Oscar predictions
My predictions:
Adapted Screenplay = The Father
Original Screenplay = Promising Young Women
Actor in a Supporting Role = Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah)
Actress in a Supporting Role = Yuh-Jung Youn (Minari)
Actor in a Leading Role = Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)
Actress in a Leading Role = Frances McDormand (Nomadland)
Directing = Chloe Zhao (Nomadland)
Best Picture = Nomadland
In the Sound of Music when Julie Andrews was singing about her favorite things, one of the treasures she left out was Excel. Granted, it wasn’t invented until 20 years after the movie, so maybe I can forgive her. At the same time though, Julie’s bar for favorite things rests unimpressively close to the ground. On her list she includes woolen mittens, brown paper packages, and door bells. When hearing that, I squint my eyes and say, “Ok Julie, whatever you say”; I then hand her an Amazon application.
In addition to Excel, while frolicking through the hills of Austria, I’ll sing about the movies. Those two hobbies will align on April 25th during the Oscars where I’ll use my Oscar Model 2.0 (housed in Excel) to predict the 2021 winners. Let me share how I know the above predictions are correct.
My model predicts winners by looking at the prior award ceremonies, e.g., The Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, and British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA). The model stretches back 19 years. It weights the other ceremonies by how well they predict the Oscars, considering both nominations and wins.
For example, considering leading actress, the Screen Actors Guild best picks the Oscar winner, so it’s weighted at 34%. BAFTA is weighted at 31%. The Critics Choice Awards are weighted at 28%. And The Golden Globes, only successful at predicting the winner 4 of the last 19 tries, is weighted at 7%. An important aspect to highlight, each award category is weighted differently.
Then, I feed the model data from this year. The nominees score points based on wins and nominations. I arbitrarily chose 10 points for a win, 3 points for a nomination, and -1 points for a failure to be nominated. After all that, I sumproduct the ceremony weights by the points and multiply by an arbitrary 40. The 40x multiplier, putting the final score on a -40 to 400 scale, gives the illusion of sophistication, but it was only invited to the formula so that I wouldn’t be looking at hard-to-read decimals. Finally, I direct the final calculations through a probability pipeline which give the highest probabilities to the nominees with the highest scores.
Adapted Screenplay
Borat 2 0%
The Father 51%
Nomadland 49%
One Night in Miami 0%
The White Tiger 0%
Original Screenplay
Judas and the Black Messiah 0%
Minari 0%
Promising Young Women 79%
Sound of Metal 0%
The Trial of the Chicago 7 21%
Actor in a Supporting Role
Sacha Baron Cohen 0%
Daniel Kaluuya 95%
Leslie Odom Jr. 5%
Paul Raci 0%
Lakeith Stanfield 0%
Actress in a Supporting Role
Maria Bakalova 28%
Glenn Close 5%
Amanda Seyfried 1%
Yuh-Jung Youn 61%
Olivia Colman 5%
Actor in a Leading Role
Riz Ahmed 6%
Chadwick Boseman 74%
Anothy Hopkins 17%
Gary Oldman 2%
Steven Yeun 1%
Actress in a Leading Role
Viola Davis 26%
Andra Day 1%
Vanessa Kirby 11%
Frances McDormand 43%
Carey Mulligan 19%
Directing
Thomas Vinterberg 0%
David Fincher 1%
Lee Isaac Chung 1%
Chloe Zhao 97%
Emerald Fennell 1%
Best Picture
The Father 0%
Judas and the Black Messiah 0%
Mank 2%
Minari 3%
Nomadland 67%
Promising Young Women 5%
Sound of Metal 1%
The Trial of the Chicago 7 22%
The above bullets (at the very top) are my predictions of who I think will win, not necessarily who I want to win. My preferred award winners are as follows:
Adapted Screenplay = Wonder Woman 1984
Original Screenplay = The Sound of Metal
Actor in a Supporting Role = King Kong (Godzilla vs. Kong)
Actress in a Supporting Role = Maria Bakalova (Borat 2)
Actor in a Leading Role = Anthony Hopkins (The Father)
Actress in a Leading Role = Frances McDormand (Nomadland)
Directing = Emerald Funnell (Promising Young Women)
Best Picture = The Trial of the Chicago 7
