For many years, the BAFTA for Best Film and the Oscar for Best Picture did not match. In fact, it was largely common in the ‘80s and ‘90s, with the exception of a few years when the awards groups agreed on titles such as “Gandhi”, “The Last Emperor”, “Schindler’s List” and “The English Patient”.
They matched three years in a row from 1998-2000 with “Shakespeare in Love”, “American Beauty” and “Gladiator”. They disagreed the next two years, agreed on the final “Lord of the Rings” film and then disagreed again from 2004 to 2007.
But then the BAFTAs came into the modern limelight around 2008, when awards groups started paying more attention to them as predictors for the Oscars. From the 2008 Best Film (“Slumdog Millionaire”) to 2013’s recipient (“12 Years a Slave”), the Academy and British Academy’s highest honor went to the same picture. Films in between those two were “The Hurt Locker”, “The King’s Speech”, “The Artist” and “Argo”. That’s six in a row.
In 2014, the dynamic changed. BAFTA gave it to “Boyhood”, while the Oscars went for “Birdman”. The next year it was a “Revenant” / “Spotlight” split. The year after that was a “La La Land” / “Moonlight” split. That’s already three in a row, and it wouldn’t end there.
“Three Billboards” was BAFTA’s 2017 champ. The Oscars gave it to “The Shape of Water”. The next year saw “Roma” earn BAFTA’s top prize while The Academy went for “Green Book” instead. And then it was a “1917” / “Parasite” split. Now we’re up to six in a row.
The streak ended with the 2020 winner, “Nomadland”. During the early pandemic period, these two awards groups (which do share plenty of voters) agreed that this is the film they wanted to honor. But I suspected after BAFTA gave its highest honor to “The Power of the Dog” a few weeks ago that we might be in for yet another split. I thought the Oscars would go for “King Richard”, but they chose another positive message-filled, feel-good film instead: “CODA”.
So — seven out of the past eight years the BAFTAs and the Oscars have disagreed on which movie is the best of the year.
Interestingly, Critics Choice is not far behind. They matched the Oscars’ choice five times in a row, from 1999 – 2003, before making different choices in 2004 & 2005. They matched from 2006 – 2009 and then disagreed in 2010: Critics Choice went for “The Social Network”, while The Academy chose “The King’s Speech”.
They were the same from 2011-2013. But from 2014-2021, Critics Choice and the Oscars have NOT matched five out of eight times, only agreeing on “Spotlight”, “The Shape of Water” and “Nomadland”.
Moving forward… as much as awards enthusiasts like to use other awards show results to ultimately predict the Oscar winners (and I absolutely count myself in this)… it seems that taking into account that they likely will NOT match is more important than ever.