Using mathematics to predict the winners of this year’s Oscars

Caught up in the Oscar fever, the team at BonusInsider calculated the odds for the most interesting categories, based on the 2023/24 awards season. To come up with their final standings, they gave nominees points for every win and every loss nomination in more than a dozen previous award ceremonies and film festivals, as well as for their rankings on several film review aggregation sites.

Following its phenomenal box office run, ‘Oppenheimer’ is the most nominated picture for the 2024 Academy Awards, and it is predicted to win in almost every major category, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

However, despite its outstanding performance and acknowledgments by the film industry, based on their analysis, it’s predicted that Oppenheimer’s clean sweep might be spoiled by two deciding categories: Best Supporting Actress and Best Production Design.

Emily Blunt scored only 50.06% in the Best Supporting Actress Category, while Da’Vine Joy Randolph achieved an astonishing 92.29%. From all the award ceremonies included in this analysis, Randolph has won 10 out of the 11 awards she’s been nominated for, including a Golden Globe, the Critics’ Choice Award and a BAFTA, which makes her Academy Award almost a 100% guaranteed, thus preventing Oppenheimer from making a clean sweep.

These are the categories reviewed and the nominees in each one with the highest chances of winning an Academy Award:

In the Best Production Design category, Barbie leads with 84.95% winning odds, followed by Poor Things (75.05%), Oppenheimer (66.95%), Killers of the Flower Moon (57.79%), and Napoleon (26.95%).

Of course we’ll have to wait till to view the real results when the Oscars air on March 11.

Antonino Tati

THE POP SHOP