Another early awards show, another Best Picture win for One Battle After Another. On Sunday evening, the Paul Thomas Anderson epic political action comedy won Best Picture at the Critics Choice Awards. It also won Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay for Paul Thomas Anderson. This is the latest win for One Battle After Another after it won at several major critics groups. It has a huge lead in the race so far, but what does this win mean for its chances down the line? Truly, this win at the Critics Choice Awards has very decent odds historically.

Critics Choice Award Best Picture	Oscar Best Picture Win	Oscar Best Picture Nomination
Brokeback Mountain	No	Yes
The Departed	Yes	Yes
No Country for Old Men	Yes	Yes
The Hurt Locker	Yes	Yes
Slumdog Millionaire	Yes	Yes
The Social Network	No	Yes
The Artist	Yes	Yes
Argo	Yes	Yes
12 Years A Slave	Yes	Yes
Boyhood	No	Yes
Spotlight	Yes	Yes
La La Land	No	Yes
The Shape of Water	Yes	Yes
Roma	No	Yes
Once Upon A Time in Hollywood	No	Yes
Nomadland	Yes	Yes
The Power of the Dog	No	Yes
Everything Everywhere All at Once	Yes	Yes
Oppenheimer	Yes	Yes
Anora	Yes	Yes
Total Best Picture Wins in 20 years	13
Likelihood Film Wins Best Picture After Winning Award	65%
Total Best Picture Nominations in 20 years	20
Likelihood Film Gets Best Picture Nomination After Winning Award	100%

As you can see in the 20 year sample of the Critics Choice Award winners for Best Picture, all were nominated for Best Picture and 13 of the 20 (65%) ended up winning Best Picture at the Oscars. Out of all the critics awards I have covered this cycle, this is the most optimistic 20 year sample I have covered by far. This group also awarded Best Picture to 4 of the 5 most recent Oscar Best Picture winners (Anora, Oppenheimer, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Nomadland) which shows from a recency standpoint, that it is fairly accurate. It is the most accurate from both a 20 year sample and a more recent 5-10 year sample.

Considering all of its wins are primarily critics bodies and not industry voters, what does it mean in the long run? As mentioned in my LAFCA deep dive, all of these wins combined are a truly unprecedented territory. No film has won Best Film at the Critics Choice Awards, Gotham Independent Film Awards, National Board of Review, NYFCC, and LAFCA. It is looking very likely One Battle After Another will win Best Picture in March. There is still a lot of race left to go, with the Golden Globes next week and the Guilds being announced in the coming days. But unless the Guilds paint a different story from the critics bodies (and they very well could), expect this to be your next Best Picture winner.

With the Critics Choice Awards having the best track record of all of the critics voting bodies I have covered on this site, One Battle After Another truly might be the frontrunner in this year’s Best Picture race. It has united so many voting bodies already that I would be shocked if tides change. I am happy for the film and Paul Thomas Anderson for doing this well this early. It is still early and I am cautious given I have seen so many early frontrunners crumble in the Guild races, I would be surprised if another film takes One Battle After Another‘s lead.

Thank you all for reading this and please feel free to comment your thoughts! I look forward to interacting with all of you this awards season and sharing with all of you how The Oscar Code can help determine what will win Best Picture before the awards begin.