Oscar Stat Fun - No Sweeps in the Modern Era but can "EEAAO" change that?

by Nathaniel R

That complete sweep at the Spirits and SAG has us wondering now whether or not Everything Everywhere All At Once will win Best Picture but how many statues in total can actually win. We haven't seen a sweeper at the Oscars in a long long time. Yes some films have won all their categories but they aren't true "sweepers" i.e. thoroughly dominant movies. It would be technically accurate, for example, to say that CODA performed a clean sweep last season. It did win all of its categories but it wasn't a sweeper in any meaningful sense since it was only up for 3 Oscars.

In fact, a big sweep hasn't yet happened in the expanded Best Picture era!  Can Everything Everywhere All At Once change that? Let's look at the history and stats after the jump...

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Best Director Closet Picks... and Polls!

by Nathaniel R

The Oscar charts are complete for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplays with "who should win" polls on each page. So vote for your favs daily!  Each page also has trivia and factoids and listicles for your entertainment. For the first time in Oscar's 95 year history Director and Original Screenplay are an exact match and each of the directors also wrote or co-wrote the screenplays. We still can't get over that. Not just in 'how did it happen' but also in 'how did it never happen before?'. Do we just have more multi-hyphenates than we used to in Hollywood? (Probably) Or was it just a matter of the unique field of contenders this year? (Also possible)

Speaking of writer/directors. Today, February 10th, is Dan Kwan's 35th birthday and he has a lot to celebrate this year with 3 Oscar nominations for his 3rd feature Everything Everywhere All At Once. Remember his dance moves in "Turn Down For What?"  Speaking of "Daniels"... what did you think of their Criterion Closet visit? 

Lists! Acting Nominees by the numbers

The Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Supporting Actor Charts are all updated with 'who should win' polls (vote daily) and trivia. Here's a silly little breakdown of "extra" numbers stuff from the four acting categories including a very "fiery" Zodiac coincidence. 

Brendan Fraser in "The Whale"

ACTING NOMINEES BY THE NUMBERS...

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Vote on Best Actress. (Plus 'How'd they get nominated?')

The Best Actress chart is fully updated for your viewing pleasure with details, stats, and trivia. Here's one curio trivia bit. We believe that this is only the second time in history when all five Best Actress nominees are from different countries! (Usually it's some combo of Americans, Brits, and Aussies). All that plus our semi-annual "How'd They Get Nominated?" breakdown. Before anyone takes offense at the guesstimate percentages (it's all in good fun) please note that these are NOT performance critiques. A truth: You can give the most brilliant performance of all time and still be nominated for other reasons entirely. Awards races, Oscar and otherwise, are meritocracies only in the utopian ideal sense; People are people (including, thus, all voting bodies be they fans, high brow critics, or Academy members) and their reasons for voting in any given way are multiple and varied and heavily influenced by all sorts of things. Plus, it's all subjective too!

Adrien Brody & Ana de Armas in "Blonde" (Netflix)

Let's start with Ana de Armas in Blonde for an example. How'd she get nominated?

67% Role. Awards bodies have always loved Marilyn portrayals which have led to Emmy, Oscar, and Tony nods for various actresses across multiple decades (though not wins curiously enough).
20% Performance. Even people who didn't love the movie admired her work in it.
6% Globe nomination / ceremony shout-outs revived interest in a crowded race.
5% Knives Out + No Time To Die = rapidly ascending stardom (Big stars have a built in advantage in popularity contests) 
2% Early traction! That September release struck while the iron was hot from Venice festival buzz. Blonde was widely seen (via Netflix) before all but one of the major competitors for the nomination arrived (Michelle Yeoh was the exception).

The other four breakdowns are on the Best Actress page where you can vote daily in the "Who SHOULD win?" poll. 

A Record Number of First Time Nominees at the Oscars!

By: Christopher James

Four cast members of Everything Everywhere All At Once received their first career Oscar nominations this year.

Every Oscar year brings both big snubs and wonderful new stats. In particular, this year stands out due to the overwhelming crop of first time Oscar nominees in acting. Out of the twenty acting nominees, sixteen of them are celebrating their first time nominees. This doesn’t point to a green crop of actors since many of them are veterans who have been long overlooked, such as Bill Nighy and Jamie Lee Curtis. In fact, the average age of the Best Actress lineup is 46, which would put it in the top ten oldest Best Actress lineups, based on The Film Experience’s work years ago. Having a healthy crop of new nominees is a sign of health for both the Academy and the film world - they aren’t defaulting to people they’ve rewarded before, but are searching elsewhere for new faces or people they’ve overlooked in the past.  So how rare is it to have this amount of first time nominees?

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