Oscars 2017 Category Breakdown: Best Picture

Every year, as we lead up to the Oscars, I break down each of the 24 categories. I do this to familiarize everyone with the category; what the trends are, how the guilds and stuff help (or don’t), etc. I also do it as a precursor to my giant Oscar ballot. I get most of the heavy lifting out of the way here, so that way when I get to the article, I’m just kind of riffing on how I think it’ll turn out and talking myself into all the bad decisions. It’s like college. And this is the pregame.

How these articles work is — I give you all the previous winners and nominees of each of the categories, then tell you how accurate each of the respective guilds and precursors are in what they vote for versus what wins the Oscar, tell you how each of them voted this year, then give you this year’s category, along with a quick rundown of how we ended up with that category (what was a surprise, etc). After that, I rank each of this year’s nominees in terms of how I see them right now in terms of their likelihood to win. Which is nothing more than my perception (notice that underline, even though you won’t) of how the category seems at the moment based on everything I know and have seen. Which will give you a general sense of the favorites.

Only one category left. The big one. Best Picture. We save this one for last every year, and fortunately, the past couple years have brought us tight races.

At this point, this is the category where you have the most information, so I’ll just run through everything we know so far…

The main precursor is the PGA. They used to be close to automatic, but lately they’ve been shaky.

Since 1989, when the PGA first started handing out awards, they’ve matched Best Picture all but nine times. Those times were:

• 1992, The Crying Game wins the PGA, Unforgiven wins the Oscar.
• 1995, Apollo 13 wins the PGA, Braveheart wins the Oscar.
• 1998, Saving Private Ryan wins the PGA, Shakespeare in Love wins the Oscar.
• 2001, Moulin Rouge! wins the PGA, A Beautiful Mind wins the Oscar.
• 2004, The Aviator wins the PGA, Million Dollar Baby wins the Oscar.
• 2005, Brokeback Mountain wins the PGA, Crash wins the Oscar.
• 2006, Little Miss Sunshine wins the PGA, The Departed wins the Oscar.
• 2015, The Big Short wins the PGA, Spotlight wins the Oscar.
• 2016, La La Land wins the PGA, Moonlight wins the Oscar.

(Note: 2013 had a tie, where both Gravity and 12 Years a Slave won the Oscar, and 12 Years a Slave won Best Picture. Technically they were both right and wrong at the same time, but I’m marking that as being correct.)

Now, since this does sort of give you an idea, when the PGA has missed Best Picture, here’s how BFCA has voted:

• They did not give out awards in 1992.
• 1995: They went with Sense and Sensibility
• 1998: They went with Saving Private Ryan
• 2001: They went with A Beautiful Mind
• 2004: They went with Sideways
• 2005: They went with Brokeback Mountain
• 2006: They went with The Departed
• 2015: They went with Spotlight
• 2016: They went with La La Land

They got three of them right. So that’s something, right?

And BAFTA tends to do their own thing and be wrong just about the same as everyone else. In those nine years:

• 1992: They went with Howards End
• 1995: They went with Sense and Sensibility
• 1998: They went with Shakespeare in Love
• 2001: They went with The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• 2004: They went with The Aviator
• 2005: They went with Brokeback Mountain
• 2006: They went with The Queen
• 2015: They went with The Revenant
• 2016: They went with La La Land

They picked up just one winner, and it was Shakespeare in Love, the quintessential BAFTA movie.

If you care about the other precursors…

SAG Ensemble in those nine years:

• They did not hand out awards in 1992.
• 1995: They went with Apollo 13
• 1998: They went with Shakespeare in Love
• 2001: They went with Gosford Park
• 2004: They went with Sideways
• 2005: They went with Crash
• 2006: They went with Little Miss Sunshine
• 2015: They went with Spotlight
• 2016: They went with Hidden Figures

They got three of them, but all three were acting/ensemble movies. So I’m not sure how much that really matters, but now you have it.

And the Globes, because why not:

• 1992: Scent of a Woman won Drama over Unforgiven
• 1995: Sense and Sensibility won Drama over Braveheart
• 1998: Saving Private Ryan won Drama (Shakespeare in Love won Comedy/Musical)
• 2001: A Beautiful Mind won Drama.
• 2004: The Aviator won Drama over Million Dollar Baby
• 2005: Brokeback Mountain won Drama. Crash wasn’t even nominated.
• 2006: Babel won Drama over The Departed
• 2015: The Revenant won for Drama over Spotlight
• 2016: Moonlight won Drama (La La Land won for Comedy/Musical)

One year they gave you the winner straight up. The other two, the split category gave you the other contender along with it.

So… PGA is giving you the frontrunner, but it can be beat, and has been the past two years. You pretty much need to use the information at hand and basic logic to see where things are going.

