I have been watching the Oscars annually since middle school. Throughout the early years of watching the Oscars I remember being shocked by certain outcomes without seeing the films. My first big example was when “The Aviator” and Martin Scorsese lost Best Picture and Director to “Million Dollar Baby” and Clint Eastwood in the 2004-2005 Oscars cycle, respectfully. I knew “The Aviator” was a bigger more popular film at the time than “Million Dollar Baby” and that loss surprised me at the time. I have since seen both films and can confidently say they got it right with “Million Dollar Baby” although “The Aviator” is a very underrated Scorsese film. Another big surprise for me was when “The Dark Knight” was snubbed for Best Picture and Director in the 2008-2009 Oscars cycle. That surprise impacted me personally given I loved the film (it is my personal favorite of all time) and it had seemed several critics loved the film enough to cause an outcry and eventual change in the rules. While I also love the eventual winner “Slumdog Millionaire”, I was always puzzled why the Academy went for the smaller films at that time period and not the bigger named films.

The one Oscars cycle where I finally started to notice a pattern was the 2010-2011 Oscars cycle. I was a freshman in college at the time and the big frontrunner was “The Social Network”. I loved the film and thought it was a shoo-in to win given it was most critics’ top film of the year and won at the Globes. Then all of a sudden…a little film called “The King’s Speech” ended up winning Best Picture that year. The person I was watching the Oscars with at the time was absolutely shocked by the outcome given he had also loved the film and was a big fan of David Fincher’s work. He called it a “robbery”. I thought it was a shocking outcome also. Then I remembered certain articles I read about the film winning the big prizes at the Producers Guild of America, Directors Guild of America, and the Screen Actors Guild. I glanced over those when I initially read those articles and was still confident in “The Social Network” given that was the more beloved film at the time. As soon as “The King’s Speech” won and after that conversation with my friend, I came to realize that these awards I glanced over were the key to accurately figuring out the race.

The following year I decided to put this to the test. That Oscars cycle was the year of “The Descendants”, “Hugo”, and “The Artist”. “Hugo” won the Globe so I initially thought that would be the frontrunner, but wanted to see where these guild awards would lead me. The Producers Guild and the Directors Guild awarded “The Artist” and the Screens Actors Guild awarded “The Help” that year. Given what this information provided me, I decided to test my luck and predict “The Artist” in an Oscar pool and on my blog. Guess what won that year? You guessed it, “The Artist.” It all started to make sense to me from there. The guilds were the beginning. I also started digging into a bigger rabbit hole from there though where I discovered certain festivals helped out films getting nominated for Best Picture and sometimes even lead it to victory! I will showcase these tools in my next article.

Going back to that 2010-2011 Oscars upset real quick. What I viewed as an upset at the time was clearly going to be the winner that year based on data provided to me but I chose to ignore. If more people were educated about this data, a lot of these upsets could become more predictable and could lead you to victory in your next Oscar pool. That is why I started The Oscar Code. I want to help cinephiles and Oscar bettors have a better chance at predicting the upsets early before the winners are unveiled. I look forward to sharing all of this data with everyone.