Best Picture
Conclave’s late SAG/BAFTA surge has revived the race against Anora’s strong PGA, DGA and WGA combo. Scroll for a thorough breakdown but all things considered, this should be Anora’s to lose.
Films are ranked by predicted likelihood to win and listed with their precursor nominations/wins.
I’ll breakdown everything below but to sum up why Anora is so strong:
The guilds are king and Anora’s package is extremely strong despite the SAG loss. Only 8 films have won PGA, DGA and WGA before with Brokeback Mountain being the sole eventual Oscar loser.
The precedents for Conclave to win Best Picture are either old and won for more infamous reasons (Crash, Shakespeare in Love) or the race was much more fractured (Spotlight).
Parasite is the only comparison that makes much sense statistically. It’s possible, but the passion that film had built felt much stronger than for Conclave - critically, Parasite was undeniably the best of its year.
The true best stats comparison for Conclave is Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri - SAG and BAFTA wins without a Director nom. Even then, Conclave isn’t competitive in any acting categories.
Moving away from stats, it’s very possible Conclave’s SAG win was more them rewarding a true ensemble movie than a lack of passion for Anora.
If a movie like Conclave is winning Best Picture, there’s no reason it should’ve lost PGA on a preferential ballot.
The BAFTA also win doesn’t mean much to me - BAFTA have chosen a different winner to the Oscars in eight of the last ten years.
Finally, vibes - I just think Anora is the much more lovable film.
What do the stats say?
Every Best Picture winner has won at least one of the four major guilds (PGA, DGA, WGA, SAG). PGA and SAG are arguably the most important as PGA is done with a preferential ballot - just like the Oscars, and SAG represents the guild with the most members in the Academy.
Following the guilds, this leaves us with Anora (who won awards at the first three) and Conclave (SAG winner; was ineligible at WGA though it may be safe to assume it would’ve won Adapted Screenplay over Nickel Boys).
It’s also worth noting that Anora won the Critics Choice Award while Conclave won the BAFTA (industry award; Oscar voter overlap). Here are some stats comparing each film’s precursor package:
Focusing on the guilds, films that won PGA and DGA but lost SAG still go on to win the Oscar 10 out of 14 times, with the eventual losers having been:
1917 (2020)
La La Land (2017)
Brokeback Mountain (2006)
Saving Private Ryan (1999)
Extending this to films that won PGA, DGA, and WGA but lost SAG, 7 out of 8 films go on to win the Oscar with Brokeback Mountain being the only film to lose.
So is there hope for Conclave?
Those stats certainly paint a grim picture of Conclave’s position. It’s true chances probably lie somewhere in between those 1/8 (13%) and 4/14 (29%) numbers.
The case for Conclave is that it’s got the momentum now (although who’s to say when the tides turned relative to the voting window) and the SAG win probably means its love at the BAFTA maybe isn’t just a Euro voter thing.
The list of films to win SAG but lose PGA is responsible for many of the Oscars’ most infamous upsets… a potential argument that Conclave could win too.
Parasite (2020) - won Best Picture
Spotlight (2016) - won Best Picture
Little Miss Sunshine (2007)
Crash (2006) - won Best Picture
Gosford Park (2002)
Shakespeare in Love (1999) - won Best Picture
L.A. Confidential (1998)
Pulp Fiction (1995)
Shakespeare in Love is of particular interest as it’s the only one to also win the BAFTA, just like Conclave has. Working against Conclave though is that all four of these BP-winning films listed also had their director nominated.
If we focus on the BAFTA win instead, films that won SAG and BAFTA have an impressive 13/15 hit rate at the Oscars… the only issue is that 12 of those 13 also won the PGA, unlike Conclave. The three films which won SAG and BAFTA but lost PGA are:
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2018) - lost Best Picture to The Shape of Water
SAG, BAFTA but no director nomination - this is the Conclave comp that makes the most sense to me.
Shakespeare in Love (1999) - won Best Picture
The Full Monty (1998) - lost Best Picture to Titanic
So if Conclave is to win Best Picture, its path might most resemble Shakespeare in Love. Here’s a closer look at how the 1999 race unfolded…
Case Study: 1999 - Shakespeare in Love vs Saving Private Ryan
I’ll go through the events but to put it simply, a film as legendary as Saving Private Ryan doesn’t lose Best Picture because fewer people liked it, it loses because it was out-campaigned.
It’s 1999 and awards campaigning is changing rapidly. After winning Best Picture two years prior with The English Patient, Harvey Weinstein’s aggressive campaigning is shifting a once (relatively) meritocratic system into something more closely resembling political campaigns. The Shakespeare in Love campaign spent more than $5 million, over double any other campaign from that year.
Weinstein joins Shakespeare in Love as a producer, his second producing credit after Pulp Fiction as he looks to win an Oscar for himself. Our two main contenders don’t miss a nomination with Saving Private Ryan taking PGA, DGA, and Critics Choice while Shakespeare in Love takes WGA, BAFTA and SAG… sounds pretty familiar.
In the end, the Oscars showered Shakespeare in Love with seven Oscars including Best Picture.
Shakespeare in Love being Conclave’s closest statistical comp does not fill me with optimism - we’re talking about 25 years ago and a win that’s more because of a campaigning discrepancy than anything (NEON has shown they are very competent campaigners - Anora does not suffer in that respect). Let’s go back to the Brokeback Mountain stat to see what happened then.
