Oscars rules of engagement

The Oscars, of course, are not entirely predictable, or else we'd all do a better job of predicting them. Still, there are historical trends and patterns -- "rules," if you will -- that offer valuable guidance about how they might pan out, and Oscar bloggers like myself make it our job to dig them up, dust them off, share them with our readers, and factor them into our own projections/analysis each Oscar season. Eventually, the Oscars come around, confirm some of them, and fling the others back in our face. We'll get to the "rule breakers" shortly, but first, here are the rules that held up in 2008.

When two or more actors are nominated for the same film in the same category, they will usually cancel each other out.

• Case(s) in point: Amy Adams ("Doubt") and Viola Davis ("Doubt") both losing to Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona") for  supporting actress.
• Specifics: Sometimes the "enemy" of your "enemy" is not your "friend." Costars have been pitted against each other for acting Oscars since 1935, when three men from "Mutiny on the Bounty" were nominated for lead actor. This dynamic has recurred — though usually with only two actors going head-to-head — 64 times over the 81 years of the Academy Awards. And, as was the case with the "Mutiny on the Bounty" nominees, both competing costars went home empty-handed on 45 (70%) of those occasions, including this one. Why? Presumably because voters couldn't agree, en masse, on which (if either) of the costars to coalesce their support behind, resulting in a split that denied either enough votes to win — even if one might have won had the other not been picking off their votes.

If the best actor and/or best actress race is close, the nominee whose film is nominated for best picture will usually win.

• Case(s) in point: Sean Penn ("Milk"), whose film was nominated for best picture, winning lead actor over his fellow nominees, none of whose films were also nominated for best picture except for Frank Langella ("Frost/Nixon") and Brad Pitt ("The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"); and Kate Winslet ("The Reader"), whose film was nominated for best picture, winning lead actress over her fellow nominees, none of whose films were also nominated for best picture.
• Specifics: Over the 81 years of the Academy Awards, the vast majority of lead actor and lead actress winners, including this year's, starred in films that were at least nominated for best picture (63 actors, 51 actresses), and in many cases won (26 actors, 12 actresses). In fact, there have only been seven years (1929/1930, 1947, 1969, 1974, 1990, 1995, 2001) in which neither the lead actor nor the lead actress appeared in a film that was at least nominated for the top honor. This is probably because most best pictures are driven by one or two stars, as opposed to an ensemble, and if the movie connects with voters, it's probably largely because of at least one of those performances.

When Meryl Streep gives a performance, she will almost always be nominated, but she will usually lose.

• Case(s) in point: Meryl Streep ("Doubt") being nominated for lead actress but losing to Kate Winslet ("The Reader").
  
• Specifics: It may seem strange to label Streep -- who has garnered a record 15 acting nominations and won two of them, supporting actress for "Kramer vs. Kramer" (1979) and lead actress for "Sophie's Choice" (1982) -- "the biggest loser in Oscars history," but the fact of the matter is that nobody has lost more acting nominations than she has, either. It's been 26 years since she last won (she's gone 0-for-11 in the interim), and only two other people have waited as long and eventually won again: Helen Hayes, who waited 39 years between winning lead actress for "The Sin of Madelon Claudet" (1931) and supporting actress for "Airport" (1970), and Katharine Hepburn, who waited 34 years between "Morning Glory" (1933) and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" (1967). If any actress is in their league, though, it's Streep, so it's quite possible that she will become the third.

Each year, there will usually be at least one best picture nominee that wins none of the Oscars for which it is nominated.

• Case(s) in point: Best picture nominee "Frost/Nixon" losing all five of the Oscars for which it was nominated: best picture, director (Ron Howard), lead actor (Frank Langella), adapted screenplay (Peter Morgan) and film editing (Mike Hill, Daniel P. Hanley).
  
• Specifics: Lest you think "best" is always good enough, there have been 133 films nominated for best picture over the 81 years of the Academy Awards that won neither best picture nor any other categories in which they were nominated. Though it had been three years since a best picture nominee went home empty-handed before "Frost/Nixon," it is actually a fairly regular phenomenon -- there have been only 18 ceremonies in which every best picture nominee did win an Oscar: 1945, 1948, 1949, 1953, 1955, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1969, 1975, 1979, 1986, 1988, 1995, 1997, 2004, 2006 and 2007.

The winner of the DGA Award will usually win best director, and the film directed by the winner of the DGA Award will usually win best picture.

