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Factor Two: The Stats.

So we are down to two, then. If you want to narrow it down to one, one of these two movies has the clear edge: The Big Short has the great force of Oscar statistics behind it.

The Revenant did not get a SAG ensemble nomination, indicating either weakness within the important acting branch or that it was seen too late. Either way, only one movie, Braveheart, has won Best Picture without a SAG ensemble nomination, in 20 years of SAG history. Do note that Tom Hardy got a Best Supporting Actor nomination, which no one expected, so this “weakness within the acting branch” theory is perhaps misguided.

The Revenant did not get a Best Screenplay nomination, and since 1950 only Titanic and The Sound of Music have won Best Picture without one. Again, weakness within the branch, or a sign that the category was too competitive?

The Revenant, to win, would become the first movie of 88 of the history of the Academy Awards to go to the same director two years in a row. The same person has won Best Director two times straight, but it has simply never happened that his movie also wins Picture two years in a row. In other words, a win by this movie goes against the entirety of the history of the Oscars.

Finally, since the Oscars expanded Best Picture and moved to the preferential ballot, every single movie that won at the Producers Guild has gone on to win the Oscar for Best Picture. The Revenant lost that race to The Big Short.

The Big Short has none of these problems. It won the PGA, it has a SAG ensemble and a screenplay nomination. Its win would be entirely consistent with Oscar history. Its only problem, statistically, may be that it’s only up for five Oscars, and movies with five nominations do not tend to win. Crash and The Departed did it in back to back years, but those feel like anomalies. And, even worse, if it wins Picture and Screenplay but nothing else, as many are predicting, it would win only two Oscars, making it the first movie since The Greatest Show on Earth in 1950 to win with only two.

Still, its statistical mountain to climb is nowhere near as tall as The Revenant’s. That’s why, if you don’t think The Revenant is going to win, fine, but do yourself a favor and pick the much more likely upset of The Big Short. The Big Short is a movie about numbers and, sweet irony, the numbers favor it overwhelmingly somehow.

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