The 2016 Oscar nominations came out today, and it’s all very exciting. I came up with a hypothesis for figuring out the winners before the show, which I’m testing with the Best Actress category.
First, this years nominees:
- Cate Blanchett – Carol
- Brie Larson – Room
- Jennifer Lawrence – Joy
- Charlotte Rampling – 45 Years
- Saoirse Ronan – Brooklyn
In the past few years, the actor who ended up winning the Oscar tended to win the Golden Globe and/or SAG award. I went back and looked at the past winners for the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama and Best Actress in a Comedy, and sure enough the Golden Globe winning actress from either the drama or comedy category ended up winning the Oscar (most often it was the drama category). The only four exceptions were 1981, 1995, 1996, and 2001 where the winner was a nominee in either category but did not win the Golden Globe. Still, this pattern held together for the past fifteen years, which makes me conclude the winner is either going to be Brie Larson (who won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama) or Jennifer Lawrence (who won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy).
Given the fact Larson was nominated for the SAG award and will most likely win it as Lawrence was not nominated, I feel Brie Larson will win the Oscar (which is exciting because I’ve sort of been a fan of hers since the early 2000s…long story). That’s my early prediction based on logic and spotting patterns in the Academy’s voting history. The only movie I saw of the five nominees was Joy, which I thought was fantastic and that Jennifer Lawrence totally deserves the Oscar. I thought she was better in Joy than in Silver Linings Playbook, which she won the Oscar.
Anyway, it’s probably too soon to call it, but I thought it was interesting that the pattern of winners went all the way back to 1980 (it probably went further, but I gave up checking).
