As my other articles have hinted at, I have noticed a pattern over the years that will help people figure out what will win Best Picture. The data that I have derived over the years has come from various sources. Some of these sources will help create a path for a prospective nominee to win. Unfortunately, some others might end up creating a path where its odds to win will decrease. Before I reveal which tools and measurements will lead to success, I will introduce you all to the tools that I use to gather data.

The first set of tools I use are international film festivals. On the surface, these might not hold a lot of weight for prospective nominees. However, these festivals help nominees get in and even catapult them to frontrunner status depending on the year. The film festivals I primarily look at are the Toronto International Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival, and the Cannes Film Festival. When a film wins the top award or places top three in voting, I pay attention given these festivals have variance in paths and success for prospective nominees.

The second set of tools I use are critics awards. There is so much variance with these particular awards every year. Depending on the year and how much festival hype a particular film receives, this could sometimes show how strong a particular film will play in a particular year. The awards I look at for data purposes are the New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the National Board of Review, and the Critics Choice Awards. Based on which of these awards a particular film wins, there usually is a path to success or defeat on Oscar night depending on the year.

The third tool I use is the Golden Globes. This one I will slightly reveal my strategy on. Given the change in hands at that ceremony over the years, there is data that skewed in one direction of victory or defeat. Most years, it actually benefits a Best Picture frontrunner to lose “Best Picture-Drama” or “Best Picture-Comedy or Musical” with the exception of a notable few films. I will go more into detail when I release my case studies of this year’s nominees, but this is a huge tool to predict success.

The fourth, final, and most important set of tools I use are guild awards. My strong recommendation to all of you reading is to observe these every Oscar season. Depending how many guild awards a particular film wins, this creates the strongest path to success for a Best Picture win. The guild awards I study the most are the Producers Guild of America Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the Directors Guild of America Awards. Try to study these awards over the years if you can before I release my case studies, I will be going into detail heavily on these awards.

The four sets of tools I primarily use to collect and study the path to a Best Picture win are international film festivals, critics awards, the Golden Globes, and guild awards. Depending how a particular film wins in each category, it could help or hurt its chances come Oscar night. Each of these tools are different individually, but strangely have a connection that is clearer come awards season. I look forward to educating you all on how these tools connect and how they can predict a film’s chances at Oscar success together. Stay tuned for now. In the coming weeks, I will release case studies of each of the nominees for Best Picture and I will show how I was able to figure out what won months before everyone else thanks to these tools.