The Oscars: Ten-year trends of Academy Awards winners
Published:
Oscars betting trends: What does it take to win a golden statue?
The film awards season is in full swing, with the Golden Globes already behind us and the Academy Awards taking place on Sunday night.
We’ve looked back at every statuette handed out in the main award categories over the last decade to predict the recipients of the 2023 Oscars.
How much influence does the Golden Globes have?
The Golden Globe awards in January have traditionally been seen as a dry run for the Academy Awards later in the season. However, over the last decade some of the categories have been more influential on the Academy judges than others.
Comparing the winners between 2013 and 2022 we can see a clear preference for dramatic male performances over more light-hearted ones. Only one of the last 10 recipients of the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama did not go on to win the Oscar for Best Actor, while none of the winners of its Musical or Comedy equivalent were successful.
This is great news for Austin Butler, who scooped this year’s dramatic award for his performance in Elvis, but could spell trouble for Colin Farrell – the corresponding winner of the Musical or Comedy award.
The Golden Globes have also been fairly influential for the Best Director and supporting categories, with all three having seven of the last 10 winners in common. Therefore Steven Spielberg, Ke Huy Quan and Angela Bassett should have a good chance in their respective categories this year.
In a further blow to The Banshees of Inisherin, only one of the last 10 films to win the Golden Globe for best musical or comedy prevailed at the Academy Awards.
A strong lead can hurt a film’s chances
The last 10 Best Picture winners only had five nominations out of a possible 20 for either Best Actor or Best Actress, with half not receiving a nod for either.
However a strong cast can make a difference, with eight of the last 10 winning films having received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor. This is more than the seven whose director was shortlisted.
This is good news for The Banshees of Inisherin, which has two nominees in this year’s Best Supporting Actor category and none for Best Actress. It’s less promising for Tár, which has a Best Actress nomination but none for the supporting cast.
Experience beats youth in the lead roles
As usual the nominees for the major awards cover a wide range of ages, with Steven Spielberg and Bill Nighy in their 70s while Austin Butler and Paul Mescal have yet to turn 30.
When comparing the average ages of winners in each category with the nominees they defeat, we find that the Best Actor and Best Actress recipients are slightly older on average than the rest of the field while other winners are younger.
This could benefit the current favourites Brendan Fraser and Cate Blanchett, who are both the second oldest nominees in their respective categories.
The winner of the Best Supporting Actor tends to be around five years younger than their rivals, which could mean that Brian Tyree Henry or Barry Keoghan get the nod over the more experienced performers in the shortlist.
Don’t drag things out
While it is possible to win the Oscar for Best Picture with an epic, the Academy tends to prefer films that can wrap things up within two hours or so. While Martin Scorcese won with the 151-minute The Departed in 2007 – three years after the Lord of the Rings trilogy ended with 201 minutes of Return of the King – successful films have been getting shorter since then.
Only three of the last 10 winners needed 130 minutes or more to tell their stories and half of them were one of the three shortest nominees. This includes three of the last four films to win Best Picture.
This year, that could spell trouble for James Cameron’s Avatar: The Way of Water at 192 minutes long, with Elvis and Tár also clocking in at over two and a half hours.
The punchier Women Talking and The Banshees of Inisherin are both last less than two hours, with Top Gun: Maverick the next shortest at 130 minutes.
You don’t need to spend big
While there still are some impressively large budgets being thrown at films, these more expensive productions rarely deliver a Best Picture award.
Nine of the last 10 Oscar-winning films cost less than $25m to make, with the exception being the $44.5m Argo at the 2013 awards. The other 38 nominees with a budget of over $30m failed to win the award.
This is more bad news for Avatar: The Way of Water, which cost around $400m to make, with Top Gun: Maverick and Women Talking also having budgets in excess of $100m.
Instead it could be a film like Everything Everywhere All at Once or All Quiet on the Western Front – which both came in at $25m or less – which impress the judges the most.
