Readers Poll Results: Who *Should* Win?
Sunday, February 22, 2015 at 8:16AM With the Oscars arriving in 12 hours and your host (er, Nathaniel -- your host here at TFE-- not NPH) still sick as a dog, I turn the time over to you. Your votes have been tallied from the polls we ran on the individual Oscar Chart pages over the past month and here's who YOU -- the collective you at least -- are rooting for tonight.
Grand Budapest Hotel won 37% of your hearts. In solid second place was Birdman with 30%. Nightcrawler and Boyhood had their fans with 16% and 12% of the vote respectively. Trailing them all with a poor showing was Foxcatcher with 4%.
acting, director, picture after the jump
Interestingly the leader here won by the same percentage. Whiplash whipped 37% of you into a frenzy with its shouty quotables. Inherent Vice and The Imitation Game were neck and neck for second place with 25% and 24% of your votes which is amusing because could they be more diametrically opposed? The Theory of Everything and American Sniper were way in the back with 8% and 3% respectively.
J.K. Simmons who steamrolled through the precursors also wins by a significant margin here with 42% of the votes. Edward Norton comes in a respectable second with 31% and I really do believe that if J.K. Simmons weren't in the running he'd be pretty lockish for the Oscar. Ethan Hawke took 15%, Mark Ruffalo 9%, and Robert Duvall's 1% proves that he still has his fans. Which is right considering the filmography but yeesh, that movie!
Patricia Arquette hogged 54% of your vote with everyone else far far behind. Streep fans are never quiet so the Supreme Actress was in second place with 16%. The other contenders had equal passion. Emma Stone came in third place with 10% and Laura Dern and Keira Knightley tied for last with 9% each.
Surprisingly in that formidable Best Actor race where we assumed votes would be more evenly spreadd, Michael Keaton took 56% of the votes -- the biggest win in any of the polls! Eddie Redmayne was a distant second with 24% (they both made my best actor ballot). Bradley Cooper, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Steve Carell brought up the rear in a close battle with 7%, 6% and 5% of the remaining vote crumbs.
Julianne Moore, fending off the formidable Marion Cotillard, managed 49% against Cotillards 28%. Rosamund Pike was in third with 16% and naturally this was the most popular poll to vote on since we attract the actress-lovers here. (I actually expected Pike to do much better given the comments over the film year on Gone Girl right here). Reese Witherspoon was a distant 4th with 3% and Felicity Jones tied Robert Duvall for worst showing in a poll with only 1% of the votes.
Richard Linklater was way out front with 52% of the votes for his 12 year filmmaking experiment. Alejandro G Inarritu and Wes Anderson were in 2nd and 3rd with 24% and 18% for their very distinctive visions. Bennett Miller took 3% for Foxcatcher and Morten Tyldum made it a three way tie for worst individual showing with Felicity and Duvall with only 1% of the readership behind him.
Boyhood prevailed with 39% of The Film Experience readers vote. Birdman and Grand Budapest Hotel were the only films to put up a fight with 23% and 16% of the vote. The rest of the films fought over scraps: Selma: 7%; Whiplash 5%; The Imitation Game 3%; American Sniper: 2%; and The Theory of Everything: 1%.
Thanks for voting! Given how close some of these races are tonight there's no telling how happy y'all will be tonight. Happy Oscar Watching regardless.
Reader Comments (19)
Consensus is a bitch.
Consensus is a bitch.
When it's about Meryl Streep it sure is.
"Consensus is a bitch.
When it's about Meryl Streep it sure is."
When it's about white people in general, it is.
"Consensus is a bitch.
When it's about Meryl Streep it sure is.
When it's about white people in general, it is."
Consensus always is about white people.
Nathaniel, sorry to hear you're feeling unwell. remember, Oscar night is the best medicine! So, hope you will enjoy it and in partticular enjoy the surprises. (There are sure to be some.)
For my part, I can only really say what I feel should win in the categories in which I've seen every nominee, and I seem to be 'missing' one in pretty much every category this year, rather annoyingly. But I do hope Boyhood does well.
must every comment thread turn into something about race? it's been so strange for that this year and we've had ample articles where it's more appropriate to discuss. It's not like we ignore the issue :)
I was just remarking how the readers poll looks like the frontrunners.
I didn't think it would escalate to race...
Good oscars to you, Nathaniel!!
I think the reason of the race debate is that this site is getting more viewers around the world.
And one thing this site fails to adress is that race and skin color is relative around the globe. So, someone categorized as a people of color by USA standards may be considered white in other country...
I say this as a Brazilian. So, when i see Fernanda Montenegro, Javier Barden, etc, categorized as people of color... I feel awkward... I mean, this people don't suffer from racism... at least Fernanda, who lives in Brazil.
I don't know. It feels disrespectful for me, as black brazillian who deal with racism everyday.
I love your blog and is not your job to discuss race and politics....
But my advice is this, be aware that someone categorized as people of color in USA may not be where some of your readers are.
Good oscars!!
Happy Oscars to all. Thank you team TFE for such wonderful coverage of the awards season and all things film related. You are far and away the best film blog I've found.
My Oscar wish is for Michael Keaton to win. If that happened I could give or take the rest. Not banking on it but here's hoping!
Micael, American white supremacy responsible for our racial caste system is childishly simplistic.
"must every comment thread turn into something about race?"
Thank you for this........but perhaps a little introspection is in order. Racism in everything is pretty popular among your contributors (there is now one I won't even read it has become so insidious). It isn't hard to understand why readers believe it is acceptable to turn every discussion into a racist rant.
As a result of the perceived snubs toward Selma, this years awards dialogue has focused on gender and racial representation in a way that has really skewed the dialogue negatively. I guess they're conversations worth having (endlessly) but now that we're at the end of the season, it sure has felt suffocating at times.
I'm surprised the readership here backs the consensus so strongly, but that's probably just because I'm still semi-immune to the charms of Boyhood and Birdman. It's so weird to say that, too, because I *like* both movies, I just don't see the masterpieces others do.
Anyway, I will be rooting for Wes Anderson in Original Screenplay with everything I have. It's one of the very few awards where my favorite stands a better than even shot at winning (and that's ok!)
Happy Oscar Day everyone!!
Things I hope to be celebrating tonight:
Juli's walk to the podium
Patricia giving a speech without a cheat sheet
Alexandre Desplat breaking his non-winning streak
An injection of real world politics from Common and Laura Poitras
Happy High Holy Day to all you similarly obsessed Oscars freaks.
"It isn't hard to understand why readers believe it is acceptable to turn every discussion into a racist rant."
Only rants of the actressexual variety may be tolerated! (mostly in jest)
I saw The Judge and, Duvall is a clear category fraud!
I just saw The Judge, I mean. I wish I didn't, life is short
"and Robert Duvall's 1% proves that he still has his fans."
I was disappointed when your next sentence wasn't, "but please remember there is a 1% margin of error when it comes to these polls." :)
micael,
yes, recently the POC term has caused debate in the comments quite a few times. I agree the american definition feels strange to some us foreigners (a fellow brazilian here).
marcelo -- if you all heard it as often as we americans do from minorities you would understand why you hear it so often hear (and elsewhere)