Last night, another Oscar year came to an end with One Battle After Another winning 6 Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director for Paul Thomas Anderson. Sinners won 4 Oscars including Best Actor for Michael B. Jordan and Best Original Screenplay for Ryan Coogler. This wraps up a very intense Oscar year with these two films being highly beloved by voters and was close with Sinners’ Ensemble win at the Actor Awards a few weeks ago. Considering the end of this year’s race, this article will go over the biggest lessons learned from this year’s race and show what we can take from this year’s lessons to carry on to next year’s race.

The early frontrunner is sometimes the real frontrunner all along.

This I would argue is my biggest lesson learned this awards cycle. When One Battle After Another was winning early critics groups such as National Board of Review and New York Film Critics Circle, I had some doubts considering these two particular groups have had bad track records aligning with the Oscar for Best Picture. Not to mention, there has been several cases of early frontrunners falling short when it comes to the Guild races (The Social Network, The Brutalist, and Power of the Dog come to mind). However, when a film just keeps winning numerous awards from different circles including the Guilds, you just cannot deny that it is the consensus frontrunner anymore. After winning one award after another, One Battle After Another was a true dominant force this awards cycle and arguably one of the more dominant awards films I have seen since No Country for Old Men or Oppenheimer. Voters, critics, and audiences loved the film and made it a clear frontrunner from the get go. There is a chance we do not see this next year, but the big takeaway here is if multiple voters from different groups love a film enough, it’s likely not going away anytime soon.

The “long overdue” narrative is a safe narrative to bet on.

If there is anything the Oscars from the 2020’s have done, it has given directors their long overdue Oscar. Jane Campion, Christopher Nolan, and Sean Baker all won Oscars this decade after years of snubs. This year, Paul Thomas Anderson won three Oscars (Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay) after being nominated for directing, producing, and writing Oscars over 14 times without a win. This is a trend that is here to stay and next year has a lot of potential contenders that have this narrative: Martin McDonagh for Director, Denis Villeneuve for Director, and Tom Cruise for Actor. We will see how their films turn out, but if they are in the running, voters love a long overdue narrative and I believe this is a safe bet in your Oscar pool.

The Cinematic and Box Office Achievement Award at the Golden Globes is an award to bet against moving forward.

Barbie, Wicked, and now Sinners. These are the first three winners of the Cinematic and Box Office Achievement Award at the Golden Globes. All were heavily nominated films. None of them won Best Picture. Not to mention, all three went home with significantly less awards than expected. While Sinners performed the best with the Guilds of the three with its Best Ensemble win at the Actor Awards and had the second most awards received last night, 4 wins out of 16 nominations is still very disappointing. When I predicted Sinners as my early pick for Best Picture in October, I stressed it needed to lose this award to have a chance for Best Picture. As soon as it won this Globe, I immediately backed off on its chances of winning Best Picture and knew One Battle After Another was going to take it. While its success at the Actor Awards gives me some hope for future winners in this category, the fact it still lost Best Picture and went home with significantly less Oscars than it was nominated for shows that this award only predicts what WON’T win Best Picture.

The Best Casting Oscar does not align with Best Ensemble at the Actor Awards.

After Sinners won Best Ensemble at the Actor Awards weeks ago, many people (including myself) predicted it would win the new Best Casting Oscar last night. However, it lost the award to the eventual Best Picture winner One Battle After Another. While it is the first Oscar in this category and we need to see how the trend evolves over the next few years, the big takeaway from this win is that this category does not align with the winner of the Best Ensemble award at the Actor Awards. However, what this award could align with is the eventual Best Picture winner as we saw last night.

Steer clear and do not bet on Oscar contenders that have people with problematic ongoing controversies.

After the Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards, Timothee Chalamet was widely expected to win Best Actor for Marty Supreme after winning in both groups. However, less than a week after the Oscar nominations were revealed, a report came out about the director Josh Safdie overseeing a scene where a nonprofessional actor exposed himself to an underage actress on the set of Good Time, Josh was made aware of the actress’s age after the incident. That incident ended the working relationship between him and his brother Benny once his brother found out her age and subsequently caused controversy for Josh sanctioning a toxic and unsafe work environment. Marty Supreme went home empty handed at the BAFTAs, Guild awards, and the Oscars instead of an initially widely expected Oscar win for Timothee Chalamet. Like with Emilia Perez last year, this incident shows that an ongoing controversy can really derail a campaign. I am willing to bet voters boycotted Marty Supreme because of Josh Safdie’s actions. The ultimate lesson for next race is if there is an ongoing controversy with someone involved in a major Oscar contender, do not bet on it and place your bet on a different nominee instead. As for Chalamet, while his comments on ballet certainly did not help him win fans, that did not impact his Oscar considering the comments were made after voting closed. Considering he has Dune Part Three next year, he needs to really have a clean campaign next cycle to have a chance, especially considering he could be going up against the long overdue Tom Cruise.

When in doubt on betting on a category, go with the Guild choice.

Three of the Acting races this year were considered by many wide open. Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress all had winners from different voting bodies throughout this awards cycle, However, the Actor Awards awarded Michael B. Jordan for Best Actor, Sean Penn for Best Supporting Actor, and Amy Madigan for Best Supporting Actress. All three won the Oscar for their categories last night. The big takeaway is if you are unsure where to bet on a tough Acting category, go with the Guild choice. You are more likely statistically to win that bet if you go with that pick than picking the Globe winner.

With that, this Oscar cycle has come to a close! Thank you to all the readers and followers. It was an exciting first full Oscar cycle writing for you all and sharing statistics from each race as it went along. While I will be taking a break, I will not be gone for long! I will be planning some new content in the near future and will discuss the Palme d’Or winner in May. If you have not, follow me on The Oscar Code on Facebook, @theoscarcode on Instagram, and @TheOscarCode on X for future content announcements. Thank you all again in advance and see you next Oscar season!