by Christopher James
Daniel Kaluuya has won all the major televised awards of the season so far for his tour-de-force performance as Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah. This should clear an easy path for him in Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars. The one difference: he faces off against co-star Lakeith Stanfield in the same category for the first time this season at the Oscars. Is this a show of confidence in the film, further solidifying his imminent win? Or does this open up the possibility for vote-splitting?
Theoretically, having multiple nominees from a film in a single category should double a film’s chances at winning...
Thus, Judas and the Black Messiah should have a 40% chance of winning Best Supporting Actor since two of the five nominees are from the film. Yet, when looking at all the times a film took up multiple acting slots, only 32% of the time did someone from the film win. This is less than expected, suggesting that there is some level of vote splitting that occurs.
Do all acting categories see the same risk of vote splitting? Let’s take a look.
Most of the time double nominees happen, it is in the supporting actress category. In fact, 49% of the occurrences of multiple actors from the same movie earning nominations are in the supporting actress category. This higher volume doesn’t necessarily change much about the success rate. Just over one-third of time, one of the two women nominated from the film will win. This is in line with what we see for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.
The only category that is more prone to vote splitting is Best Actress. There have only been five occurrences of two actresses from the same movie earning nominations in Best Actress. Only once has this resulted in a win (Shirley MacLaine for Terms of Endearment, nominated against Debra Winger). This speaks to female centric films with dual leads not often being Oscar's preference.
The increased campaign preference for Category Fraud has also led to no recent lead acting categories nominating two actors from the same film. The last time that happened in Best Actor was 1984, where F. Murray Abraham beat Tom Hulce for Amadeus. In Best Actress, both Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis competed against each other and lost for Thelma & Louise in 1991. Plenty of co-lead movies have seen both their stars nominated across the two categories (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Two Popes, Carol, The Danish Girl, and countless more) thanks to Category Fraud.
The success rate for actors who appear in the same movie has gone up over the decades. In the supporting categories, two actors have been nominated for the same movie a total of five times (excluding this year). Of those five occurrences, three times someone from the movie with dual nominees won. These winners include Melissa Leo (The Fighter), Octavia Spencer (The Help) and Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri).
This is a huge help to Daniel Kaluuya. In each of these cases, the winner was the clear frontrunner in the category. The second nominee from each of their films were more of a sign of the film’s strength at the Oscars (see Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri) or the coattails of other performances (see The Help). When looking at the two times dual nominees from a film didn’t equal a win in the past decade, none of the nominees were frontrunners. For The Irishman, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci both had pockets of passionate fans. Yet, the entire season belonged to Brad Pitt for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and neither of them were ever going to dethrone him. In the case of The Favourite, Rachel Weisz had a shot at pulling out a surprise win over Regina King for If Beale Street Could Talk. Likely co-nominee Emma Stone siphoned off votes from her, making it much harder to pull off that feat.
The most clear example from recent nominees where having a second nominee demonstrably hurt a frontrunner’s chances was in 2000 when Kate Hudson and Frances McDormand were nominated for Almost Famous. Hudson was favored to win. Yet, in hindsight, her main precursor heading into the night was a Golden Globes win. Plus, McDormand had won critics prizes thanks to great performances in multiple films that year, including Wonder Boys. All of this led to a shocking upset by Marcia Gay Harden for Pollock.
In short, having a second nominee from a film only splits votes if neither nominee is a clear frontrunner. If someone is trying to plan a surprise win, having a second nominee could backfire. However, clear frontrunners like Daniel Kaluuya shouldn’t be worried about any vote splitting. Though LaKeith Stanfield is great in the film, he is the surprise nominee (and clear lead) and hasn’t exactly been playing the Oscar game. It’s Kaluuya’s Oscar to lose.
