Oscar Predictions: This Time Last Year – 82.5% Accuracy in Top 6 Categories

It’s no secret that AwardsWatch likes to brag about its Oscar prediction prowess but how well do we actually do? Pretty great, actually. This time last year AwardsWatch’s Gold Rush Gang clocked in at 82.5% accuracy with the eventual Oscar nominees in the Top 6 categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress. This week last year charts for Best Adapted and Original Screenplays were not logged that week but show up here and here a week and a half later.

Admittedly, we were a bit behind on The Grand Budapest Hotel being such a huge Oscar juggernaut last year. The weird thing with Foxcatcher getting in Best Director but losing out on Best Picture and Gone Girl‘s near total snub caught many of us by surprise. But, our stats stand as very strong in all categories and even a nice 100% accuracy in Best Actor.

Best Picture – 6/8 eventual nominees – 75%

Although we chart on a possibility of 10 nominees, I’m basing our accuracy on our actual top 8 since that ended up being the number of Best Picture nominees. We had Interstellar, Unbroken, Gone Girl, Foxcatcher instead of Whiplash (#12), and The Grand Budapest Hotel (#13). Best Picture winner Birdman was at #3.

Best Director – 4/5 – 80%

We fell into the ‘Christopher Nolan has to eventually be nominated’ trap and had him in the top 5 instead of Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel. Oscar winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu at #2.

Best Actor 5/5 – 100%

As you can see, we had 100% accuracy on the nominees but still had Michael Keaton at #1 and eventual winner Eddie Redmayne at #3.

Best Actress – 4/5 – 80%

We had Amy Adams instead of Marion Cotillard, who sat at #8. Oscar winner Julianne Moore was #1.

Best Supporting Actor – 4/5 – 80%

Josh Brolin instead of Robert Duvall (uncharted). We were a bit late to Robert Duvall’s reign as the #5 placeholder last November. Oscar winner J.K. Simmons was at #1.

Best Supporting Actress – 4/5 – 80%

Riding high as a hopeful coattail nomination, Kristen Stewart was in our top 5 instead of eventual nominee Laura Dern, who was in at #8. Oscar winner Patricia Arquette was at #1.

The most recent Gold Rush Gang predictions for the 2016 Oscar nominations came out this week.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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