Oscar Sunday was full of big moments. Janelle Monae tore it up in the opening song. Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig were hilarious as always. Tom Hanks looked like he was having the time of his life. Bong Joon Ho told millions of people he was about to get hammered. And Eminem made a bunch of celebrities bob their heads totally off beat.
It was a year of firsts. Parasite was the first non-English speaking film to win best picture and best original screenplay. Joaquin Phoenix and Laura Dern won their first Oscars. Joker composer Hildur Guðnadóttir was the first woman to win best original score since the category took its current form. And Hair Love producer Karen Toliver became the first African American woman to win best animated short.
By the end of the night our final score was 20/24, with an 83% success rate. For context, we tied the Hollywood Reporter’s prediction score and beat the predictions from places like Deadline, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Indiewire, AV Club, Screen Rant, and Vulture.
We feel good about how things went, and we break down the (mostly good) surprises of the night below.
PARASITE PARTY
Last year we predicted that the Academy would make the right decision on best picture and award Roma, but we got Green Booked. This year, we learned from that mistake and didn’t give them that benefit, but they surprised us in the best way. They reverse-Green Booked us.
We knew a lot of Oscar prediction scores were going to come down to Parasite. Either the film was going to outperform and sweep multiple awards, or underperform and only win one or two. We had decided to hedge our bets and predict a performance somewhere in the middle, predicting that Parasite would pick up some big awards but not the top two. Somehow Parasite both outperformed and underperformed, outperforming in best picture and best director, and underperforming in best film editing.
In best picture and best directing, 1917 was definitely the safest choice. With 1917’s PGA and DGA wins and 92 years of precedence, Parasite had some big hurdles to overcome. But Parasite’s overall popularity took it over the edge in ways previous international films weren’t able to do. Ranked choice voting likely paid off for Parasite in a major way, beating the safe bet of 1917 and creating the upset that was nearly a century in the making.
And as Bong Joon Ho stared lovingly at his Oscar, we were very happy to be wrong. Parasite was an incredible and groundbreaking film. It bucked history and became the first non-English language film to win best picture in the Oscars’ 92 year history.
Bong Joon Ho said in his acceptance speech that he would be drinking all night, and we hope he woke up this morning with the most well-deserved hangover of his life.
FORD V. FERRARI V. EDITING
The other film that outperformed our expectations was Ford v. Ferrari, the film that for months had people saying “No really, it’s actually pretty good.” It surprised us by taking home both film editing and sound editing, showing that voters responded to the loud, fast-paced racing sequences. We knew we were taking a bit of a risk on Parasite for film editing, but the sound editing was a bigger surprise for us. Usually sound editing and mixing go to the same film, and war films dominate both categories. But this year the Oscars split the vote, giving sound editing to Ford v. Ferrari and sound mixing to 1917. Most people predicted one or the other to win both, so the split ended up canceling out a lot of predictions in those categories.
WE TOLD YOU SO
Two categories that separated us from a number of other prediction sites were VFX and live action short film. VFX was a very tight race, and a lot of predictions thought Marvel would finally get its legacy win after years of being nominated. But we thought older voters wouldn’t end their decade of disrespecting Marvel by giving it an award. You get nothing, Marvel. You lose. Good day sir.
This is the first time in years that we correctly predicted all three short film categories. They are notoriously hard to predict. We saw some clear frontrunners in Hair Love and Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl), but we were especially happy that we stuck with our guts on live action short The Neighbors’ Window, despite lots of buzz for Brotherhood. Take that, thoughtful and important short films!
THANKS!
Thank you so much for following us through this year’s award season. We hope you enjoyed our posts and won all your Oscar pools! We’ll be back next year with more predictions and witty analysis. Send us an email if you have any questions, and as they say in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, “Hey, that’s Hollywood!”
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