Welcome back to the next installment of The Oscar Code’s Case Study series. I hope you all enjoyed my A Complete Unknown article from Wednesday 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 discussed is The Brutalist.

The Story During Awards Season: The Brutalist, a period drama about a Holocaust survivor who emigrates to the United States and becomes an architect for a very wealthy industrialist, was nominated for Best Picture after huge critical acclaim and love from several film festivals. The film was particularly acclaimed for the performances, Brady Corbet’s directing, and the reintroduction of the VistaVision cinematography format. It was the second most nominated film, tied with Wicked and just behind Emilia Perez, with 10 nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Production Design. The film ultimately won Best Actor for Adrien Brody’s performance, Best Original Score, and Best Cinematography. The Brutalist was seen as the early frontrunner after winning the Golden Globes and some pundits viewed it as a shocking upset that the film did not win Best Picture and Best Director.

What Helped Its Nomination: The Brutalist was well received by critics and was beloved in the festival circuit. A24 purchased the film shortly after its premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it won 5 awards including the Silver Lion for Best Director. It also premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival to highly receptive audiences. It was moderately successful at the box office, making $50.4 million worldwide on a $9.6 million budget. The film’s festival and critical reception led it to a Best Picture-Drama and Best Director win at the Golden Globes, a Best Director win at the British Academy Film Awards, a Best Picture nomination at the Critics Choice Awards, a Best Picture nomination at the Producers Guild of America awards, and a Best Director nomination at the Directors Guild of America awards. It was named Best Film by the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, named the runner-up for Best Film by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and was listed in the top 10 films from the American Film Institute. Adrien Brody’s performance from the film proved successful with Best Actor wins at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, and the British Academy Film Awards. A lot of these wins and nominations combined guaranteed a Best Picture nomination for The Brutalist.

Why It Ended Up Losing Best Picture: While The Brutalist had a lot of early wins and was highly nominated throughout the cycle, it unfortunately fell victim to the Early Frontrunner trend based on the awards it won throughout the race. The first award I will go over is the Golden Globe for Best Drama win, 6 of the previous 20 Best Picture winners (30%) had won the Globe for Best Drama in addition to winning Best Picture at the Oscars. Despite contrary belief, winning the Globe does not guarantee winning Best Picture at the Oscars. The second award I will go over is the Best Film win at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards. That win had a statistically worse correlation for winning there and Best Picture at the Oscars, with only 3 of the 20 Best Picture winners (15%) winning both. The final award I will go over is the Runner-Up for Best Film at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, where it lost to eventual Best Picture winner Anora. Anora‘s win there and at the Oscars made it the sixth film in the past 20 years (25%) to win both at Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the Oscars. With those wins statistically leaning against The Brutalist‘s favor, it needed to win at the Guilds and unfortunately it did not perform well at any of the major Guilds. Not only did it lose at the Producers Guild of America awards and the Directors Guild of America awards, Adrien Brody’s sole loss for Best Actor came at the Screen Actors Guild where it was not nominated for Best Ensemble. Moonlight is the sole film in the past 20 years to win Best Picture without winning at the Guilds, but even that won Best Supporting Actor at the Screen Actors Guild and was nominated for Best Ensemble there. The Picture loss was shocking but Corbet was seen early on as the consensus frontrunner for Best Director after the Director win at the Golden Globes and at the British Academy Film Awards. Anora‘s director Sean Baker won Best Director at the Guild awards and ultimately the Oscar. One view is that the Guilds and voters had more love for Anora (which I will discuss in my Case Study next week), but there was a slight controversy that I think hurt Corbet’s chance. As mentioned in my A Complete Unknown article, The Brutalist went through an AI editing controversy involving voice editing of Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones’s performances. I had incorrectly assumed that Brody would lose the Oscar for Best Actor because of the controversy. However, Brody’s many wins throughout the race proved otherwise and he won the Oscar despite losing the Screen Actors Guild and the controversy. However, despite winning the Globe and at the British Academy Film Awards, Corbet lost Best Director at the Oscars, Critics Choice Awards, and at the Directors Guild of America, which hurt his chances ultimately. I truly feel that the votes that I thought were going to cost Brody the Oscar instead cost Corbet the Oscar for directing because of the AI controversy and ultimate lack of Guild wins.

The Ultimate Takeaway: The Brutalist was seen very early on in the race as the frontrunner to win Best Picture thanks to its wins at the Golden Globes and wins in the festival circuit and critics voting groups. However, it needed Guild support to overcome the statistical trend of being the Early Frontrunner and did not succeed at that front. This is another case of why wins at the Golden Globes do not lead to Oscar victory and Guild wins are significantly more needed to have a chance in the race. A24 has won before (Moonlight and Everything Everywhere All at Once), but despite the buzz for their contender Marty Supreme, I am not as confident this year in that going all the way due to its strong competition. As for this awards cycle, be wary before betting on the film that wins Best Picture-Drama at the Globes to win Best Picture. You might have bet on the Early Frontrunner instead of the actual frontrunner and winner.

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