Nate Silver Takes on the Oscars

As we prepare for our LIVE BLOG of the 81st Academy Awards, our attention seems to be falling almost exclusively on the Oscars. And this post fits the bill. But it is an especially exciting awards season post. As a huge fan of Mr. Fivethirtyeight (and his Esquire column), I am delighted to have reason to bring his writing to this arts-focused blog. Nate Silver used his fancy statistics to predict the winners in the four acting categories as well as Best Picture and Best Director. His predictions make for an interesting read and, with the exception of Taraji P. Henson upseting Penelope Cruz (and Mickey Rourke beating Sean Penn, if you fall into the Milk camp like me), they are largely unsurprising. Nonetheless, here's a snippet of the whole article, which you can read over at New York Magazine.

For example, is someone more likely to win Best Actress if her film has also been nominated for Best Picture? (Yes!) But the greatest predictor (80 percent of what you need to know) is other awards earned that year, particularly from peers (the Directors Guild Awards, for instance, reliably foretells Best Picture). Genre matters a lot (the Academy has an aversion to comedy); MPAA and release date don’t at all. A film’s average user rating on IMDb (the Internet Movie Database) is sometimes a predictor of success; box grosses rarely are. And, as in Washington, politics matter, in ways foreseeable and not. Below, Silver’s results, including one upset we never would have anticipated.