• Case(s) in point: After Danny Boyle ("Slumdog Millionaire") won the DGA Award, Boyle winning  director and "Slumdog Millionaire" winning best picture.
• Specifics: The winner of the DGA Award, which has been distributed since 1948, has corresponded with the winner of the director Academy Award on all but six occasions (1968, 1972, 1985, 1995, 2000 and 2002), and the film directed by the DGA Award winner has gone on to be named best picture by the Academy on all but 13 occasions (1948, 1951, 1952, 1956, 1967, 1968, 1981, 1985, 1989, 1995, 1998, 2000 and 2005), making it among the strongest predictors of both categories.

The fact that an actor has won an Oscar within the previous five years does not mean he or she cannot win another one.

• Case(s) in point: Sean Penn ("Milk") winning lead actor for the second time, just five years after winning it for the first (for "Mystic River," 2003).
• Specifics: While it is certainly uncommon to win more than one acting Oscar within five years, it has now happened 17 times over 81 years of the Academy Awards -- roughly once or twice a decade -- so we shouldn't be shocked when it does. Within that short span, 11 people have won two lead Oscars; four people have won two supporting Oscars; and two people have won one of each. All -- Walter Brennan, Olivia de Havilland, Bette Davis, Sally Field, Jodie Foster, Tom Hanks, Katharine Hepburn, Glenda Jackson, Sean Penn, Anthony Quinn, Luise Rainer, Jason Robards Jr., Kevin Spacey, Meryl Streep, Hilary Swank, Spencer Tracy, Peter Ustinov  -- were/are immensely respected "actors' actors."
  

In a close race that features a nominee in some way related to the Holocaust, that nominee will usually prevail.

• Case(s) in point: Kate Winslet ("The Reader") winning lead actress; "Toyland" winning  live action short
• Specifics: The Holocaust is one subject the academy never forgets to remember. Dating back to Charles Chaplin's anti-Hitler film "The Great Dictator" (1940), there have been -- by my count -- 41 performances in Holocaust/Nazi related films that have been nominated for acting Oscars, 12 of which have won. Why, you ask? Because the academy tends to reward movies and performances that make us look at the world around us differently than we did when we entered the theater, and no subject has the power to do that more than the most shocking and inexplicable event of the 20th century, the Holocaust. Because the academy gravitates toward stories that are based-on-fact and about people who really lived, and no subject offers as many as the Holocaust. And because most films about the Holocaust inherently feature cinematic elements that appeal to virtually every branch of the Academy -- high drama (picture), told on a massive scale (editing, score), about characters who experience great trials and tragedy (acting), amid period settings (costume, makeup) and a backdrop of war (cinematography, visual effects).

When a film generates four or more acting nominees but no best picture nomination, it is highly unlikely that any of those actors will win.

• Case(s) in point: "Doubt" earning four acting nods -- Meryl Streep for lead actress, Philip Seymour Hoffman for supporting actor, and both Amy Adams and Viola Davis for supporting actress -- but not a best picture nod, and subsequently losing all of them.
  
• Specifics: It's incredibly rare for a film to garner four or more acting nods -- it's happened only 35 times over 81 years of the Academy Awards. It's even rarer, however, for a film that does to not earn a best picture nomination, as well. (After all, isn't a film built on its performances?) But, believe it or not, this has happened to four films -- "My Man Godfrey" (1936), "I Remember Mama" (1948), "Othello" (1965), and "Doubt" (2008). Perhaps the absence of the best picture nod indicates an absence of enthusiastic support in favor of dispassionate respect? That would make sense, considering that none of the four films that earned four or more acting nominations without a best picture nod actually won any on those acting nominations.

In the supporting categories, actors are often nominated for performances with little screen time, but those actors will usually lose to performances with greater screen time.

• Case(s) in point: Michael Shannon ("Revolutionary Road"), who appears on screen for 8 minutes, losing supporting actor to Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight"), who has much more screen time; and Viola Davis ("Doubt"), who appears on screen for 12 minutes, losing supporting actress to Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona"), who has much more screen time
  
• Specifics: Let's face it -- in the supporting categories, size matters! Most years, some nominees are genuine character actors who appear in their films only briefly but advance the plot and leave a powerful impact, like Shannon or Davis, and some are A-list stars who are effectively co-leads posing as someone supporting the other lead for the purposes of increasing their prospects of winning an award, like Philip Seymour Hoffman ("Doubt"), who was not successful, or Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight"), who was. Sure, the former sort sometimes win -- see  Beatrice Straight ("Network," 1976) -- but most winners, especially recently, are masqueraders like Benicio Del Toro ("Traffic," 2000), Tim Robbins ("Mystic River," 2003), George Clooney ("Syriana," 2005) and Javier Bardem ("No Country for Old Men," 2007).

