The 57th Academy Awards will take place this week and the names of the new Oscar winners will finally be announced! Various movie critics, bloggers and journalist are making predictions on who will win what at the 2015 Oscar awards. In reality only a few members of the Academy know these details.
But what if people should choose best picture, best actor, best director and etc.? Will their favourites match with those of the critics and, most importantly, with those of the Academy? A new experiment tries to capture social media Oscar trends and track, which actors and film productions get most positive response by social media users. For the purpose, the people behind the experiment relied on an web analytics tools and tracked Oscar-related social media activity over the past months. The results can easily be called People’s Oscars or the Oscar’s According to the Public.
Best Picture – The Grand Budapest Hotel
One of the most nominated movies at the Oscars is also the most praised by social media users. Around 94% of all social media post about this film are positive. Not far behind is Boyhood with 87% of approval. Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, however, got 54% of positive posts, which makes it the least popular flick among the public.
Best Actress in a Leading Role – Julianne Moore (Still Alice)
This year’s Oscar nominees in the category Best Actress in a Leading Role triggered a hot discussion. It revolved around the Hollywood trend to base most movies and leading roles around men. None of the on-screen performances of this year’s nominees for Best Actress in a Leading Role stand out. Still, public has spoken and their favourite in this category is Julianne Moore for her performance in Still Alice. Moore has a social media approval of 75%, while each of her rivals has about 65%.
Best Actor in a Leading Role – Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything)
This next choice may surprise you. Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game) is one of the actors that has the most active and biggest fanbases today. Still, just 75% of the social media post on the actor’s role in The Imitation Game were flattering. The people’s winner is for the newcomer in the group Eddie Redmayne for his role in The Theory of Everything.
Best Actress in a Supporting Role – It’s a Tie
Prepare for the shock – Meryl Streep has received an approval of only 59% for her performance in the movie Into the Woods! Only Keira Knightly has lower score than her. Still, the public seems to be having a hard time to decide who should win the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. Both Emma Stone (Birdman) and Laura Dern (Wild) each have 63% of the public’s approval, which means we have a tie in this category.
Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Tie Again
66% of the social media post on Edward Norton’s performance in Birdman expresses a positive attitude. Robert Duvall (The Judge) also got the same percentage. Interestingly, one of critics’ favourites, Mark Ruffalo (Foxcatcher) has the lowest score – 55%.
It is not hard to see that people’s opinion on who should get an Oscar this year is mostly different from that of the critics. However, there is always at least one surprise winner selected by the Academy. So, fans may get what they want after all.
