The countdown to the Academy Awards is on and we figure the time has come to take a look at how things are shaping up for the nominated films. To save time, both yours and mine, I’m going to focus on the big one: Best Picture. I’m feeling a bit feisty today, so I think I’ll make this a prediction, because what the hey, I hear those are hip. In spite of this new-found spirit of inclusion that the Academy has taken to this year, for the sake of more visually appealing charts, I’m only going to include analysis the top five nominees and their performance in social media; District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Avatar, and Up in the Air.

A word on how I’m determining the best performing of the nominees… Historically, the Best Picture winner has not necessarily been one that received high box office figures. Going purely off of the volume of conversation happening around the nominations of particular films, a popularity contest in other words, is probably not the best course of action. That works wonderfully for anticipating box office success, but this is a different game we’re playing here. So what have I done? First, I do necessarily look at the volumes of Oscar-related buzz in the week prior to the announcement of nominations and the week after, not including the day of.

Fig. 1 – Comparing pre-announce and post-announce volumes

Unsurprisingly, Avatar has by far the largest volume of the five. And what of the day the nominees were announced? Let’s have a look at a pie chart.

Fig. 2 – