As we come ever closer towards Oscar ceremony night, I have compiled a list of statistics which both favour and hinder this year's Best Picture nominees and may give us an insight to how the pendulum will swing on February 27th.
*No Best Picture winner since 1980 has failed to pick up a nomination for Best Editing. This is good news for Best Film Editing nominees Black Swan, Social Network, 127 Hours, The King's Speech and The Fighter but not so comforting for the other five which includes ten time nominee True Grit.
*Of the eight films which have won both supporting actor/actress categories only West Side Story went on to claim Best Picture. Potentially bad news for The Fighter which is the favourite to claim both supporting accolades. More after the jump...
*Only eight Best Picture winners in the history of the Academy (Wings, The Broadway Melody, Grand Hotel, Calvacade, Hamlet, The Greatest Show on Earth, The Sound of Music and Titanic) were lacking a screenplay nomination. Bad news for Black Swan which is the only Best Picture contender not nominated for writing this year.
*On only three occasions (Wings, Grand Hotel, Driving Miss Daisy) has the Best Picture winner failed to garner a Best Director nomination. This pretty much guarantees that The Kids Are All Right, Toy Story 3, Inception, 127 Hours and Winter's Bone are out of the running at this year's ceremony.
*Eleven films have won Best Picture whilst lacking acting nominations. A relatively small number when you consider that there has been eighty one Best Picture winners. This stat does not bode well for Inception which was surprisingly snubbed in the acting categories particularly in the case of Leonardo DiCaprio.
*In the past forty years only two Best Picture winning films have received less than six nominations with Annie Hall in 1977 and The Departed in 2006. This is a bad sign for Black Swan (5 noms), Toy Story 3 (5 noms), The Kids Are All Right (4 noms) and Winter's Bone (4 noms). These stats would indicate the obvious really in that there are only really two contenders in this year's Best Picture race, The King's Speech and The Social Network.
The King's Speech wins at the Director and Producer's Guild makes Tom Hooper's film favourite but what else can we gather from the stats? Let's take a look.
*The past two decades have been very interesting in regards to Oscar success. In the Nineties, a Best Picture nominee was almost guaranteed victory if they had received more than ten nominations (Dances with Wolves, Schindler's List, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Shakespeare in Love). However in the past decade the roles have been reversed with seven of the noughties Best Picture winners receiving ten or less nominations. Current form would favour The Social Network's eight nominations over The King Speech's twelve.
*Biopics generally have a very solid record at the Oscars especially since the sixties with Lawrence of Arabia, A Man for all Seasons, Patton, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Amadeus, The Last Emperor, Braveheart and A Beautiful Mind all winning Best Picture. This is a reassuring stat for The King's Speech especially given that the film also deals with triumph over adveristy, a heartwarming theme that the Academy love to reward. *Look out for the winner of the Best Director award earlier in the night. It is very rare that the winning director's film doesn't go on to claim Best Picture. The last time there was a differentiation was in 2005 when Ang Lee expectedly picked up Best Director for Brokeback Mountain but the film was very surprisingly beaten to the Best Picture prize by Crash. This also occurred in 2002 with Roman Polanski winning his first Directorial honour at the Academy but seeing his film The Pianist toppled by Chicago in the main category. Despite the fact that there has only been four examples of the awards splitting in the last two decades I still think that this year David Fincher will claim Best Director and The King's Speech Best Picture. Based on these stats and 2011 awards form I have distributed each film's chance of winning as a percentage. THE KING'S SPEECH
45% - Director's and Producer's Guild Awards, Harvey Weinstein leading the film's cause, doses of sentimentality that the Academy just can't resist and a genre with a good historical record makes The King's Speech the strong favourite to claim this year's Best Picture prize. THE SOCIAL NETWORK -
20% - Invincible early awards season form has ground to a halt with David Fincher's film losing more and more momentum as we head to the big day. THE FIGHTER
10% - Sports dramas generally fare quite well at the Academy especially when based on real life people. Also has the necessary nominations in the Director, Editing and Writing categories that have proven to be essential for overall success. Lack of significant Best Film Awards make it an unlikely winner however. TRUE GRIT -
10% - It may have ten nominations but lacking a nomination for editing doesn't usually bode well for a film in the Best Picture race. Coens are also fairly recent winners of this prize and it would be unlikely for a remake to triumph in the main category. BLACK SWAN
5% - Received just five nominations which doesn't statistically favour a Best Picture contender and is the only Best Picture nominee not represented in the screenplay categories. Does have a Best Director nom however so can't be completely ruled out. INCEPTION
3% - A sci-fi film with a big budget and big, fantastical ideals. Not usually the recipe for Oscar success. Imaginative, unconventional movies are very rarely rewarded at the Oscars. 127 HOURS
3% - Not performing well commercially which in spite of last year's winner The Hurt Locker generally isn't a good sign. Also lacking a Best Director nomination for Danny Boyle. WINTER'S BONE
2% - There to make up the numbers and add some diversity and colour to the Best Picture prize. THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT -
1% - See above. TOY STORY 3
1% The reward is in the nomination as it'll be a long time before an animated film has a chance of winning the top prize at the Academy. Take these stats for what they are but don't try and use them as a way to chat up the opposite sex. I have learnt from experience.