Predicting This Year’s Oscar Nominations Using Just Math

One Battle After Another is clearly the film to beat, and Sinners, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, and Frankenstein are the contenders who appear to be most up to the task. All five should almost certainly hear their name called with nominees are announced, with Sentimental Value and Train Dreams also good bets to join that list.

From there, it gets tougher to predict. It Was Just an Accident has a 2-in-3 chance, and Bugonia is just over 1-in-2. No other film even reaches 1-in-3, meaning that at least one candidate will have to beat the odds to slip into the most coveted category of them all.

It’s been one award after another for Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another), making him and Ryan Coogler (Sinners) virtual locks to get nominated. A former winner in this category, Chloé Zhao (Hamnet), is also a strong contender here.

After that, we have four names between 34 percent and 63 percent, and short of a major surprise, we should expect to see two get in and two left out from this quartet. The Directors Guild opted for Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme) and Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein), but the model is leaning slightly in favor of Jafar Panahi (It Was Just an Accident) as the threat of an Iranian prison sentence hangs over him.

It’s pretty rare to see this much cohesion among disparate critic groups, but there’s been a strong consensus in the data around the top five: Michael B. Jordan (Sinners), Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another), Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme), Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent), and Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon). Perhaps the exception is Moura getting left out of an Actor Award ceremony that overlooked a number of foreign performances, but he made up for it with a Golden Globe win.

If an upset is going to emerge on the nominations list, look to Joel Edgerton (Train Dreams) or Jesse Plemons (Bugonia) as the most likely beneficiaries.

The two Golden Globe winners – Jessie Buckley (Hamnet) and Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You) – are clearly on top. Next up: A pair of actresses at opposite ends of the career spectrum – Chase Infiniti (One Battle After Another) making her film debut, and Emma Stone (Bugonia) with two Oscars already sitting on the mantel.

Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value) sure seemed like she’d be the fifth actress above 50 percent, but the Screen Actors Guild’s shutout of her film did her no favors. That could open the door for Amanda Seyfried (The Testament of Ann Lee) or Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue), both of whom are looking for their second Oscar nominations.

It’s not entirely uncommon to see costars competing in the same category at the Oscars; it’s happened 75 times before. What is uncommon is when there’s no clear hierarchy between them. And yet, the math has Benicio del Toro and Sean Penn (One Battle After Another) tied at 89.1 percent. Throw in a three-way tie with Paul Mescal (Hamnet), all of whom are just 6.1 percent behind Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value) and we’ve got ourselves a fascinating race.

There’s still plenty of time this awards season for one of them to separate from the pack, or for Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein), Adam Sandler (Jay Kelly), or either of the Sinners actors to leapfrog the entire group. But for now, this collection has no clear frontrunner.

This is the third of four categories in this article in which One Battle After Another is in the lead, this time represented by Teyana Taylor. In the dozen-plus years I’ve been predicting Oscar nominations mathematically, only Boyhood, Nomadland, The Power of the Dog, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Oppenheimer have led in half of these eight categories at this juncture. Pretty good company, in terms of early-awards-season dominance.

Critics Choice winner Amy Madigan (Sinners) is above 90 percent to get nominated, with Ariana Grande (Wicked: For Good), Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners), and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value) also cautiously optimistic to hear their names called. If one of them misses the cut, it could be Odessa A’zion (Marty Supreme) or Lilleaas’ co-star Elle Fanning who takes her place.

Five films are clearly ahead in the original screenplay race: Sinners, Marty Supreme, Sentimental Value, It Was Just an Accident, and Weapons. But just as notable might be a film that didn’t make this list at all: The Secret Agent. It’s a popular pick to grab an original screenplay nomination, so how come the model isn’t giving the film its due?

While The Secret Agent has earned a number of plaudits in best foreign language film categories, it’s struggled to gain much traction in terms of honors for its screenplay, which the model puts more stock in. That said, there may be a recent trend the algorithm hasn’t yet picked up on of precursors underestimating the awards-season power of international cinema. After all, the model is 19/20 on best picture nominees over the last two years, with fellow Brazilian film I’m Still Here the lone miss. If that’s the case, perhaps the top five aren’t quite as secure as the data suggests.

My model uses plenty of inputs to make these predictions, but two traditional predictors are notably absent this year: the BAFTAs and the Writers Guild. Both decided to calendar their nomination announcements after the Academy’s, rendering themselves a non-entity in this year’s math. That gives these predictions larger error bars than usual, and for the screenplay categories in particular.

The result is a whopping six films above 60 percent. Of course, at least one of these six has to wind up disappointed, with only five spots to go around. One Battle After Another, Hamnet, Train Dreams, Bugonia, No Other Choice, and Frankenstein might all individually be optimistic, but someone will draw the short straw.

On Thursday morning, one phase of the Oscar race will indeed be over. But the even more exciting phase will just be getting started.

Ben Zauzmer is the author of Oscarmetrics: The Math Behind the Biggest Night in Hollywood.