The film that wins the VES Award for best visual effects in a visual effects driven movie will usually go on to win best visual effects.

• Case(s) in point: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" won the VES Award on Saturday and the Academy Award on Sunday.
  
• Specifics: The Visual Effects Society has only been dishing out awards since 2002, but it is quickly rising toward the top of the list of guilds that most consistently honor the same film that is subsequently honored in a corresponding category by the academy. Five of those seven years, the winner of the VES Award for best visual effects in a visual effects driven movie has gone on to win the Academy Award for best visual effects -- that's a highly respectable 71% batting average. (The two exceptions: in 2004, the VES award went to "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" but the Oscar went to "Spider-Man 2"; and, in 2007, the VES award went to "Transformers" but the Oscar went to "The Golden Compass.")

When an actress appears in supporting role in a film directed by Woody Allen, there is an unusually strong chance that she will be nominated for and possibly win supporting actress.

• Case(s) in point: Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona") winning supporting actress. 
• Specifics: Woody Allen, who has personally accumulated 14 nominations (and 2 wins) for writing and 6 nominations (and 1 win) for directing, also has an incredibly high rate of success when it comes to getting Oscar nominations (and wins) for his actors. 15 performances in Allen-directed movies, in fact, have received nods, including nine in the supporting actress category: Maureen Stapleton ("Interiors," 1978), Mariel Hemingway ("Manhattan," 1979), Dianne Wiest ("Hannah and Her Sisters," 1986), Judy Davis ("Husbands and Wives," 1992), Jennifer Tilly ("Bullets Over Broadway," 1994), Dianne Wiest ("Bullets Over Broadway," 1994), Mira Sorvino ("Mighty Aphrodite," 1995), Samantha Morton ("Sweet and Lowdown," 1999), and Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona," 2008). Just as remarkably, four have won: Wiest (both times), Sorvino and now Cruz.

On average, one actor is nominated each year for an acting Oscar without previously being nominated for either a SAG Award or Golden Globe Award, and that actor will almost always lose.

• Case(s) in point: Michael Shannon ("Revolutionary Road") losing supporting actor to Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight").
  
• Specifics: Over the last decade, only 13 performances have been nominated for an Oscar after receiving neither a Golden Globe nor a SAG nomination -- Toni Collette ("The Sixth Sense," 1999) for  supporting actress, Ed Harris ("Pollock," 2000) for lead actor, Marcia Gay Harden ("Pollock," 2000) for  supporting actress, Samantha Morton ("In America," 2003) for lead actress, Djimon Hounsou ("In America," 2003) for supporting actor, Shohreh Aghdashloo ("House of Sand and Fog," 2003) for supporting actress, Marcia Gay Harden ("Mystic River," 2003) for supporting actress, Clint Eastwood ("Million Dollar Baby," 2004) for lead actor, Alan Alda ("The Aviator," 2004) for supporting actor, William Hurt ("A History of Violence," 2005) for supporting actor, Tommy Lee Jones ("In the Valley of Elah," 2007) for lead actor, Laura Linney ("The Savages," 2007) for lead actress. Only one -- Harden, for "Pollock" -- managed to win the Oscar without the precursor support.

If an actress plays a nun in a drama, she will often be nominated, but she will usually lose.

• Case(s) in point: Meryl Streep ("Doubt") being nominated for lead actress for playing a nun, but losing to Kate Winslet ("The Reader"). Amy Adams ("Doubt") being nominated for  supporting actress for playing a nun, but losing to Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona").
  
• Specifics: Over the 81 years of the Academy Awards, 15 women have received acting nominations for portraying nuns -- Jennifer Jones ("The Song of Bernadette," 1943) for lead actress, Gladys Cooper ("The Song of Bernadette," 1943) for supporting actress, Ingrid Bergman ("The Bells of St. Mary's," 1945), Loretta Young ("Come to the Stable," 1949) for lead actress, Celeste Holm ("Come to the Stable," 1949) for supporting actress, Deborah Kerr ("Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison," 1957) for lead actress, Audrey Hepburn ("The Nun's Story," 1959) for lead actress, Lilia Skala ("Lilies of the Field," 1963) for supporting actress, Julie Andrews ("The Sound of Music," 1965) for lead actress, Peggy Wood ("The Sound of Music," 1965) for supporting actress, Anne Bancroft ("Agnes of God," 1985) for lead actress, Meg Tilly ("Agnes of God," 1985) for supporting actress, Susan Sarandon ("Dead Man Walking," 1995) for lead actress, Meryl Streep ("Doubt," 2008) for lead actress, and Amy Adams ("Doubt," 2008) for supporting actress. Only two, however, have won: Jones and Sarandon. 

When an animated film is nominated in a category other than best animated feature or short, it will usually lose.

• Case(s) in point: "Wall-E" won animated feature but lost its five other nods (original screening, original score, original song, sound editing and sound mixing); "Waltz With Bashir" lost foreign language.
• Specifics: Since the 5th Oscars (1931-1932), animated short films have had their own category, and since the 74th Oscars (2001), animated feature films have had their own, too. But both before and subsequent to the creation of those categories, animated films have never done particularly well outside of them. And, on the rare occasions when they have managed to secure other nominations -- usually for their screenplay, editing, song, score, and/or sound, and on one occasion for best picture -- they have lost far more than they've won. Over the 81 years of the Academy Awards, 54 animated films have garnered 106 nominations outside of the two categories specifically designated for animated films; just 22 of those 106 have resulted in wins; and only 2 of those 22 have come since the creation of the best animated feature category. Does this confirm the widely held view that the separate-but-equal best animated feature category was created out of a form of "genre bias" in order to segregate animated films from all others? We report, you decide.

The winners of best original score and best original song will often come from the same film.

• Case(s) in point: "Slumdog Millionaire" winning best original score (A.R. Rahman) and best original song "Jai Ho" (A.R. Rahman, Sampooran Singh Gulzar).
• Specifics: Ever since the seventh Oscars in 1934, the academy has been dishing out statuettes for best score and best song. Though the names of those categories may have changed over the years (there were two scoring categories for many of them, one for dramatic or comedy pictures and one for musical pictures), one thing has not: the winner of one often wins the other. (To be more precise, it's happened to 19 films over 74 years, or 26% of the time.) One could be forgiven for forgetting this trend when filling out projections this year, since the two categories last corresponded five years ago for "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." But "Slumdog Millionaire" probably managed the feat for much the same reason that film did: it was easily the most popular film on the ballot, and consequently won almost all of the categories for which it was nominated -- best picture coattails, if you will. (It also probably deserved to!)

rWhen Harvey Weinstein puts his full weight behind a nominee, that nominee will usually win.

• Case(s) in point: Kate Winslet ("The Reader") winning lead actress, Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona") winning supporting actress
• Specifics: From his early days at the helm of Miramax in the late 1980s through the present at the Weinstein Co., Harvey Weinstein has consistently found a way to get his films and performances nominated, and consistently maneuvered them to wins. His greatest hits include nominations for supporting actor Robert Forster ("Jackie Brown," 1997), best picture for "Chocolat" (2000), best picture for "Gangs of New York" (2002), and lead actor Johnny Depp ("Finding Neverland," 2004), wins for original screenplay for Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary ("Pulp Fiction," 1994), best picture for "The English Patient" (1996), original screenplay for Ben Affleck and Matt Damon ("Good Will Hunting," 1997), lead actress for Gwyneth Paltrow ("Shakespeare in Love,"1998), supporting actor for Michael Caine ("The Cider House Rules," 1999), supporting actor for Jim Broadbent ("Iris," 2001), best picture for "Chicago" (2002), supporting actress for Renee Zellweger ("Cold Mountain," 2003), and supporting actress for Cate Blanchett ("The Aviator," 2004). If he's so good, you ask, why could he manage an unlikely nod but not a win for "The Reader" in the best picture race this year? Because he's also a realist and a pragmatist -- contrary to his rhetoric in Entertainment Weekly and elsewhere, he knew "The Reader" stood no chance against "Slumdog Millionaire" for best picture, which is why he concentrated the vast majority of his studio's money and efforts on his two leading ladies and managed to get not one but both Oscars. Pretty remarkable.

When a person who is over the age of 60 is nominated for a lead acting Oscar, he or she will almost always lose.

• Case(s) in point: Richard Jenkins ("The Visitor") and Frank Langella ("Frost/Nixon"), this year's only two acting nominees who were 60 years old or older, both losing. Meanwhile, Clint Eastwood ("Gran Torino") and Dustin Hoffman ("Last Chance Harvey") were not even nominated.
• Specifics: Over the 81 years of the Academy Awards, precious few people have won lead acting Oscars after turning 60 years old -- six for lead actor, George Arliss ("Disraeli," 1929/1930), Peter Finch ("Network," 1976), Henry Fonda ("On Golden Pond," 1981), Paul Newman ("The Color of Money," 1986), Jack Nicholson ("As Good As It Gets," 1997), and John Wayne ("True Grit," 1969); and five for lead actress: Marie Dressler ("Min and Bill," 1930/1931), Kathrine Hepburn ("Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?," 1967, "The Lion in Winter," 1968, and "On Golden Pond," 1981), Helen Mirren ("The Queen," 2006), Geraldine Page ("The Trip to Bountiful," 1985), and Jessica Tandy ("Driving Miss Daisy," 1989).

A supporting category that includes among its nominees at least one co-leading performance posing as a supporting performance will usually be won by a leading performance.

• Case(s) in point: Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight") winning supporting actor.
• Call it "the tallest midget" phenomenon or whatever you want, but it's hard to argue with so many recent examples: Benicio Del Toro ("Traffic," 2000), Jennifer Connelly ("A Beautiful Mind," 2001), Catherine Zeta-Jones ("Chicago," 2002), Morgan Freeman ("Million Dollar Baby," 2004), George Clooney ("Syriana," 2005), Jennifer Hudson ("Dreamgirls," 2006), Javier Bardem ("No Country for Old Men," 2007), and now Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight," 2008).

A close supporting race will usually be won by the most famous nominee.

• Case(s) in point: Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight") winning supporting actor; and Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona") winning supporting actress.
• Specifics: When all other things are equal, a supporting category will usually be won by the by the most famous nominee. Perhaps it's because most performances by A-list actors that get nominated in the B-list supporting category are really co-leads and don't belong there in the first place; perhaps it's just a matter of name recognition; or maybe even something else. Anyway, it could be argued that each of these recent supporting winners was the biggest star in his or her category: Robin Williams ("Good Will Hunting," 1997), Judi Dench ("Shakespeare in Love," 1998), Tim Robbins ("Mystic River," 2003), Renee Zellweger ("Cold Mountain," 2003), Morgan Freeman ("Million Dollar Baby," 2004),  Cate Blanchett ("The Aviator," 2006), George Clooney ("Syriana," 2005), Rachel Weisz ("The Constant Gardener," 2005), Javier Bardem ("No Country for Old Men," 2007), and now Heath Ledger ("The Dark Knight," 2008) and Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona," 2008).

The best actress or best supporting actress nominee who plays up her sex appeal the most (on and/or off screen) will usually win.

• Case(s) in point: Kate Winslet ("The Reader") winning lead actress for a film in which she appears nude for much of the time, and which she promoted by appearing nude in "Vanity Fair"; and Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona") winning supporting actress for a film in which she makes out with another sexy woman, and in the same year in which she appears nude for much of the time in another film ("Elegy").
• Specifics: A large number of academy members are older males who appreciate looking at a sexy younger female, which may explain why so many recent lead actress and supporting actress winners have fit that precise description, and why nearly all of them showed a lot of skin -- on screen and/or off -- during the run-up to their victories: Gwyneth Paltrow ("Shakespeare in Love," 1998), Hilary Swank ("Boys Don't Cry," 1999, and "Million Dollar Baby," 2004), Angelina Jolie ("Girl, Interrupted," 1999), Julia Roberts ("Erin Brokovich," 2000), Halle Berry ("Monster's Ball," 2001), Jennifer Connelly ("A Beautiful Mind," 2001), Nicole Kidman ("The Hours," 2002), Catherine Zeta-Jones ("Chicago," 2002), Charlize Theron ("Monster," 2003), Renee Zellweger ("Cold Mountain," 2003), Cate Blanchett ("The Aviator," 2004), Reese Witherspoon ("Walk the Line," 2005), Rachel Weisz ("The Constant Gardener," 2005), Marion Cotillard ("La Vie En Rose," 2007), and now Kate Winslet ("The Reader," 2008) and Penelope Cruz ("Vicky Cristina Barcelona," 2008). Even the one recent older winner, Helen Mirren ("The Queen," 2006), was photographed frolicking on a beach in a bikini and looking rather nubile during her awards season!

