Everything changed about the Best Picture race in 2009, when the Academy adopted the preferential ballot as their Best Picture voting method. This was the same year the Best Picture field was expanded from five to ten nominees (as a response to “The Dark Knight” and “Wall-E” getting shut out of the 2008 Best Picture race), and the Academy recognized that winning by a simple plurality wasn’t good enough anymore for a field of ten nominees. No one wants a Best Picture winner that only gets 13% of the vote. The preferential ballot thankfully prevents that, but it also makes predicting Best Picture a lot more complicated. 

On a basic level, the preferential ballot is perfect for determining Best Picture. Rather than measuring which nominee has the most passionate support, it measures which nominee has the broadest support. In the old voting method, a film could theoretically win Best Picture while being hated by 75% of the Academy. That can’t happen anymore. 

Here’s a quick refresher on how the preferential ballot process works: Academy voters (of which there are around ten thousand) rank the ten nominees in order of preference. If any film receives over 50% of the first-place votes, that film wins Best Picture. Assuming that doesn’t happen on the initial tally (and it’s extremely unlikely that it ever would), the film with the fewest number of first-place votes is eliminated from contention, and all of the ballots that listed that film first then reallocate their votes to whatever was ranked second. If still no film has over 50% of the first-place votes, the process repeats, the film with the fewest votes is again eliminated, and votes are again reallocated. And so on and so on, until a film crosses the 50% threshold. 

In a year like last year, headlined by an Oscar juggernaut like “Oppenheimer,” it’s possible that only four or five eliminations were needed to reach that 50% threshold. In a year like this year, where there’s barely even a frontrunner, it’ll almost certainly require eight of the ten nominees being eliminated from contention before a movie can finally attain 50% of the vote. 

Going that deep into the process means our eventual Best Picture winner needs to win two different battles. First, it needs to begin the process with a lot of first-place votes. Any film that doesn’t start with a lot of love won’t be able to survive those first several eliminations. But second, and just as important, our eventual winner needs to be toward the bottom on a relatively small number of ballots. Beginning the process with a lot of first-place votes will take a movie far, but once we get into the final few eliminations, and we’re deep into voters’ ballots, a lot of sixth- and seventh-place votes will turn into first-place votes. That means any polarizing films that may garner a lot of ninth- and tenth-place votes will be at a severe disadvantage in the later elimination rounds, no matter how many first-place votes they start out with. 

So in a nutshell, we’re looking for a film that has both significant passion and very few haters. Which film might that be? Let’s get nuts—and highly speculative—and try to game it out. 

Here’s my best stab at what the initial first-place vote tallies will look like. And before you scoff that your favorite film’s vote share is way too low, please remember that these numbers do actually have to add up to 100.

“Anora”: 18%

“The Brutalist”: 16%

“Conclave”: 14%

“A Complete Unknown”: 12%

“Wicked”: 10%

“Dune: Part Two”: 8%

“I’m Still Here”: 7%

“Emilia Pérez”: 6%

“Nickel Boys”: 5%

“The Substance”: 4%

If these numbers are anything close to correct, that means “The Substance” will be our first elimination. And that makes sense for a film whose stylistic and narrative audacity has inspired widespread admiration but is probably still a bit too much for most voters. What can we guess about the taste of people who think “The Substance” is the best film of the year? Probably that they like daring, singular artistic visions and European sensibilities. So I would expect that 4% of the vote to be reallocated to other films with similar qualities, yielding a next set of totals like this:

“Anora”: 19%

“The Brutalist”: 17%

“Conclave”: 14%

“A Complete Unknown”: 12%

“Wicked”: 10%

“Dune: Part Two”: 8%

“I’m Still Here”: 7%

“Emilia Pérez”: 7%

“Nickel Boys”: 6%

When “Nickel Boys” gets eliminated, its votes should heavily reallocate to the most obviously arthouse films remaining in the field, like so:

“Anora”: 21%

“The Brutalist”: 19%

“Conclave”: 14%

“A Complete Unknown”: 12%

“Wicked”: 10%

“I’m Still Here”: 9%

“Dune: Part Two”: 8%

“Emilia Pérez”: 7%

Here’s where it gets fun, because truly who can know the minds of people who think “Emilia Pérez” is the best film of the year? What makes such a person tick? They probably respond to musicals, spectacle, and stylistic flare, so their votes should mostly redistribute to other films bringing those qualities to the table: 

