What makes an oscar winning movie

Movies about movies do very well at the Oscars. But it was apparently just not a very good movie. The eclectic list of the 10 most Oscar-baity movies ever made, according to Rossman and Schilke's equation, includes highly acclaimed Best Picture winners, beloved auteurist fare, and at least a couple of duds:. The IMDb keywords with the highest level of correlation with nominations are "family tragedy", "whistleblower", "Pulitzer Prize source", "physical therapy", "domestic servant", and "Watergate".

Among the or so keywords with a zero score — no movies with these have ever been nominated for an Oscar — are "zombie", "food fight", "breast implant", "bestiality", and, depressingly, "black independent film". But this measure is beholden to IMDb's keyword-tagging system. The flukiest keywords in the top 50 may be "panties hit the floor", which apparently includes such Best Picture-nominated films as Born on the Fourth of July and Juno. However, making Oscar bait is, the paper says, risky.

When there's no nomination, the "Oscar appeal" metric is negatively correlated with profits. One of the Coen brothers' most ambitious efforts, No Country for Old Men plays like an updated western, ripe with dark, seedy undertones setting the scene for one hell of a mystery. Seeing as this is a Coen film, the story is told through the experiences of a regular joe who opts to completely ruin his life.

Josh Brolin plays Llewelyn Moss, the man in question, who discovers a bag of cash and decides, "I'll keep it! Why the hell not? David Lean directs this excellent World War Two movie, reimagining the brutal enslavement of Allied prisoners forced to build the Burma railway. Alec Guinness' British Colonel encourages his soldiers to help the Japanese with the bridge as a way of boosting morale, while a fellow Brit pushes William Holden's American officer to destroy the bridge upon completion.

It exposes the truth behind Japanese Prisoner of War camps, and how thin the line between heroism and loyalty really is. Guinness is excellent as the Brit with the stiff upper lip, giving an all-time great performance. Sylvester Stallone wrote his breakout role in Rocky. Like his on-screen counterpart, he too rose like the Philadelphian underdog who dreams of boxing in the heavyweight championship.

From his determination to succeed to his ambitious, post-montage air-punch at the top of the museum steps, you can't help but root for Rocky to bag that title. There was no way the Academy could ignore Peter Jackson's Tolkien trilogy. A visually-adventurous tale of Hobbits, Elves, Orcs and — above all — the true strength of friendship, it was a travesty that the previous two movies didn't scoop up awards.

With an A-list cast, attention to detail, and respect towards the source novels, The Return of the Kings benefitted from voters who realised, third time around, just how groundbreaking this trilogy was. It Happened One Night was a trailblazer, paving the way for the modern romantic comedy as we now know it. Before Frank Capra's screwball caper, there were no amusing scenarios for when couples first meet in movies or scenes where characters dissect their heartbreak with their friends.

All of that stems from the story of Claudette Colbert's hoity heiress, who finds herself torn between two suitors, and goes for the least likely option. It Happened One Night took the conventions of the post-Depression era, when women were in pursuit of financial security, and twisted them into something fresh.

It's a scene that's so iconic it almost overshadows the movie itself, which is worth noting because Hoffman improvised the line. John Schlesinger's ease for letting his drifter picture go wherever his leads liked is part of what makes it feel so natural. The story follows Jon Voight's Joe Buck. After leaving Texas for the bright lights of the big city, he turns tricks to make a living and, along the way, befriends Ratso Hoffman. The first X-rated movie to ever win Best Picture.

By today's ratings, it would be an NC — the UK equivalent of an Miles Forman's adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel is a classic for a reason.

In possibly his best performance, Jack Nicholson plays Randle McMurphy, a wise-cracking con artist who talks his way into a mental institution to forgo a harsher prison term. He rages against the machine that's run by the evil Nurse Ratched Louise Fletcher and befriends all sorts of folks inside, including a pre-Doc Brown Christopher Lloyd.

It'll uplift your soul and break your heart in equal measure, and the fact that it's so good at doing both justifies every award that's been thrown at One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. A grand, majestic picture that walked away with eight Oscars, Gone With the Wind remains a cornerstone of cinema. That this lush melodramatic tale of romance and injustice during the American Civil War even made it to the big screen remains a mini-miracle.