If a front-runner comes under attack during phase two, it will usually still win.

• Case(s) in point: "Slumdog Millionaire" being accused of mistreating its child actors but still winning best picture; "The Reader" being accused of excusing the behavior of average Germans during the Holocaust but still winning lead actress (Kate Winslet).
• Specifics: With each passing year, the race among studios for Oscars seems to grow more and more ruthless, leading nearly everyone to try everything in order to win. Some of the stuff that provokes controversy is basically harmless -- six years ago, Harvey Weinstein recruited Robert Wise, the Oscar-winning director of the classic movie musicals "West Side Story" (1961) and "The Sound of Music" (1965), to publicly endorse his best picture contender "Chicago" (2002) in the trade papers, and this year Weinstein courted Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and got him to vouch for his best picture contender "The Reader." Other stuff, however, can really change the way a movie is perceived -- a rival studio is believed to have started the rumor that Prof. John Nash, the inspiration for the best picture contender "A Beautiful Mind" (2001), was an anti-Semite right around the time voters got their final ballots. However, that skirmish -- as well as those surrounding "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Reader" this year -- failed to make a difference in the outcome of the Oscar race, probably because they picked up steam during phase two, when most voters had already made up their minds as far as how they felt about the films.

If an Israeli film is nominated for best foreign language film, it will probably not win.

• Case(s) in point: "Waltz With Bashir," the nominee from Israel and odds-on favorite heading into the evening, losing to "Departures," the nominee from Japan.
• Specifics: So much for Jews running Hollywood! Following in the footsteps of "Sallah" (1964), "The Policeman" (1974), "I Love You Rosa" (1972), "The House on Chelouche Street" (1973), "Operator Thunderbolt" (1977), "Beyond the Walls" (1984), and "Beaufort" (2007), the "Waltz With Bashir" loss makes Israel 0-for-8 in the best foreign language film category, and leaves the tiny nation tied with Poland for most nominations without a win. Perhaps voters want to avoid the appearance of playing favorites in the Middle East, from which a great deal of motion picture financing emanates? Palestine (0-for-1) hasn't exactly done well, either.

The HFPA may select more nominees and winners than SAG, but the SAG Award is still a slightly better predictor of Oscar success than a Golden Globe Award...

• Case(s) in point: Sean Penn ("Milk") winning the best actor SAG Award, Mickey Rourke ("The Wrestler") winning the best actor (drama) Golden Globe Award, and Penn ultimately winning the best actor Academy Award. (This year, the HFPA and SAG both correctly predicted the Oscar winner for best supporting actor, and both incorrectly predicted the Oscar winner for best actress and best supporting actress.)
• Specifics: Over the past 15 years, SAG has failed to predict the acting Oscars slightly fewer times (4 best actors, 5 best actress, 7 best supporting actors, and 7 best supporting actresses) than the HFPA (6 best actors, 4 best actresses, 7 best supporting actors, and 7 best supporting actresses). In a close Oscar race, it makes more sense to side with the winners of the SAG Award (since the constituency that selects them, actors, is the same as the largest branch of the academy) than the Golden Globe Award (since the constituency that selects them, foreign journalists, has no overlap whatsoever with the academy).

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Photo: Man holding Oscar (AMPAS)

Comments

[Mike Kelly]

Piggybacking on your age rule: A lead actress in her fifties has a statistically lower chance of being nominated and especially winning:

There have been only 19 out of approximately 400 (4.75%) lead actress nominees that were in their 50s when their nominated films were released. Incredibly, there has been only 1 actress in her 50s that has won, out of 81 winners (1.2%). That was Shirley Booth for Come Back Little Sheba in 1952. This year Meryl Streep (at age 59) added to the record.

[alluhrey]

your analysis is, as usual, so incisive and truthful.

and i'm really sad that the academy has a love-hate relationship with the great meryl streep. they love to nominate her but hate her so much that they deliberately humiliate her by giving the award to another, many times to much lesser performances. for how much longer will the academy members subject this tremendously gifted woman to this series of humiliations?