“Anora”: 22%

“The Brutalist”: 20%

“Conclave”: 14%

“A Complete Unknown”: 13%

“Wicked”: 12%

“Dune: Part Two”: 10%

“I’m Still Here”: 9%

And now “I’m Still Here” has reached its end (and if I’m right that it’ll stick around the Best Picture race longer than “Emilia Pérez,” that may also portend an upset for Best International Feature). I’d expect its ballots to strongly favor the remaining films with the most topical social messages and the most global sensibilities:

“Anora”: 25%

“The Brutalist”: 23%

“Conclave”: 17%

“A Complete Unknown”: 13%

“Wicked”: 12%

“Dune: Part Two”: 10%

That means “Dune: Part Two” is our next elimination, which should heavily benefit the other two classic Hollywood crowd-pleasers left in contention, but we’re also getting deep enough into people’s ballots that everything will get a bump:

“Anora”: 26%

“The Brutalist”: 24%

“Conclave”: 18%

“A Complete Unknown”: 17%

“Wicked”: 15%

I think this is as far as “Wicked” can realistically make it, and its highly populist, spectacle loving voters might not have any other favorites remaining in contention. That means everything should get a relatively equal bump, except for whichever film “Wicked” fans probably like the least: 

“Anora”: 30%

“The Brutalist”: 25%

“Conclave”: 23%

“A Complete Unknown”: 22%

Even though “The Brutalist” got almost no help with the elimination of “Wicked,” it should still be far enough ahead to stay in the game, at least for now. That means “A Complete Unknown,” which was a trendy Best Picture upset pick a few weeks ago, has probably gone as far as it can. Again, we’re so deep into ballots here that the three remaining films will all get a nice boost, but it won’t be an equal one. “A Complete Unknown” is a classic Hollywood biopic, and it’s probably the most obvious candidate to galvanize the “Steak Eater” vote (older male voters who respond most to classic archetypal movies about Great Men Doing Great Things). Of the three remaining contenders, those voters will almost certainly like “Conclave” best, and they may be most put off by the third act in “The Brutalist.” That could result in a penultimate vote total like this: 

“Anora”: 37%

“Conclave”: 34%

“The Brutalist”: 29%

That means “Conclave” has leapt into second place, “The Brutalist” is finally done, and the reallocation of those “Brutalist” ballots will reveal our Best Picture winner. So before thinking too much about the math and the minutiae of it all, just ask yourself a simple question: For people who think “The Brutalist” is the best film of the year, would you expect them to prefer “Anora” or “Conclave?”

At least to me, the answer to that question seems pretty obvious, which is why I think the final elimination of “The Brutalist” will not only push “Anora” over the 50% threshold, but that the final margin won’t be very close: 

“Anora”: 56%

“Conclave”: 44%

Of course, this is all elaborate speculation, and people’s taste often doesn’t fit into neat theme and style boxes nearly as much as I’ve made it seem. There could be plenty of ballots that list “The Brutalist” number one and “Wicked” number two, for example. People are weird like that!

But the results of this simulation pass the smell test, for a few reasons. First, in a nominee field that’s much heavier on challenging and vaguely transgressive arthouse fare than it is on studio films or traditional crowd pleasers, it makes sense that more eliminated ballots will get redistributed into the “Anora” pile than into the “Conclave” pile. An Academy membership that nominates films like “The Brutalist,” “Nickel Boys,” and even “The Substance” for Best Picture seems more obviously primed to honor a film like “Anora” than a film like “Conclave.” 

Second, even though “Conclave” won the top prize from both BAFTA and SAG, those wins may be less telling than a trio of “Anora” results. Most obviously, “Anora” won Best Picture from the Producers Guild, which is the only other awards body that uses a preferential ballot. But perhaps even more revealing is the festival honors “Anora” racked up: the Palme d’Or from Cannes and third place in the People’s Choice Award from Toronto. Those wins may be circumstantial (the Cannes jury only has nine members, after all), but they indicate “Anora’s” rare ability to play like gangbusters for both the snobbiest upper echelon of cinephiles and also the assembled masses. 

And did you know only one other film has ever won the Palme d’Or and also placed in the top three for Toronto’s People’s Choice Award? Yup, it was “Parasite.”