Written by Andreas Babiolakis

The Academy Awards are just around the corner, and I feel like we’ve slagged on them enough in the past. For those of you that actually are interested in the awards season races, let’s actually break down how they work. If you are the best prognosticator at your annual Oscars pool, you likely don’t need this guide at all; you’ve got it all figured out already. Congratulations! This guide is for those of you that want to be better at making Oscars predictions, or even if you just want to know how these awards work; it’ll help make sense of some of the questionable wins that have happened over the years (well, pretty much all of them). This won’t be overly comprehensive. Believe me: reading the awards season gets way more complicated than you think it would. At the same time, this guide will help you be prepared in no time for any upcoming Academy Awards ceremony. It’s time to be the life of your Oscars party.

1: Start with the Autumnal Film Festivals

The awards season race actually starts quite early. It’s assumed that one needs to start focusing on the films released in December and/or very early January, but where do you think most of these films come from? The major film festivals, of course! Technically, there are film festivals that are worth paying attention to throughout the entire year; the Sundance Film Festival usually takes place in January; the Berlin International Film Festival happens in February (and so on and so forth). The three major film festivals that — in my opinion — officially kick off the awards season are the following: Cannes Film Festival, Venice International Film Festival, and Toronto International Film Festival. There are many others in between that also matter, but these are the big ones to take note of.

Cannes is much more daring than your typical Academy Awards selections, so you won’t find too many nominated films coming out of their top selections (for reference, only three Best Picture winners were awarded the Palme d’Or — Cannes’ equivalent — throughout Academy history: The Lost Weekend, Marty, and Parasite). What you will find are significant splashes in other categories (Best International Feature Film, perhaps), and the occasional film that goes the distance (this year, the Palme d’Or winning Triangle of Sadness actually is up for three major awards, including Best Picture). Even if Cannes isn’t the most connected with the Academy Awards, it’s great to be caught up with what the French film festival is up to, because their selections are usually more interesting anyway. Cannes usually takes place in May, and it is early enough to not be the largest bridge to the Academy Awards.

Venice is a little more crucial, seeing as it takes place in late August and/or early September. The Golden Lion — the festival’s top prize — has been a little more indicative of what you’ll find winning (or at least being nominated for ) Best Picture at the Oscars. In the past ten years, we’ve had The Shape of Water and Nomadland winning the Academy Award’s top prize, and both Roma and Joker being nominated for it; the latest winner, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, is up for Best Documentary Feature. You won’t find too many other instances of crossovers throughout the history of either award, but the Oscars seem to be more looped in with the festival circuits this last decade or two anyway.

The most important festival to take note of for the Oscars is TIFF, and this goes back to my point about the relevancy of film festivals in relation to the Oscars over the past two decades. The biggest telltale sign that the awards season has kicked off? The People’s Choice Award winner, of course! Ever since 2008’s Slumdog Millionaire, where Danny Boyle’s film became a sleeper hit to win Best Picture, almost every single People’s Choice Award winner has gone on to be nominated for Best Picture or outright win it (the only exception is Nadine Labaki’s Where Do We Go Now?, which is a damn fine film that should be watched anyway). Below, you’ll find all of the winners that went on to be nominated for Best Picture (winners will be bolded):

•Slumdog Millionaire
•Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
•The King’s Speech
•Silver Linings Playbook
•12 Years a Slave
•The Imitation Game
•Room
•La La Land
•Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
•Green Book
•Jojo Rabbit
•Nomadland
•Belfast
•The Fabelmans

Something just happens with TIFF’s audience selection that jumpstarts the awards season, and films that I personally don’t think would have done extremely well otherwise (Belfast, Green Book, Jojo Rabbit) wind up becoming the first films considered for Best Picture; you can almost guarantee that they will be nominated for the award, anyway. Second and third runners up also tend to have a shot (Parasite, Women Talking, Roma, The Power of the Dog, Marriage Story, et cetera, et cetera). If you want to kick things off correctly, pay attention to this award, and see how this winner fares out throughout the rest of the season. Films can either be unstoppable (Green Book, which picked up so many major awards after), cool down (Jojo Rabbit, which only wound up winning for its screenplay but was nominated in many areas), or be somewhere in the middle (Three Billboards which could have very well been Best Picture but had to answer to The Shape of Water). For example, The Fabelmans won the People’s Choice Award and went on to win the Golden Globe for Best Picture — Drama. What are the films odds now? Not as hot, but its strong start lead to many major nominations.

