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Awards Season: How Likely Is A Best Picture/Best Director Split This Year?

It’s a question that I’ve been asked several times over the past week: Do you think we are likely to have a split between Best Picture and Best Director this year? It’s a complicated question, and also one that’s worth exploring in a little detail. If you had asked me about halfway through the critics awards, I probably would have given you a strong “yes.” The way the awards were going (12 Years a Slave taking the vast majority of Best Picture prizes and Gravity cleaning up the majority of Best Director awards), it looked certain that that was the direction we were heading, but if we look back at Oscar history, there are a few interesting things to take note of that can help us determine whether or not we should still be calling for the split or not.

12 Years A Slave

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As we can see with these three examples, a split is rarely something that we can actually predict, no matter how much we try. The truth of the matter is, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences loves to match up the top two categories when possible, and with 6,000 members voting, they’re able to do it most of the time. When you think about it, isn’t the best film of the year usually the one that’s the best made? In that sense, it makes sense that they would want to give both awards to the same film.

Bringing us back to the present day, we’re now faced with the distinct possibility that a split could happen this year, but as I said in my last awards update, I don’t see how such a thing could happen this year. Gravity is currently positioned to take at least seven of its categories, including Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, and Best Visual Effects. Its competitor and co-PGA winner, 12 Years a Slave, is currently positioned to take at least two (Best Supporting Actress and Best Adapted Screenplay).  The question remains: Which of these two films is going to take Best Picture?

I’ve already thoroughly analyzed the question, so if you want to revisit that topic, feel free to check out my previous article, but to simplify things, I would find it very shocking to see a film receive so many awards and not take the big prize. A film is the sum of many parts. If any one of those parts doesn’t work properly, then the film could turn into a disaster. Gravity is a technical marvel with every single part working together brilliantly to create an unforgettable experience. 12 Years a Slave, with nine nominations of its own, also has several well-done parts working together for the greater good of the whole, but it’s the whole that doesn’t really last in the memory. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine film, but there are really only certain parts of it that stick, and by that, I mean the outstanding  performances are its best feature (I’m still shocked that it didn’t win Best Ensemble).

However, that last paragraph was just my personal opinion. For a consensus, we’d have to look at all the awards that came before. That’s where we can clearly see that the vast majority have found Gravity to be the best made film of the year, with the film reigning in Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, and several other technical categories. However, the vast majority of Best Picture awards have gone to 12 Years a Slave, so we’re left with the bizarre notion that Gravity is the best made film of the year, but 12 Years is the actual best film of the year (i.e. Gravity’s parts are better, but 12 Years is the better whole). I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.