Welcome back to the next installment of The Oscar Code’s Case Study series. I hope you all enjoyed my Wicked article from Monday and learned about that film’s Oscar campaign path. As mentioned before, this is a series that will go over the previous year’s nominees and why it ultimately won or lost the award 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 next film that will be discuss is A Complete Unknown.

The Story During Awards Season: A Complete Unknown, a biopic about the early days of Bob Dylan and his groundbreaking use of electric instruments at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, was nominated for Best Picture after huge support from various voting bodies throughout the awards season. The film was particularly acclaimed for Timothee Chalamet’s performance as Bob Dylan as well as the performances of Edward Norton and Monica Barbaro. The film was nominated for 8 Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Sound, and Best Costume Design. The film ultimately did not win any Oscars at the ceremony. Timothee Chalamet was considered a favorite to win Best Actor, but ultimately lost the Oscar to Adrien Brody’s performance in The Brutalist.

What Helped Its Nomination: A Complete Unknown was well received by critics and was a moderate box office success making $140.5 million on a budget over $50 million. However, the film was more well received by several voting bodies throughout the award season. It was nominated for Best Picture-Drama at the Golden Globes, was nominated for Best Picture at the Critics Choice Awards and Producers Guild of America Awards, was nominated for Best Director at the Directors Guild of America Awards, and nominated for Best Ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. The sole Guild win was for Chalamet winning Best Actor at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. The film was also listed in the Top Ten Films of the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute Awards. The strong Guild support as well as critical acclaim and audience reception helped secure its chances of being nominated for Best Picture.

Why It Ended Up Losing Best Picture: While A Complete Unknown had huge Guild support and supporting from other voting bodies from the nominations it received, it simply did not win much to help it win any Oscars let alone Best Picture. Outside of Best Picture-Drama, A Complete Unknown was also nominated for Best Actor-Drama and Best Supporting Actor at the Golden Globes and went home empty handed there. It also did not win the top award at any of the major Guilds, which hurt its chances of winning the award. Only 1 film in the past 20 years (Moonlight) won Best Picture without winning at the Guilds. So while it was well liked by voters, it was not enough for it to win anywhere and boost its chances. I will take a second to be very transparent: one of my biggest misses last awards season was I thought Chalamet was going to win Best Actor. There was an AI voice dubbing controversy with The Brutalist that involved Brody and Felicity Jones’s performances that I thought would sway votes away from Brody to Chalamet. While I thought Chalamet winning Best Actor at Screen Actors Guild was going to seal his chances, Brody ultimately had more support from other voting bodies including winning the Golden Globe, Critics Choice, and the BAFTA for Best Actor. Chalamet’s Screen Actors Guild win was his only win last season. The controversy ultimately did not impact Brody and Brody ultimately won more than Chalamet which led to his victory on Oscar night. Additionally, the previous Oscar year had Emma Stone surprisingly win Best Actress for Poor Things over favorite Lily Gladstone. Poor Things and A Complete Unknown were both distributed by Searchlight, who has run great campaigns over the years especially in the acting category. I went hard over the #WickedWillWin crowd in my Wicked article over why they were ultimately wrong, but I also was wrong for putting Chalamet over Brody for Best Actor last awards season. Looking back on historical data, Brody was always the overwhelming favorite to win despite the loss at the Screen Actors Guild awards. I will always be upfront when I missed or was wrong on a take and this is one of those cases. As for Searchlight, they have been successful over the years (most recent Best Picture win was Nomadland), but both A Complete Unknown and The Banshees of Inisherin in 2022 went home empty handed which makes me worried if their success days are slowly going behind them.

The Ultimate Takeaway: Despite A Complete Unknown having strong Guild support and was liked by critics and audiences, it did not win enough to make noise at the Oscars last season. This was truthfully one of Searchlight’s weakest campaign years with it going completely empty handed Oscars night. Because of how much their film Rental Family disappointed at the Toronto International Film Festival, I was close to thinking it was a rebuild year for Searchlight. Then, they bought The Testament of Ann Lee, which is from the same filmmaking team as The Brutalist. That film was well received at the Venice International Film Festival as well as Toronto International Film Festival. With that investment, I think they want to go for a Poor Things like rebound after a disappointing awards season. I cannot wait to see how it unfolds for one of the great awards campaign studios.

Hope you all enjoyed the latest installment of the Case Study series! The next installment will be out on Friday and will cover The Brutalist. Feel free to provide feedback and ask any questions about this series! I look forward to hearing from all of you.