Oscar Results: The Numbers Readers Score 18 out of 24

February 23, 2015

Once more, entrants in The Numbers Predict the Academy Awards Contest did an impressive job of predicting winners, in spite of a volatile Awards Season. Overall, the top voter-getters in 18 out 24 categories went on to win the Oscar on the night, including all acting awards, all but one of the technical awards, and all the short films.

Our biggest misses were actually in the biggest categories: Best Picture was won by Birdman, not Boyhood; Alejandro Inarritu beat Richard Linklater for Best Director; and Big Hero 6 prevailed over How to Train Your Dragon 2.

The biggest upset of the night was probably Big Hero 6’s victory over How to Train Your Dragon 2, which was expected to win by 70% of people entering the contest. Also a fairly big surprise was Boyhood losing to Whiplash for Film Editing. 69% of readers predicted Boyhood’s win in that category.

Apart from those two, none of the missed predictions were backed by more than 60% of entrants. In particular, Boyhood received just five more votes than Birdman for Best Picture, making that category practically a toss-up. That narrow miss makes this the fourth year readers have failed to predict the Best Picture winner out of the 18 years we’ve been running the contest. It’s also the third time we’ve called wrong on Best Animated Feature in the 14 years that category has existed.

- Predicted winners in each category
- Predicted and actual winners in each category
- Complete vote tallies in each category

Bruce Nash

Filed under: Contest, Awards Season, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Big Hero 6, Boyhood, Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), Whiplash, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Richard Linklater