The curtains have drawn on the awards season with today's Oscars. South Korean satire Parasite was the big winner and scored gold in a few surprise categories marked by stellar nominees.
Before the ceremony, using a data-driven model that checks key patterns over the 91 previous ceremonies, we had picked the winners in four categories of the 92nd Academy Awards: Best Picture, Actor, Actress and Director. Audiences were invited to vote for the winners in the same categories using polls. Now, with the results announced on Monday, did The Hindu’s predictions fare better when compared to the readers’ picks?
Our predictions, as can be viewed below, got only two right: Best Actor and Actress, though we did pick Parasite to be a dark horse.
However, the readers did exceedingly well, guessing correctly, three of the four winners in the categories polled!
Best Picture: Parasite
It was a close contest in the Oscars between Sam Mendes' gripping war movie 1917 and Bong Joon Ho's immersive commentary on class in Parasite. Our readers narrowly got this right, with 29% voting to pick the eventual winner Parasite, closely trailed by 1917 with 26% of the votes. Joker came in third, polling 17% of the votes.
Best Actor: Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix was everyone's unanimous choice for the best actor award despite some worthy performances from other nominees such as Adam Driver in Marriage Story. He was the runaway winner in our poll, garnering 83% of the votes. Both Leonardo DiCaprio and Adam Driver tied second with 8% of the votes each.
Best Actress : Renee Zellweger
The only cateogry which the readers got wrong was Best Actress, with Renee Zellweger for Judy beating out Scarlett Johansson for Marriage Story. Our readers tipped the scales in favour of Scarlett's portrayal of an unhappy wife whose ambitions are stifled by a highly successful spouse in Marriage Story. While she polled 53% of the votes, Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland took home the Oscar, despite only 31% of our readers predicting her win.
Best Director: Bong Joon-ho
The filmography of each of the nominees for the Best Director category will figure in many best of the best lists, leading to a really close race at this year's Oscars. The buzz was that the choice is between Sam Mendes for 1917 and Bong Joon Ho for Parasite. Bong Joon-ho was the eventual winner, taking home his fourth Oscar of the night. He polled 42% of the votes by our readers, while Sam Mendes came second with 26%.