Best Actor
1935 - Mutiny on the Bounty - Clark Gable, Charles Laughton, Franchot Tone
1944 - Going My Way - Bing Crosby (WIN), Barry Fitzgerald
1953 - From Here to Eternity - Montgomery Clift, Burt Lancaster
1956 - Giant - James Dean, Rock Hudson
1958 - The Defiant Ones - Tony Curtis, Sidney Poitier
1961 - Judgment at Nuremberg - Maximilian Schell (WIN), Spencer Tracy
1964 - Becket - Richard Burton, Peter O’Toole
1969 - Midnight Cowboy - Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight
1972 - Sleuth - Michael Caine, Laurence Olivier
1976 - Network - Peter Finch (WIN), William Holden
1983 - The Dresser - Tom Courtenay, Albert Finney
1984 - Amadeus - F. Murray Abraham (WIN), Tom Hulce
Best Actress
1950 - All About Eve - Anne Baxter, Bette Davis
1959 - Suddenly, Last Summer - Katharine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor
1977 - The Turning Point - Anne Bancroft, Shirley MacLaine
1983 - Terms of Endearment - Shirley MacLaine (WIN), Debra Winger
1991 - Thelma & Louise - Geena Davis, Susan Sarandon
Best Supporting Actor
1939 - Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - Harry Carey, Claude Rains
1951 - Quo Vadis - Leo Genn, Peter Ustinov
1953 - Shane - Brandon De Wilde, Jack Palance
1954 - On the Waterfront - Lee J. Cobb, Karl Malden, Rod Steiger
1957 - Peyton Place - Arthur Kennedy, Russ Tamblyn
1959 - Anatomy of a Murder - Arthur O’Connell, George C. Scott
1961 - The Hustler - Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott
1971 - The Last Picture Show - Jeff Bridges, Ben Johnson (WIN)
1972 - The Godfather - James Caan, Robert Duvall, Al Pacino
1974 - The Godfather Part II - Robert De Niro (WIN), Michael V. Gazzo, Lee Strasberg
1976 - Rocky - Burgess Meredith, Burt Young
1977 - Julia - Jason Robards (WIN), Maximilian Schell
1980 - Ordinary People - Judd Hirsch, Timothy Hutton (WIN)
1983 - Terms of Endearment - Jack Nicholson (WIN), John Lithgow
1986 - Platoon - Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe
1991 - Bugsy - Harvey Keitel, Ben Kingsley
2017 - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell (WIN)
2019 - The Irishman - Al Pacino, Joe Pesci
2020 - Judas and the Black Messiah - Daniel Kaluuya, Lakeith Stanfield
Best Supporting Actress
1939 - Gone with the Wind - Olivia de Havilland, Hattie McDaniel (WIN)
1941 - The Little Foxes - Patricia Collinge, Teresa Wright
1942 - Mrs. Miniver - Dame May Whitty, Teresa Wright (WIN)
1943 - The Song of Bernadette - Gladys Cooper, Anne Revere
1945 - Mildred Pierce - Eve Arden, Ann Blyth
1947 - Gentleman’s Agreement - Celeste Holm (WIN), Anne Revere
1948 - I Remember Mama - Barbara Bel Geddes, Ellen Corby
1949 - Come to the Stable - Celeste Holm, Elsa Lanchester
1949 - Pinky - Ethel Barrymore, Ethel Waters
1950 - All About Eve - Celeste Holm, Thelma Ritter
1954 - The High and the Mighty - Jan Sterling, Claire Trevor
1956 - The Bad Seed - Eileen Heckart, Patty McCormack
1957 - Peyton Place - Hope Lange, Diane Varsi
1959 - Imitation of Life - Susan Kohner, Juanita Moore
1963 - Tom Jones - Diane Cilento, Dame Edith Evans, Joyce Redman
1965 - Othello - Joyce Redman, Maggie Smith
1970 - Airport - Helen Hayes (WIN), Maureen Stapleton
1971 - The Last Picture Show - Ellen Burstyn, Cloris Leachman (WIN)
1973 - Paper Moon - Madeline Kahn, Tatum O’Neal (WIN)
1975 - Nashville - Ronee Blakley, Lily Tomlin
1979 - Kramer vs. Kramer - Jane Alexander, Meryl Streep (WIN)
1982 - Tootsie - Teri Garr, Jessica Lange (WIN)
1985 - The Color Purple - Margaret Avery, Oprah Winfrey
1988 - Working Girl - Joan Cusack, Sigourney Weaver
1989 - Enemies, A Love Story - Anjelica Huston, Lena Olin
1994 - Bullets Over Broadway - Jennifer Tilly, Dianne Wiest (WIN)
2000 - Almost Famous - Kate Hudson, Frances McDormand
2001 - Gosford Park - Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith
2002 - Chicago - Queen Latifah, Catherine Zeta-Jones (WIN)
2006 - Babel - Adriana Barraza, Rinko Kikuchi
2008 - Doubt - Amy Adams, Viola Davis
2009 - Up in the Air - Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick
2010 - The Fighter - Amy Adams, Melissa Leo (WIN)
2011 - The Help - Jessica Chastain, Octavia Spencer (WIN)
Do you expect Daniel Kaluuya will prevail at the Oscars? Let us know in the comments below.