For all the talk about how much the Academy Awards have changed in recent years, one key facet has remained remarkably constant: the category lineup. Aside from the two sound categories merging, there have been no changes to the list of Oscar categories since best animated feature was introduced in 2001.
This year, that changes. Casting directors are finally getting their due. This poses a rather unique challenge for forecasters. This is my 15th year predicting the Academy Awards using only math, so what’s an Oscar prognosticator to do when the historical data simply doesn’t exist? Training data is the meal that feeds the model!
I decided to try and build up that data. To do so, I turned to the experts: the casting directors themselves.
I reached out to the Casting Society, and to my deep gratitude, they were happy to help. They allowed me to poll their membership, and 92 casting directors took time out of their days to respond. For each year from 2010-2025, I provided a shortlist of the 15 films I judged to be most likely to have received Oscar nominations for best casting in each year. Each of the voters ranked their top five from each awards season. I then applied the Academy’s voting procedures: ranked-choice to determine the nominations list, single-vote to determine the winner among the nominees.
It’s not a perfect proxy for what the Academy would have done. Casting directors likely know more about their own craft than Academy members at large. These voters were gifted the benefit of the hindsight which Oscar voters are not. In one case, a celebrated casting director who filled out the poll even had the opportunity to vote for herself on many occasions (but in a tribute to her humility, she often voted for others over her own work). Still, in the absence of a time machine and the ability to poll the Oscar voters from each year, this is likely the best we can do.
Not only do the Casting Society survey results for The Hollywood Reporter provide that historical dataset my model is hungry for, but they also can teach us quite a bit about this exciting new category. With that, let’s take a walk down the alternate history of best casting…
2010: ‘Inglourious Basterds’
Image Credit: Weinstein Company/Courtesy Everett Collection window.addEventListener(«message»,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[«datawrapper-height»]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(«iframe»);for(var t in a.data[«datawrapper-height»])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[«datawrapper-height»][t]+»px»;r.style.height=d}}});It’s rare for a film on the outside looking in at the best picture race to be so far ahead in best casting, but that’s exactly what happened in the first year I polled. Jenny Jue and Johanna Ray picked out the exact right mix of actors to portray Nazi hunters and Nazis for a film that won ensemble honors from the Screen Actors Guild and Critics Choice Awards, and it won handily in this poll of what-could-have-been at the Oscars.
window.addEventListener(«message»,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[«datawrapper-height»]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(«iframe»);for(var t in a.data[«datawrapper-height»])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[«datawrapper-height»][t]+»px»;r.style.height=d}}});2011: ‘The Social Network’
Image Credit: Merrick Morton/©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection window.addEventListener(«message»,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[«datawrapper-height»]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(«iframe»);for(var t in a.data[«datawrapper-height»])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[«datawrapper-height»][t]+»px»;r.style.height=d}}});This year was all about The King’s Speech vs. The Social Network, and the best casting category would have been no difference, with Black Swan also working its way into the conversation. Despite The King’s Speech earning three Oscar nominations for acting compared to just one for those other two films, the Casting Society voters would lean towards The Social Network. A notable absence: The Fighter, the only film since 2009 with multiple Oscar wins for acting but without even a nomination in this poll.
window.addEventListener(«message»,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[«datawrapper-height»]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(«iframe»);for(var t in a.data[«datawrapper-height»])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[«datawrapper-height»][t]+»px»;r.style.height=d}}});2012: ‘The Help’
Image Credit: Dreamworks window.addEventListener(«message»,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[«datawrapper-height»]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(«iframe»);for(var t in a.data[«datawrapper-height»])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[«datawrapper-height»][t]+»px»;r.style.height=d}}});While plenty of movies dubbed “comedies” by the Golden Globes earn Oscar nominations, true laugh-out-loud comedies rarely break into the awards conversation. Bridesmaids represents a departure from that norm, and would have been a strong contender to win an Oscar for its casting. Ultimately, the voters put it in second place behind The Help, the same film that defeated Bridesmaids for best supporting actress.
window.addEventListener(«message»,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[«datawrapper-height»]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(«iframe»);for(var t in a.data[«datawrapper-height»])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[«datawrapper-height»][t]+»px»;r.style.height=d}}});2013: ‘Argo’
Image Credit: Warner Bros./Photofest window.addEventListener(«message»,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[«datawrapper-height»]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(«iframe»);for(var t in a.data[«datawrapper-height»])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[«datawrapper-height»][t]+»px»;r.style.height=d}}});Lora Kennedy is the likely winner from Argo, which would have only increased the oddity of Argo receiving nearly every honor imaginable except a best director nomination. That said, Beasts of the Southern Wild discovering Quvenzhané Wallis was probably the biggest casting story of the season, and might have been enough to propel it to the Oscar.
window.addEventListener(«message»,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[«datawrapper-height»]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(«iframe»);for(var t in a.data[«datawrapper-height»])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[«datawrapper-height»][t]+»px»;r.style.height=d}}});2014: ‘12 Years a Slave’
Image Credit: Everett window.addEventListener(«message»,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[«datawrapper-height»]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(«iframe»);for(var t in a.data[«datawrapper-height»])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[«datawrapper-height»][t]+»px»;r.style.height=d}}});This is the first of two consecutive wins for Francine Maisler (12 Years a Slave, Birdman). That might prove relevant to this year’s Oscars. Maisler is nominated for Sinners, an extremely strong casting job that could win even a rookie casting director an Oscar. But add in the fact that a number of industry insiders will feel she deserves an Oscar (not just the hypothetical ones in this article!) for her impressive body of work, and that could be more than enough to vault her into first place.
window.addEventListener(«message»,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[«datawrapper-height»]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(«iframe»);for(var t in a.data[«datawrapper-height»])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[«datawrapper-height»][t]+»px»;r.style.height=d}}});2015: ‘Birdman’
Image Credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection window.addEventListener(«message»,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[«datawrapper-height»]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(«iframe»);for(var t in a.data[«datawrapper-height»])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[«datawrapper-height»][t]+»px»;r.style.height=d}}});Boyhood’s Beth Sepko had an incredibly challenging task, finding the right cast for the film who would gracefully grow up before our eyes over a dozen years. This would have been extremely close, but the Casting Society voters barely lean towards Francine Maisler’s work on Birdman, which went on to win best picture.
window.addEventListener(«message»,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[«datawrapper-height»]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(«iframe»);for(var t in a.data[«datawrapper-height»])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[«datawrapper-height»][t]+»px»;r.style.height=d}}});2016: ‘Spotlight’
Image Credit: ‘Spotlight,’ Courtesy of Kerry Hayes/Open Road Films window.addEventListener(«message»,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[«datawrapper-height»]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(«iframe»);for(var t in a.data[«datawrapper-height»])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[«datawrapper-height»][t]+»px»;r.style.height=d}}});Of the 16 years covered by this poll, five of them came down to a difference of three or fewer votes between the first and second place finishers. This is one of those years, with Spotlight edging out Room by just three votes (after the preferential-ballot step that narrowed down the initial list of 15 to the 5 nominees). While we never get to observe the final ballot totals at the Oscars, this is a good reminder that behind the scenes, quite a few of the results likely come down to a surprisingly small margin.
window.addEventListener(«message»,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[«datawrapper-height»]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(«iframe»);for(var t in a.data[«datawrapper-height»])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[«datawrapper-height»][t]+»px»;r.style.height=d}}});2017: ‘Moonlight’
