**All award information collected from filmsite.org and goldenglobes.org
Everyone has their own opinions on what should win what when it comes to awards season. But by putting personal views aside some interesting patterns arise when looking at past winners and losers. Here, as a fresh approach to predicting the winners at the 83rd Annual Academy Awards this article looks back at the past ten Golden Globes to see if any trends and clues present themselves.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Screenplays present the most difficult category in terms of accurate prediction: the Oscars give out two separate Screenplay awards, one for Adapted and one for Original, while the Golden Globes present one joint award. When trying to acquire data on the subject things start to get a little hazy. In the past ten years the Golden Globe has only been awarded to a script that qualified in the Original Screenplay category at the Academy Awards once. On six other occasions the award was handed to a screenplay which won the ensuing Best Adapted Screenplay prize at the Oscars. In the remaining three cases the Golden Globe went to a script which won neither the Best Original nor the Best Adapted Screenplay award at the following Academy Awards. So what does this tell us? It tells us that, as winner of the Golden Globe’s Best Screenplay and a re-working of Ben Mezrich’s novel The Accidental Billionaires, the odds are greatly in favor of The Social Network bringing home the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. The data behind Best Original Screenplay, on the other hand, shows favor for a screenplay which was nominated, yet failed to win the Golden Globe. The only films which qualify here are The King's Speech, The Kids Are All Right, and Inception. With a head of steam going in to this year's award season The King's Speech looks the favorite to take this one home.
Predictions:
Best Original Screenplay: David Seidler, The King's Speech
Best Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network
Best Supporting Actress
In the past decade the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards have presented their respective accolades to the same actress on five occasions. Most recently, three of the past five have matched, and only once in the last three years was their a single winner. Recent results suggest that the odds may be against Golden Globe winner Melissa Leo for her role in The Fighter. Only twice has the Academy Award gone to an actress who failed to land the Golden Globe nomination, as well. Taking these facts into consideration it looks as though the remaining Golden Globe candidates of Mila Kunis, Amy Adams, Helena Bonham Carter, and Jacki Weaver remain the favorites for the Oscar.
Prediction:
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Helena Bonham Carter, The King’s Speech
Best Supporting Actor
Best Supporting Actor looks to be the easiest to project of all the major categories. In the past ten years the Academy and the Golden Globes have paired up to honor the same actor on eight separate occasions, which includes the last three years running. In this case, the odds strongly suggest that Christian Bale, for his role as Dicky Eklund in The Fighter, will face little competition in corralling the Oscar, as well.
Prediction:
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Christian Bale, The Fighter
Best Actress
Much like Best Supporting Actor this category has a pretty hefty statistical line. Since the turn of the new millennium the same actress has won both honors on seven occasions. Six of the past eight years sent both awards to the same actress, and the past three years in a row only enhanced that pattern. This year Natalie Portman took the Golden Globe for Best Actress and it appears that the other hopefuls, including Halle Berry, Michelle Williams, and Nicole Kidman, will face a similar fate come Oscar season.
Prediction:
Best Actress in a Leading Role: Natalie Portman, Black Swan
Best Actor
This decade the Best Actor awards have been spread out and sporadic. Only half the time has one actor received both awards, but in the past five years its happened a sturdy four times. As the favorite heading into the Golden Globes it looks as though Colin Firth has a very good chance of walking out of February’s Oscar ceremony with another award in hand.
Prediction:
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Colin Firth, The King’s Speech
Best Director
The numbers pertaining to the comparable histories of the two Best Director awards strongly resemble those of Best Actor. Five of the last ten years saw repeat winners, and more recently there has been a higher frequency of singular victors (5 out of 7, to be exact). One may also consider it necessary to weigh the value of James Cameron’s victory at the 82nd Academy Awards - Cameron’s film Avatar was more a visual victory than one for a full, great film. His win was somewhat of a fluke. Erase from memory that of Cameron's victory and it can be seen that five of the past six have been repeat winners. Knowing this, it is easy to predict that David Fincher can start clearing space on his mantle for his first Oscar.
Prediction:
Best Director: David Fincher, The Social Network
Best Picture
The grand-daddy of them all. Thankfully, the data behind the recent history of Best Picture allows for some parody. Of the past ten Golden Globe winners only four have gone on to take home the Oscar. Even better, only two of the past eight have managed to accomplish that feat, and only Slumdog Millionaire ran the table during the past six years. This tells us that The Social Network is not the logical choice for February’s Oscars. On three separate occasions the winner of the Academy Awards choice for Best Picture wasn’t even nominated for Best Picture at the Golden Globes, allowing for the possibility that a forgotten underdog may usurp The Social Network for this year’s crown. Although, there is one film that boasts so many points which the Academy covets that it is difficult to see them going a different route come February. As a period piece, biopic, and a tale about an historical political figure overcoming a suffocating personal disability, one film appears to be tailor made for Oscar glory.
Prediction:
Best Motion Picture: The King’s Speech
Sources:
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association. "Golden Globe Awards - Award Search". Accessed 17
January, 2011.
AMC. "Academy Awards". Accessed 17 January, 2011.
Colin Shea - Colin is a freelance writer out of Detroit, Michigan. As a kid he began writing at a young age and continued that passion throughout his ...
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