards ceremonies – the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), Golden Globes and the Critics’ Choice – have already handed out prizes for these categories, this season. How reliable are these as predictors for Oscar glory? The table below highlights the 2013 winners for the four categories at these three award ceremonies.

2013 Winners in the Road to the Oscars

Golden Globes

Critics’ Choice

SAG

Best Picture

12 Years A Slave

12 Years A Slave

American Hustle

Best Actor

Matthew McConaughey

Matthew McConaughey

Matthew McConaughey

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett

Cate Blanchett

Cate Blanchett

Best Director

Alfonso Cuarn

Alfonso Cuarn

N/A

The diagram below shows how often these awards chose the same winner for the four categories as the Oscars. (For the Golden Globes the data is a combination of both drama and musical and comedy.)

 

Best Picture: Does American Hustle have an outside chance?

The stats suggest the Oscar for best picture will go to either 12 Years a Slave, or American Hustle. Only twice – Braveheart (1995) and Million Dollar Baby (2004) – since 1995 have all three-award ceremonies failed to pick the eventual winner.

The statistics show that the Golden Globes have predicted the Oscar winner for the Best Picture 66% of the time since 1960. Second are the Critics’ Choice with a prediction success rate of 61% since 1995, and finally the SAG (50%).

However, a look at the last decade suggests the Golden Globes powers of prediction are waning having predicted the winner just 40% of the time.

Furthermore, the Critics’ Choice awards have picked the same Best Picture winner as the Oscars for six out of the last seven years (the exception being The Social Network in 2010) and have been correct 70% of the time over the past ten years.

Either way both ceremonies chose 12 Years a Slave as the winner of the best Picture and the Pinnacle bookmakers have the film as the 1.333* favourites ahead of Gravity 3.790* and the American Hustle 4.230*.

Interestingly the American Hustle is third favourite despite being selected as the SAG winner – the SAG has picked the winner only twice before since 1995 when selecting a different film compared to both the Golden Globes and the Critics’ Choice – Crash (2005) and The King’s Speech (2010).

Best Actor & Actress: Are McConaughey & Blanchett a ‘shoe in’?

The Golden Globes and the SAG have been the most reliable ceremonies at predicting the Best Actor and Actress Oscar winners.

The statistics highlight that the Golden Globes have picked the same best actor as the Oscars 76% of the time since 1960, while the SAG have a 1% increase since 1995, including picking the same winners in the last nine years.

Since 1995 all three ceremonies have selected the same winner as the Oscars on nine (50%) occasions. This year they have selected Matthew McConaughey, and the bookies believe this is a pre-cursor with odds as short as 1.324*, which resembles an implied probability of 75.53%.

Only twice before in 2001 and 2002 – Denzel Washington and Adrien Brody respectively – have all three been wrong, which gives second favourite Chiwetel Ejiofor a chance at 4.100*.

The best Actress winner sees the Golden Globes have a better success rate than the other two awards at 70% including the past four winners, while the SAG are slightly behind on 68%. However, the Critics Choice have only picked the same winner as the Oscars 50% of the time.

Like the best Actor category all three ceremonies have selected the same actress prior to the Oscars – Cate Blanchett. In the eight years that all three have selected the same winner, the actress has gone on to win at the Oscars 87.5% of the time.

Pinnacle Sports have Blanchett as the massive 1.092* favourite, giving her an implied probability of 91.58%. History doesn’t look good for second favourite Amy Adams 8.770*, with Kate Winslet in 2008 being the only time since 1995 that either the Golden Globes or the SAG have not picked the eventual Oscar winner.

Best Director: Can Alfonso Cuarn clean up?

In comparison to the best Actor/Actress awards it is the Critics Choice winner instead of the Golden Globes selection that bettors should take more notice of when selecting the Oscar winner for Best Director.

The Critics’ Choice has picked the same Best Director as the Oscars on 77% of occasions compared to just 49% by the Golden Globes. In fact the Globes have failed to predict the winner for the last four years.

Gravity director Alfonso Cuarn won both the Golden Globe and the Critics’ Choice award and is the heavy 1.064* favourite with Pinnacle Sports. Nevertheless, both have been wrong on three occasions which gives Steve McQueen a chance of winning at 6.100*.

How influential are previous Oscar nominations?

We have highlighted trends for Oscar winners based on winners at three influential ceremonies leading up to the Oscars, but how significant are past Oscar nominations in predicting a winner?

The graph below looks at three Oscar categories – Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Director – in terms of:

 Whether the winner had won an Oscar before

 If they had been nominated before?

 The average times a winner was nominated before winning?

 How many winners had won at their first attempt?

 

Interestingly and somewhat surprisingly repeat Oscar winners are rare. Since 1960 Only 11% of Best Actor winners had claimed an Oscar previously, which is slightly worse than Best Director (17%) and Best Actress (19%).

Only The Wolf Of Wall Street director Martin Scorcese 50.350* has won an Oscar for Best Director from the current nominations, while Sandra Bullock (1) 9.930* and Meryl Streep (2) 37.010* have won three Oscars for Best Actress between them. None of the actors in for an award have won previously.

29 directors have won an Oscar on their first nomination and this trend is expected again this year, as Alfonso Cuarn, and Steve McQueen are the two favourites. A win for either would go against the trend that sees the winner of Best Director collect an Oscar on average after 2.02 nominations – Both David Owen Russell 14.060* and Alexander Payne 188.640* have been nominated twice before without success.

On average it takes 2.39 nominations to win the Best Actor Oscar, while 57% of winners had been nominated before. However only Leonardo Di Caprio 7.970* has been nominated before – twice – from the current crop of nominees. This leaves favourite Matthew McConaughey, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Bruce Dern 15.430*and Christian Bale 109.670* all vying to become the 24th first nominee winner.

45% of Best Actress winners have been nominated for the award before, this year only Amy Adams in the category hasn’t been nominated previously as she aims to become the 28th actress to win an Oscar after her first nomination.

Historically it has taken an average of 2.64 nominations before winning the award. Current favourite Cate Blanchett fits the trend having been nominated twice before without winning, while Judi Dench has been nominated five times without being successful, but is an outsider at 23.470*.

This article highlight that despite statistical anomalies throughout the years previous award winners in the same year can presage an Oscar, and with more research bettors can make educated predictions based on earlier key ceremony outcomes when betting on Oscar winners.

Click here for the latest 86th Academy Awards odds.

*Odds subject to change

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