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The third truth that emerges is a refinement of the previous rule. What matters is not only what movie people like the most, but how people feel about the main contenders as compared to the other contenders. So, for example, it likely does not matter if every single 12 Years a Slave voter ranks Gravity as their #2 pick. As we will see shortly, 12 Years a Slave is likely to be one of the last two films standing in the redistribution process. Unless it gets eliminated in an early round, an unlikely scenario, 12 Years’ ballots will never be redistributed and will never help out Gravity. Similarly, it does not matter whether a Gravity voter prefers American Hustle over 12 Years a Slave. Again, if we believe Gravity is going to make it into the last round of redistribution, then its ballots will never be used to help another movie. What does matter, however, is how voters rank the top-three contenders with respect to each other. If a Nebraska voter ranks Slave as #2 and Gravity as #3, it will not help Gravity to have placed that high up on the ballot, as the ballot will likely go to 12 Years’ pile and never be redistributed from there.

So what does this all mean for this year’s race? My short answer is that, for the first time, I can see Gravity actually pulling off a Best Picture stunner. Whether you believe me or not will depend on how much you trust the assumptions I will have to make as I construct the argument.

To start, let us assume two relatively uncontroversial propositions about this year’s Best Picture race. First, assume that it is a close contest at the top - i.e., no movie is going to receive over half of the Academy’s “#1” votes outright and win without needing to resort to redistribution. Second, let’s assume that the close race is between three movies and that those three are American Hustle, 12 Years a Slave, and Gravity. This is important because it means that none of the three will be very close to the 50% mark after the first round. If you run simulated preferential ballots you will see that if one movie is way ahead of the competition after just the first round, it is essentially impossible to catch it because the redistribution of ballots will push it over the top quickly. But this year, if we assume the race is close, we may believe that, for example, each of those movies is pulling about 25% of the #1 votes in the first round, with the other six pulling in the remaining 25%. This means that the eventual winner will need a lot of help to get to 50%. People’s #2 and #3 votes will matter a lot, and redistribution may go on for several rounds.

What happens next? Well, you can play infinite scenarios in your head but, as I said, what it boils down to is what movie is higher on the ballots not voting first for the top three contenders. So, essentially, all the number one votes for Her and Philomena and Nebraska eventually get knocked out. Of the top three contenders, which movie are those Her and Philomena and Nebraska voters likely to rank highest?

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