Another major festival award of the awards season was handed out this morning. Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s epic drama La Bola Negra won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. Additionally, Simon Stone’s latest film Elsinore won the second overall People’s Choice International Award. What does this mean for both of these films’ Oscar chances? Here is a deep dive analysis on the winners of the awards and whether we can predict if both have a great shot to get into the race or if this is an award that we should not focus on for the season.

I will start with La Bola Negra. Before the Toronto International Film Festival this year, this film already had a strong campaign going for it. It had previously won Best Director at Cannes and was a strong contender to win the Palme d’Or there. Netflix had bought the film and is expected to make this their primary contender after being well-received at Cannes. Several pundits have already predicted it as a top contender for Best Picture prior to the win in Toronto. Considering this morning’s win, is our Best Picture among us? Let’s see what the data tells us.

TIFF People’s Choice Award Winner	Oscar Best Picture Win	Oscar Best Picture Nomination
Bella	No	No
Eastern Promises	No	No
Slumdog Millionaire	Yes	Yes
Precious	No	Yes
The King’s Speech	Yes	Yes
Where Do We Go Now?	No	No
Silver Linings Playbook	No	Yes
12 Years A Slave	Yes	Yes
The Imitation Game	No	Yes
Room	No	Yes
La La Land	No	Yes
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri	No	Yes
Green Book	Yes	Yes
Jojo Rabbit	No	Yes
Nomadland	Yes	Yes
Belfast	No	Yes
The Fabelmans	No	Yes
American Fiction	No	Yes
The Life of Chuck	No	No
Hamnet	No	Yes

As you can see from the 20-year sample above, 16 of the 20 previous People’s Choice Award winners, or 80%, have gone on to be nominated for Best Picture. Only 5 of the 16 (Slumdog Millionaire, The King’s Speech, 12 Years A Slave, Green Book, and Nomadland), which means only 25% of the People’s Choice Award winners in the past 20 years have won Best Picture and only 31.3% of the People’s Choice Award winners that were nominated for Best Picture ended up winning. While the data presents a more optimistic picture for its chances of being nominated and a less optimistic picture of it winning, La Bola Negra might be a different story. Especially given what Netflix is doing for the film’s campaign.

What do Anora, Anatomy of a Fall, La Bola Negra, and Parasite all have in common? All four both won awards at Cannes and all placed top three for the People’s Choice Award in Toronto. La Bola Negra is the only one to have won the People’s Choice Award, but also the only one of these four that did not win the Palme d’Or. While Anatomy of a Fall did not win Best Picture, Anora and Parasite both did their respective years. Based on all of this, La Bola Negra is no question a top contender. My one concern in previous years would be that La Bola Negra is being distributed by Netflix and voters have been known not vote for their films for Picture due to its anti-theatrical stance. That stance is changing this season. Netflix has committed to a theatrical run for all of their films, including La Bola Negra. Whether that will sway anti-Netflix voters is too early to tell, but this win solidifies La Bola Negra as a top two contender for Best Picture this season. This win at Toronto only helps it in my opinion.

Now we will move on to the winner of the People’s Choice International Award: Elsinore. This is the second year that this award was handed out at Toronto. Last year’s winner No Other Choice was not nominated and underperformed throughout the awards cycle last season. I was not too confident in that film’s chances last season due to its distributor NEON having an overcrowded slate and having a top priority in Sentimental Value, which was nominated for Picture and won International Feature. However, saying that: do I feel better about Elsinore‘s chances?

The short answer is yes for a nomination standpoint. Focus is its distributor which I think will prevent Elsinore from winning Picture, but I think this win has cemented it as a top priority for the studio. Unlike Neon, Focus had a pretty unclear slate outside of Obsession and I think this film might better with some voters. I am sorry Obsession fans, I think this win has hurt that film’s chances of getting into the Best Picture lineup. Andrew Scott is considered a strong contender for Best Actor this cycle and Focus has been known to have a particular category sweep every year (Jessie Buckley for Hamlet and Conclave for Best Adapted Screenplay are recent examples) and will not rule out that Focus could help increase Scott’s chances of winning the award. Saying all of that, I feel much more optimistic about Elsinore getting into the Best Picture lineup this cycle compared to No Other Choice this time last year.

Saying all of that, how do I feel about today’s People’s Choice Award winners at Toronto winning Best Picture this year? Right now, I think both will be safe to bet on to be nominated for Best Picture. If I were to bet on one to potentially win, betting on La Bola Negra would not be a bad bet at all but keep in mind that The Odyssey still is a very strong contender and there still could be anti-Netflix voters that could hurt that film’s chances. This will not be the last time I will be talking about either of these films this awards season, I will guarantee that.

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 long before the awards begin.