Best Picture of 2009 Oscar Prediction

Here's the winner of the 2010 82nd Academy Awards Best Picture.

February 24, 2011

By Scott Croco

[Update - October 25, 2016]
Updated to use MSM Formula 2.0.

Introduction

This is an objective, formula-based prediction for the winner of the year's Best Picture Academy Award. Inspired by data-centric entities like the Football Outsiders, BoxOfficeQuant, and the VFX Predictinator, I devised an algorithm to accurately forecast the annual Best Picture Oscar winner.

Prior to the 2011 Academy Awards, I cooked up a recipe using quantifiable data (box office, critical reviews, award nominations & wins) that successfully predicted the previous decade of Best Picture winners (with one exception, Crash in 2005). This formula then accurately projected The King's Speech as the Oscar winner in 2011, and went on to properly foresee 4 winners in 6 years. See the past predictions and nominees from all years pitted against each other.

After incorrect predictions in 2014 (picked Gravity instead of 12 Years a Slave) and 2016 (picked The Revenant instead of Spotlight), I tweaked the formula to correctly predict the winners of those years and this 2.0 version of the formula has been retroactively applied to all years. The MSM Formula 2.0 is the future!

Data

(click column headings to re-sort)

Film	Prediction Score	Critical Success	Commercial Success	Awards Success
The Hurt Locker	29.96	9.96	6.23	13.27
Up	25.99	13.72	7.88	4.39
Avatar	19.01	11.55	0.74	6.73
Inglourious Basterds	28.52	11.08	9.28	8.16
Up in the Air	27.51	9.00	9.43	8.58
District 9	25.24	11.67	9.35	3.72
Precious	24.76	7.24	10.11	6.91
The Blind Side	15.71	5.09	8.15	1.97
An Education	16.41	6.81	5.91	3.68
A Serious Man	13.81	4.64	5.67	3.00

Film	Score	Critics	Box Offfice	Awards
The Hurt Locker	29.96	9.96	6.23	13.27
Up	25.99	13.72	7.88	4.39
Avatar	19.01	11.55	0.74	6.73
Inglourious Basterds	28.52	11.08	9.28	8.16
Up in the Air	27.51	9.00	9.43	8.58
District 9	25.24	11.67	9.35	3.72
Precious	24.76	7.24	10.11	6.91
The Blind Side	15.71	5.09	8.15	1.97
An Education	16.41	6.81	5.91	3.68
A Serious Man	13.81	4.64	5.67	3.00

Film	Score
The Hurt Locker	29.96
Up	25.99
Avatar	19.01
Inglourious Basterds	28.52
Up in the Air	27.51
District 9	25.24
Precious	24.76
The Blind Side	15.71
An Education	16.41
A Serious Man	13.81

Prediction

I recall most folks thinking this was a race between The Hurt Locker and Avatar, with a possible upset by Inglourious Basterds. Now we can see that Avatar didn't really have a chance. The MSM prediction was for The Hurt Locker, on the strength of very good showings with other, non-Oscar, awards and nominations.

Predicted Winner: The Hurt Locker

See how The Hurt Locker compares to past Best Pictures