Best Picture

Call Me By Your Name

Darkest Hour

Dunkirk

Get Out

Lady Bird

Phantom Thread

The Post

The Shape of Water

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

This category felt, by and large, right there for you. Going in, you knew Dunkirk, Shape of Water, Three Billboards, Get Out and Lady Bird would be nominated. Call Me By Your Name was a near-lock as well. So that’s six off the top. Then… The Post seemed likely, given Spielberg and all that, so you put that on as seven. After that… Darkest Hour made the most sense, so that was eight. Phantom Thread, with zero precursors, is a big surprise, but a welcome one. Outside of that, no other film really had the kind of precursors to feel like a real threat. The Big Sick made the PGA and was hanging around, but the support never felt all the way there. I, Tonya got PGA, but not much else. On a set list of ten, I think that might have made it. Molly’s Game — ehh. There wasn’t a whole lot to look at there. You got the eight you figured would make it, and one nice surprise that fits in nicely. Good category, overall.

As for precursors this year (which I neglected to mention above) —

• The PGA went to The Shape of Water
• BAFTA went to Three Billboards
• BFCA went to The Shape of Water
• SAG Ensemble went to Three Billboards
• The Globe went to Three Billboards in Drama and Lady Bird in Comedy.

I don’t know about you, but doesn’t this one feel like it might be shaping up for the third consecutive PGA miss in a row? The real question for right now, though, isn’t what the favorites are — because we know that. The question is… how do we rank them?

Rankings:

9. The Post — The least amount of nominations of any of the nominees. It felt like they nominated it out of respect for Spielberg and nothing else. People like the film and respect it, but no one loves it, which means it’s not getting the number one votes to contend here. If you had to eyeball it and say which movie was the least likely to win this category, this would be the first choice. This has the exact same nominations as The Blind Side. It’s not happening, guys.

8. Darkest Hour — Six nominations is very solid, but again, if you were taking off the films you didn’t think would win, this would be off really fast. Who loves this enough to make this a top #1 or #2 choice? Not many people. No way this makes it past the first or second round of voting.

7. Phantom Thread — Six nominations, like Darkest Hour. This will, unlike the previous two films, have hardcore fans. I’d have this rated as my #2 movie. That said, that doesn’t help it, since my #1 is gonna be in contention all the way through. But it should have enough votes to be more of a factor than the first film off. It still shouldn’t hang around that long, though. (The Director nomination does mean there is support for this.)

6. Dunkirk — Because, on the eyeball test… where’s the love for this? Where are the #1 votes coming from? Everyone really liked this and respects it, but no one’s putting it at the top of their ballots. It has the second most amount of nominations, but people are responding to the technical achievements of this movie. It’s not really a factor in a race like this. Doesn’t feel like one, anyway. On nominations tally, it should be top five, given the Director and Editing nomination, but I’m just not feeling this one. I don’t see this going third on the majority of ballots. Don’t see it.

5. Call Me By Your Name — It’s the passionate love people will have for this that’ll keep it through. The first round of voting involves strictly #1 votes. After that, it’s what movies are #2 on the most ballots of eliminated films. This will be top three for a lot of people, and that’ll keep it around longer than most people realize. Without a Director or Editing nomination, there’s only so high you can rank it, but this feels like it should crack the top five. And if not, it’s sixth. Either way, not gonna win.

4. Get Out — This was a sneaky contender for the win for me for a while. Now… not totally feeling it. It’ll get a lot of 1s, and a fair amount of 2s and 3s. But I think the precursors have generally spoken, and while people love that this movie was nominated, no one really wants to vote for it for Best Picture. It’s more a ‘glad you’re here’ kind of thing. If this got nominated for Editing, I’d have felt like we had something cooking. Now — it’ll be there, but I don’t think it’ll get that far. The #1s up top are gonna loom large. There’s a small chance this doesn’t get the #1s to last past the first round or two of voting. Very small chance, but it’s there. Can’t accumulate those #2 and #3 votes if you don’t have the 1s up top.

3. Lady Bird — This’ll have the 1s. This’ll have the 2s and 3s. If anything’s the upset contender, this is the one. This feels like the one. Just like Moonlight, all it has to show for its precursors is a Globe win. That said… doubt it happens, but if I’m looking to the surprise choice that the most people like to win over the main two… this is it. Can’t put it higher than third without anything more than the one precursor, but it has everything else you’d want except the Editing nomination. I think this is your spoiler.

2. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri — In a way, this has the most precursors… but SAG and the Globe aren’t so meaningful. The BAFTA win is big, and I’ve felt all along that this might be the eventual winner. I still won’t put it as the frontrunner just because the PGA still matters most (and the overall number of nominations isn’t to be ignored), but I do think this is closer to a win than you might think. We’re definitely looking at a down-to-the-wire type race. This also has the Editing nomination you look for. It checks all the boxes except the PGA win. So for now, no favorite. But it doesn’t need to be the favorite to win.

1. The Shape of Water — Has the PGA, has BFCA, will win Best Director, has 13 overall nominations. That sounds like a frontrunner to me. The only major precursor it lost was BAFTA. SAG I don’t count as much, and the Globe is just a benchmark. I mean, yeah, that benchmark did alert me to Three Billboards likely being the winner, something I still feel is more than likely the case. But based on everything else, this is currently the frontrunner and has to be beaten. It could happen, and I probably think it will happen, but right now, you gotta beat this film. It’s the most broadly liked film of the bunch, given how many nominations it got, so you gotta beat it.

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