2: Follow What films are released in the final quarter of the year

Now that the film festival titans have been released and left their mark, distributors pick them up and decide how to strategize their releases. Some opt for quick runs, as early as October (any September releases were likely going to happen anyway, and their film festival runs were in accordance to these releases, not the cause of them). Typically, you will find the most coveted films being protected and savoured until November, December, and even early January. The major reason for this — let’s not kid ourselves here — is because these films are meant to be fresh in your mind (and the Academy’s minds, especially, while they prepare to vote). Secondly, this grants producers and distributors the time to start their promotional campaigns. You know the ones: all of the posters with the little leaves indicating what film festivals these releases were a part of, the text “for your consideration” clad across the top and/or bottom, and the relentless drops of followup images, trailers, and more. They pop up in magazines, online, even all over the core of your closest downtown area (assuming you live in a film driven area).

These seem like overkill, but they’re actually a part of the overall makeup of how awards season works. Money gets put into the campaigning, brings Academy voters’ eyes towards what has been marketed, and generates awareness. Here’s a great article from ABC News which may be a few years old, but it kind of proves my point: there’s an art to how these awards seasons work, and they’ve been figured out. This article discusses the different types of campaigns outside of the advertisements: unconventional means to get word-of-mouth going. Whatever works with getting the Academy to notice will be done. As bad as this sounds (and, believe me, there is a bit of schmoozing that gets done that also rusts the award a little bit), there are over six thousand Academy members that are currently active (allegedly). If the number isn’t large enough to justify film producers needing to yell “pick me!” a little louder, consider this: Academy members, for the most part, are all professionals in their field. Performers vote on acting categories. Writers vote on screenplays. Film editors vote on film editing. They’re all busy with their own projects and are likely not as tuned-in to all of the films that are making their rounds like those participating in the Oscars Death Race (an annual marathon of every Oscar nominated film before the awards take place).

Again, let’s get real: a lot of films are released during these latter months just to ride that wave of relevancy and buzz, and there’s no better way than to capture everyone’s attention during the holidays (for example:The Shape of Water was released in theatres December 22nd; it remains the only fantasy film not related to The Lord of the Rings to win Best Picture, and the awareness surrounding the film certainly helped). Once awards shows start tallying up their votes, the awareness of these films help shape their opinions. I brought up how most awards season darlings come from film festivals, but have yet to bring up how critics — and industry personnel — have access to these films ahead of theatrical (or streaming/home) releases, and they’ll be shaping the race as well via their influence (even if not majorly). If you’re wondering how yearly best-of lists herald films that aren’t even out yet, here is your answer.

3: Take note of smaller awards season wins

This step is tricky, because there are countless small awards wins, but these are what will prepare you for dark horse nominations (and winners). If a film is not on your radar as much as some others, I’m not suggesting that you focus on every single awards ceremony, but being familiar with wins as they come will help. For context, let’s look at CODA: the small indie film that could. A darling at the Sundance Film Festival of 2021 (see: film festivals are good places to start), CODA’s longevity continued long after Apple TV+ got the rights to distribute the film on its service in August (even before the crux of the awards season began). During this long period of time, how did an indie film from January (or, at the very latest, August) leave such an impact and make such a splash?

Its continued success at the awards shows that most Oscars predictors are aware of but the public turn a blind eye to. Without going through every single one of CODA’s wins, let’s just say it performed well at the Critics’ Choice Movie Awards, the Gotham Awards, the Hollywood Critics Association Film Awards (where it won Best Picture), the Writers Guild of America Awards (where Siân Heder won for her screenplay), and — perhaps the big one that helped it clinch Best Picture at the Oscars — the Producers Guild of America Awards.

This step is a small one, but it may get you a bit ahead of your peers when it comes to Oscar predictions. When there are very tight races where the award can go to two, three, four, or even any of the five nominees, having a look at these less popular awards ceremonies may give you that extra edge to be right.

