Oscars scorecard: ‘Oppenheimer’ widens lead after dominating BAFTAs
It’s becoming a repetitive tale. A major awards organization announces their nominations or winners and “Oppenheimer” extends its lead in the Oscars race for Best Picture. It’s the same again here in this latest round of our 35 boxes theory.
The theory documents 35 major races in the awards season, with each box representing a key nomination or victory at various awards organizations that potential Oscar Best Picture winners typically need to snag. The idea is, the more boxes you tick off, the more support you have across the industry, the better your film’s chances at winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
For example, in 2019, “Green Book” won 23 of these 35 boxes before winning Best Picture at the Oscars. Conversely, “Roma” filled in only 19 boxes while both “BlacKkKlansman” and “The Favourite” were at 20. Each of the three previous Best Picture winners prior to “Green Book” numbered among the top three entries on our season-end charts.
The last round saw the DGAs hand out Best Director to Christopher Nolan. That was one more box ticked for “Oppenheimer,” taking the movie’s tally to 24. This time around, there were four boxes up for grabs: BAFTA Best Picture Win, BAFTA Best Director Win, BAFTA Acting Win, and BAFTA Writing Win. Take a look at the below tables to see what happened.
As you can see, it was another successful night for “Oppenheimer.” The movie won Best Picture while Nolan won Best Director again and both Cillian Murphy (Best Actor) and Robert Downey Jr. (Best Supporting Actor) won acting awards amongst the film’s total BAFTAs haul of seven. That brings the flick’s total boxes ticked up to 27. “Oppenheimer” failed to make it a perfect four boxes ticked in this round because Nolan lost his Best Adapted Screenplay bid to “American Fiction.”
Writer-director Cord Jefferson took home that award, bringing his film’s tally to 11 boxes ticked. The other writing was “Anatomy of a Fall” with director Justine Triet and Arthur Harari winning Best Original Screenplay. That film has now climbed to 16 boxes ticked.
Only two other films won acting awards. The first was “The Holdovers,” which won Best Supporting Actress for Da’Vine Joy Randolph. “The Holdovers” has now moved up to 17 boxes ticked, moving it level with “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which left the BAFTAs empty-handed.
The other film to win an acting award was “Poor Things,” which gave Emma Stone a Best Actress victory. “Poor Things” solidified its status in second place by moving up to 20 boxes ticked. Below is a list of the 10 Best Picture Oscar nominees in order of boxes ticked and, therefore, in order of how likely they are to win Best Picture according to this theory.
- “Oppenheimer” — 27
- “Poor Things” — 20
- “The Holdovers” and “Killers of the Flower Moon” — 17
- “Anatomy of a Fall” — 16
- “Barbie” — 15
- “Maestro” — 13
- “American Fiction” — 11
- “Past Lives” — 10
- “The Zone of Interest” — 8
The next round in this theory will be the WGA nominations, which come on February 21, followed by the SAG awards on February 24 and the PGA awards on February 25. “Oppenheimer” could, theoretically, be on 31 out of 35 boxes ticked after those three rounds. Incredible.
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