Case Study: 2006 - Crash vs Brokeback Mountain
Potentially a better comparison for Conclave’s position is Crash. Yes, Conclave had the BAFTA but I actually think its screenplay strength (hypothetical WGA win) is probably more important than its BAFTA win - as mentioned before, BAFTA has chosen a different winner to the Oscars in 8 out of the last 10 years.
Weirdly enough (although perhaps a pattern amongst upsets in this era), Crash is also seen as one of the most controversial Best Picture wins - potentially the worst. Some stats:
Brokeback Mountain won the Golden Globes, Critics Choice, PGA, DGA, WGA, and BAFTA as precursors against Crash’s WGA and SAG.
As mentioned before, Brokeback Mountain remains (for now) the only film to win PGA, DGA, and WGA but lose Best Picture.
Crash is one of only two Best Picture winners which wasn’t even nominated at the Golden Globes.
I think given all of that, you’d be willfully ignorant to think the subject matter of Brokeback Mountain didn’t have an impact on this awards season; the issue is only made worse by Crash’s “exploration” of race which is usually described as mixed at best and quite destructive at worst.
Moving into more recent memory, Spotlight sticks out as a potential comparison but its PGA and DGA losses were split between two different films (The Big Short and The Revenant respectively). Anora took both.
That leaves us with one last case study, which in contrast to these two is instead one of the Academy’s most progressive moments in history.
Case Study: 2019 - Parasite vs 1917
In 2019, 1917 never felt like a strong frontrunner but was slowly extending its lead after racking up the PGA, DGA, and BAFTA. Following a big SAG win though, people could feel the momentum shifting towards Parasite, just like Crash. This is what Conclave needs to hope is happening.
It is potentially the only recent and plausible example of what Conclave is trying to do and honestly, it could make a fair amount of sense for it to happen again. Anora doesn’t even have the BAFTA and its WGA is against much weaker competition. I’d say the strongest argument against it here is that Bong Joon-Ho was competitive in Director whereas Berger isn’t even nominated. But be wary of using that logic too much - if nominations were today, the lineup could look very different.
Closing thoughts
I think if you want to predict Conclave, Parasite gives you the precedent to do it. It has the momentum and it has the win-package - I feel better about Conclave winning Screenplay and Editing than I do any of Anora’s other awards. You’d be calling an upset, but one that’s certainly drawing live.
For me though, the guild support is just too much to bet against with Anora. Conclave swept Ensemble prizes everywhere this awards season and it doesn’t shock me that it won SAG. I’d be a lot more worried if it was competitive in any acting categories. And as for the BAFTA, it’s been so uncorrelated recently; plus Conclave’s a British film.
Critics Choice showed Anora can win Picture alone, it won the PGA, and if nothing else, I’m banking that it’s simply the most loved film. I think the real question is: how many other awards can Anora win?
Best Director
The Academy might like The Brutalist more than the guilds but given Anora’s strength, the all-important DGA win and Baker’s more compelling career narrative, it makes a Picture/Director split harder to see.
Directors are ranked by predicted likelihood to win and listed with their precursor nominations/wins.
The strongest indicator that Baker should be safe here is that only three directors have ever won Best Director after losing the DGA and with their film not winning Best Picture:
Steven Soderbergh for Traffic (2001)
Received two nominations for Best Director in 2001 (also for Erin Brockovich).
Double noms were for his 8th and 9th film, 12 years after receiving his first nomination.
Traffic won Screenplay and Editing; The Brutalist isn’t competitive for either.
Roman Polanski for The Pianist (2003)
Was Polanski’s 3rd Best Director nomination.
Was Polanski’s 17th film, following decades of celebrated work including Tess, Chinatown, and Rosemary’s Baby. All of which earned him Oscar nominations.
Coincidentally though (or not?), was also the film which Adrien Brody won his first Best Actor Oscar for, with zero precursors.
The Pianist was a Screenplay winner too which The Brutalist isn’t really competitive for.
Ang Lee for Life of Pi (2013)
DGA winner (Ben Affleck for Hugo) wasn’t nominated at Oscars.
Was Lee’s 13th film, and his 6th film which he received Oscar nominations for.
Was Lee’s 3rd Best Director nomination after Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain.
Previous winner for Best Director for Brokeback Mountain (after also winning the DGA).
As discussed in the Best Picture breakdown, many view it as a mistake that Brokeback Mountain lost Best Picture so perhaps an element of making it up to Lee with this award too.
Overall the point here is that to win Director while losing DGA and Best Picture, you need to be a serious industry veteran, potentially also with a compelling personal narrative to need the Director win.
So even after Corbet’s BAFTA win, the DGA loss was such a brutal (no pun intended) blow to his chances. Corbet on only his 3rd film just doesn't fit the mold of the examples above.
It would be extremely bizarre for DGA to deviate for no reason this year. Voters likely view Baker as a celebrated voice and an auteur in his own way. To me, it’s as simple as a filmmaker whose time has come to be recognized, and I think the Academy will give him his flowers.
So while on paper the race could appear close (and I’m not saying Corbet can’t win), history would say it’s very, very ballsy to bet against Baker. It only makes any sense if you think Anora is losing Best Picture and even then, Corbet/The Brutalist might not be strong enough anyway.