Do Numbers Matter?

When I started tallying up the number of Best Picture winners that were and were not the most nominated films in their Oscar years, I was surprised by the results. Of the 76 Best Pictures, 35 had the most nominations, 18 were tied for the most nominations with at least one other film and 23 had fewer nominations than at least one other film. That last number (representing 30% of all winners) seemed high to me, until I realized that like many Oscar trends, it’s heavily skewed by including data from all 76 years. When you narrow the sample to the last 22 years, the number of Best Pictures that didn’t pick up the highest number of nominations drops to… two (0.09%).

The last three times that occurred were in 2001, 1991 and 1981 (notice any superficial patterns there?). In 2001, A Beautiful Mind was tied with Moulin Rouge! in a distant second to The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings (8 nominations to 13). In 1991, The Silence of the Lambs was tied for third with The Prince of Tides (7 nominations apiece), behind both JFK (8 nominations) and Bugsy (10 nominations). Finally, in 1981, Chariots of Fire placed fourth with barely more than half the nominations of Reds.

So recent history does not favor Million Dollar Baby in its match-up with The Aviator. Even such non-historical epics as Chicago, American Beauty and Shakespeare in Love managed to earn the most nominations in their winning years. And there were mitigating circumstances that enabled A Beautiful Mind’s triumph over The Fellowship of the Rings (obviously Academy members were waiting to see how the entire trilogy would turn out before bestowing it with the precious gold).

Although I’ve stated time and again that rules and trends are made to be broken (and don’t mean too much to begin with when it comes to the Oscars), this one has me very hesitant to join the fray and call Million Dollar Baby in the Best Picture race. Especially because this rule isn't merely based in coincidence - the reason the film with the most nominations usually wins is because that represents across the board support in the various branches of the Academy.

More Best Picture analysis on the way, as well as my final predictions in all categories…