As the 92nd Academy Awards draws ever closer, our minds turn to the predicting the evening's big winners, namely the recipient of the ceremony's highest honour - Best Picture. While most award bodies and critic groups employ a popular vote - most votes win - the Academy use instant run-off voting to decide their champion. Let me break it down for you.
Here's a handy visual aid of the nomination process if you prefer:
I've long been of the mindset that the popular vote and the preferential ballot offer alternative winners Twice now, I've run an experiment trying to prove that, and twice I've been proven wrong. In 2018, The Shape of Water topped both the preferential and the popular poll we ran; The Favourite followed in 2019, also winning both -- one went on to win the Academy's Best Picture, the other lost to Green Book. But I don't like being proven wrong, so is third time the charm for my theory?
Using the nine Best Picture nominations set to go head-to-head on February 10th - 1917, Ford v Ferrari, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Little Women, Marriage Story, Once Upon A Time... in Hollywood, Parasite - I’d like to call you to take part in my experiment. At the bottom of this post is a link to a survey that asks you to rank the nine films nominated for Best Picture, which will give me (and you, in due course, dear reader) an answer as to whether the winner of the top accolade would change depending on the voting system used. We'll also use it to see whether we can predict the actual winner too!
Just for fun, there's also a spot to write-in your favourite film of 2019 that was not nominated for Best Picture. Let's see who'd fill out a 10 nominee year.
This poll will close on midnight Friday, February 7th or when one hundred (SurveyMonkey's limit) responses have been received. I ask you only to vote if you have seen all nine nominees - while this isn't a rule for actual Academy voters (although it is widely encouraged), we are operating on a much smaller sample size, meaning the results will be more heavily impacted by less exhaustive ballots. Additionally, Oscar voters are given access to screeners, we are not, meaning that the more widely-accessed films for us (titles released on Netflix like Marriage Story and The Irishman, or available on home media release, such as Joker and Once Upon A Time... in Hollywood) will be at an unfair advantage. Feel free to drop me a message if you haven't seen the nominees but will by the Friday 7th, as I can hold a place open for you.
"As it currently stands, the Academy uses a preferential voting system, known as instant-runoff voting, for deciding the recipient(s) of the top prize; this means that voters are required to rank the nominees by preference, one through nine in the case of this and last year. Should no clear majority be found - and it’s very unlikely one film will garner 50% of the vote at this stage - the film with the lowest number of nominations is removed and their ballots are distributed to the voter's second pick. Should this not find a majority, the next lowest-scoring film is removed and, again, their ballot is distributed to the highest-ranked film still in contention. This pattern continues until a winner with 50% of the votes is found. Likely, it will come down to the final two, where it reverts to first-past-the-post voting, the same system used for every other category; it also means the Best Picture leader could feasibly change in every single round."
Here's a handy visual aid of the nomination process if you prefer:
I've long been of the mindset that the popular vote and the preferential ballot offer alternative winners Twice now, I've run an experiment trying to prove that, and twice I've been proven wrong. In 2018, The Shape of Water topped both the preferential and the popular poll we ran; The Favourite followed in 2019, also winning both -- one went on to win the Academy's Best Picture, the other lost to Green Book. But I don't like being proven wrong, so is third time the charm for my theory?
Using the nine Best Picture nominations set to go head-to-head on February 10th - 1917, Ford v Ferrari, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Little Women, Marriage Story, Once Upon A Time... in Hollywood, Parasite - I’d like to call you to take part in my experiment. At the bottom of this post is a link to a survey that asks you to rank the nine films nominated for Best Picture, which will give me (and you, in due course, dear reader) an answer as to whether the winner of the top accolade would change depending on the voting system used. We'll also use it to see whether we can predict the actual winner too!
Just for fun, there's also a spot to write-in your favourite film of 2019 that was not nominated for Best Picture. Let's see who'd fill out a 10 nominee year.
This wee experiment may be the answer to our questions, so spread the survey far and wide and be sure to invite your film-loving friends to take part; the bigger the sample size, the more accurate the results. Check back before Oscar night to see the results!
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/M7LWS9C