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%.
