Don’t make your Oscar picks before checking out this blog

The Academy Award nominees have been announced, which means the season of speculation has officially begun. So, I decided to look into the statistics of Oscar winners to see how much of a pattern I could find, and if it would be fairly easy to guess, just based on past winners, which movies would take home the award.

In the interest of time, I narrowed my mini statistical survey down to just Best Picture winners and nominees since 1975. I looked at the likelihood of winning based on MPAA rating and genre classification. (Interesting note: No animation, nor any movie rated G has won the Best Picture award since at least 1975).  I admit, it’s far from scientific (so don’t go bet the farm), but it’s an interesting way to take a stab at Oscar predictions.

Without further ado: The graphic below displays which Best Picture nominees are more likely to take home this year’s Oscar, and are based solely on my quick and dirty statistical analysis (I actually haven’t seen any of the films myself).

After creating this graphic, I did a bit of research into the “art” of Oscar predictions. Apparently the most accurate indicator of the Best Picture winner is the accolades and awards won in the months leading up to the Academy Awards. For an interesting read about Oscar predictions, check out this 2009 post by Nate Silver.

What do you think? Which film do you think will win, and why do you think so?