4: Time to focus on both major and minor awards season wins

We’re now at the inevitable: watching the awards shows that get televised, that get discussed at the proverbial water cooler, and seem to make bigger noise than the aforementioned smaller awards. You’ve got the Golden Globes which either helps the awards season get underway or mean virtually nothing at all in the big picture; discerning what kind of a Golden Globes year it will be can be tough. The BAFTAs (Britain’s version of the Oscars) can also completely change the awards season (The Social Network was taking over the awards season until The King’s Speech dominated at the BAFTAs; the latter, need I remind you, being a People’s Choice Award winner at TIFF as well). Something you shouldn’t count out are the SAG awards, where the first major hints of Parasite coming for that Best Picture Oscar could be seen (its cast won).

If someone is winning every major award, then they likely have it in the bag. Spotting splits ahead of time can help, like if the Golden Globes have two actors winning (one for a comedy/musical, and one for a drama); you should try and see who has been more successful throughout the season. People thought Glenn Close had Best Actress in the bag for The Wife, but they didn’t account for Olivia Colman also winning the Golden Globe that year (for The Favourite); the latter also won the BAFTA (and many other smaller awards). What seemed to be a split actually wasn’t this whole time: the media spinning the narrative for Glenn Close didn’t work out, but the signs of Colman’s win were all there.

You will get used to how each awards show affects the other, and when it is a good time to seriously consider what one award means to another. This year, Austin Butler has been cleaning up for Elvis and likely has the highest shot to win Best Actor, but we can’t count out Brendan Fraser yet. Why? An early Critics Choice Award win for Fraser kind of helps, but it doesn’t have quite as much weight as a Golden Globe and a BAFTA win would (Butler has both). What does make things interesting is Fraser’s SAG win, because SAG awards are voted on by fellow performers; this is indicative of how the acting categories at the Oscars operate. For sure Butler still is the one to beat at this point, but Fraser is not out of this race yet, and he can easily gain momentum to win.

5: Time to predict

At the end of the day, there are many rules of thumb that can be given out, but they don’t always work. One I have is that all Best Picture nominations will almost win at least one award elsewhere. My rationale is that Best Picture is voted on by every Academy member, so enough people associated with particular categories will get them selected in the final ten, so they must have some real power in these categories. This isn’t always the case, especially now that the Academy must have ten Best Picture nominations (whereas the rule for the previous decade was that there could be anywhere between six to ten nominees depending on voting weight). While this rule does help, it doesn’t guarantee wins in smaller categories, so be aware of it but don’t bet on it always working.

Another rule that — apparently — doesn’t always work is this one: the best way to tell what will win Best Picture is noticing if it has two or more other major wins lined up. If you look at Moonlight, Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, and Birdman, they have at least one win for their writing or direction, one win for acting, or one win elsewhere. If you have a split between two Best Picture noms (Three Billboards, The Shape of Water) and you can predict what each will win (Best Actress/Best Supporting Actor for Three Billboards, Best Director, Best Original Score, Best Production Design), try to decide what carries more weight (Best Director over Best Actress? Maybe). It can be tough. Some great combos include one screenplay and one acting win, one directing and one screenplay win, and the like. Three Billboards was locked in for acting but nothing else: this won’t be enough. It explains that Three Billboards is a masterclass in acting, but not well rounded (in the eyes of the Academy) to warrant Best Picture.

Then again, this also doesn’t always work; Spotlight is the first Best Picture winner since 1953 (The Greatest Show on Earth) to win Best Picture while only winning one other award (for its screenplay). What will help is, again, considering all of the other tips provided before and not just one general rule of thumb; following one tip isn’t a part of the science and it will only be playing the odds when you can read the awards season much better than this. At the end of the day, it’s actually impossible to be certain about Oscars predictions. Last year was my best year yet with only one prediction wrong (damn you, Dune: you beating Nightmare Alley for Best Production Design will always be my downfall), but I’ve certainly had awful years before that (let’s not revisit those). You’ll also have to get used to what tips help which categories: major awards don’t usually cover shorts, so you’ll have to get used to lesser known awards shows for those.

Finally, just have fun with this. While this guide will hopefully get you more in touch with what will win certain awards, it’s not a guarantee that it will always work. We also don’t know what is going on off of the internet and within the private lives of industry personnel who mingle amongst themselves. All we can do is have a good time making educated guesses (or shots in the dark) and see how they pan out. Websites like Gold Derby are great for following the awards season; hopefully this guide will help you recognize why potential favourites and dark horses fluctuate so much when you read the metrics on these sites. I also hope this guide helps bring peace to those that get infuriated by awful wins just because of how well they played the awards season (I’m with you as well).

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.

A Beginner's Guide To Following The Awards Season