Welcome to the first installment of The Oscar Code’s Case Study series. This is a series that will go over the previous year’s nominees and why it either won or lost Best Picture that year using historical data. The order of the series will be in reverse chronological order of the odds of winning for last year’s Best Picture nominees from Ben Zausmer’s Oscar Betting Odds 2025 article. The first film that will be discussed is I’m Still Here.

The Story During Awards Season: On the morning of when the Oscar nominations were announced, a surprise nominee was listed in the 10 Best Picture slots. That nominee was I’m Still Here, a Brazilian biopic about Eunice Paiva, an activist whose politician husband disappeared during the military dictatorship in Brazil. In addition to Best Picture, it was also nominated for Best Actress for Fernanda Torres and Best International Feature that year. The film ultimately won Best International Feature over the early heavy favorite Emilia Perez, but did not win its other two awards. The win for International Feature was the first in Brazil’s history.

What Helped Its Nomination: As mentioned above, I’m Still Here was a surprise nomination for Best Picture but the nomination for Best International Feature and Best Actress were more expected. It was nominated for Best Foreign Language film at the Critics Choice Awards and the Golden Globe Awards and was in the Top 5 International Films list in the National Board of Review. Torres sealed her nomination for Best Actress after winning the Golden Globe for Best Actress-Drama and was the runner up for Best Lead Performance at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association awards. Outside of those two expected nominations, voters in the Academy embraced the film which ended up landing the nomination without any Guild nominations or other major previous nominations. The controversy over Emilia Perez last season also helped I’m Still Here win Best International Feature, which truthfully I believe was the end goal for Sony Pictures Classics.

Why It Ended Up Losing Best Picture: Despite the increased passion in voters and the narrative building up in its favor for win Best International Feature, I’m Still Here really did not have a shot to overcome Anora to win Best Picture. The ultimate reason is simple: it did not have any Guild nominations. There has not been a Best Picture winner in the past 20 years that did not have a Guild nomination and additionally, there has only been one Best Picture winner (or 5% of all Best Picture winners) in the past 20 years (Moonlight) that did not win Best Picture at the major Guilds. The odds were very low to pull an upset for that reason alone. While it had premiered at Venice Film Festival, it did not win the top prize there which also hurt it. Additionally, Sony Picture Classics has never won Best Picture since it opened as a studio but has focused on their films winning elsewhere. Once Emilia Perez‘s controversies became a big narrative for that film, the other nominations for I’m Still Here helped Sony Pictures Classics position that film as the ultimate winner in that category despite its very low Best Picture odds.

The Ultimate Takeaway: I’m Still Here was initially seen as a surprise Best Picture nominee. However, thanks to strong voter support, it ultimately proved to be victorious in winning Best International Feature thanks in part to its Best Picture nomination. Unfortunately due to its lack of Guild award nominations or major festival awards, there was no true path to it winning Best Picture. But considering the initial surprise Best Picture nomination and the increased voter support leading it to win Best International Feature, I’m Still Here ultimately had a great awards campaign season. Not sure what this will mean for similar surprise Best Picture nominees in the future, but consider this as a great blueprint for surprise nominees winning out in other categories in the future.

Hope you all enjoyed this first installment of the Case Study series! The next installment will be out on Tuesday and will cover Dune: Part Two. Feel free to provide feedback and ask any questions about this series! I look forward to hearing from all of you.