The movie was beset with problems right throughout its lengthy production, from the hundreds of actresses who tested for the part of Scarlett O'Hara to the sheer quantity of directors who came and went. Adapted from Margaret Mitchell's novel, it's still the most successful movie in box office history when adjusted for inflation.

Mix the values of a film with the archetype it fits into and you have a potentially powerful voter magnet, a story that can make your movie stick in the minds of Academy members as they sit down to fill out their Oscar ballots. A lot can change over that time.

Running a successful Oscar campaign means knowing how to target your voters. And that is where the cinematic rubber meets the long, long road. So he replied on Twitter , offering a mini explainer on how things work once Oscars campaigns begin.

But the largest factor as to why we didn't get nominated is that we didn't actually run a campaign that aimed to get a nomination for Screenplay or Song. We didn't buy For Your Consideration ads in the trade magazines and we didn't service the whole academy with screeners. So I had no actual belief that we would get nominated. And that means spending money.

A typical campaign involves lots and lots of contact between studios, publicists, and the voters. The process usually starts in the fall, after the blitz of film festivals in Venice, Telluride, and Toronto, and intensifies over the next six months leading up to the Oscars. Doing those things just raises awareness of a film, and creates the notion that it has the potential to be part of the Oscar conversation, which makes people put it on their to-watch list.

And, as Riley notes, not doing those things can have the opposite effect. Actors and directors who campaign well — that is, who find ways to make personal connections with voters — often do much better on the awards circuit.

As with presidents, that means extroverts, or at least those who can project a gregarious image for months on end , are often more successful. Tom Hanks is known to be able to turn on the charm on demand; Michael Fassbender is said to be the exact opposite. Among directors, you have the effusive Guillermo del Toro on one side and the reserved Christopher Nolan on the other. You may need to take selfies with fans or voters, show up to receive awards at smaller festivals attended by Academy members, and eat three meals a day at campaign events.

Some people — like Fassbender and Rooney Mara — are said to actively hate the campaign trail. That can definitely hurt your chances. The bottom line is that, no matter what narrative your film is part of, you have to ensure that Academy members will see your film, connect to its story, and remember it come voting time.

The more opportunities there are to do this, the better. There are dinners. And breakfasts, and luncheons, and teas, and cocktail receptions hosted by celebrities and influencers.

Stars and Oscar hopefuls show up for meet-and-greets and make surprise appearances at screenings. They appear on podcasts and do video tours and make the rounds on late-night comedy shows , and a lot more. There are some rules about how much you can contact or badger an Academy member about your movie. The Academy limits the number of mailings and screening invitations a member can receive for each film. This serves the same purpose that endorsements do in the political realm.

But leading up to nominations, all bets are off, and such endorsements are among the best ways to connect with the people who will eventually propel a film to gold. All of this means that Oscar campaigns are very expensive.

Plus, studios hire experienced consultants to run campaigns for their nominees — consultants who often are taking pages right from the most notorious Oscar campaigner in Hollywood history. Another figure who took advantage of the system was none other than Harvey Weinstein. The controversial film producer was notorious for his aggressive marketing strategies to win best picture. It's how "Shakespeare in Love" took home the prize in over Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan", an obvious favorite at the time.

It's no surprise that Hollywood pours so much attention and money into the event, but there is another secret. The Oscars aren't that difficult to win. That is, as long as you understand the rules of the game, and the key is all in the statistics. For instance, you wanna make longer films, ideally over two hours.

This graph charts the run time of all best picture winners since There are no distinct patterns, but in terms of probability, longer films have a better chance of winning. Only three out of 90 winners had a runtime below minutes, while 28 ran below two hours.

So why do the Oscars love longer films? The answer is simple: Because longer films tend to feel more important, and if there's one thing we can agree on, the Oscars love important movies, almost to a fault. These are not important movies in the context of cinematic achievements but rather the buzz that surrounds a film. It's the same reason why film marketers work hard to create that Oscar buzz, like the extent to which actors went to prepare for a role or the difficulties behind the scenes.

There's no reason why runtime should have an effect on whether a film wins the best picture or not, yet, it clearly does.

This obsession with important films is the same reason why dramas are the king of the award season.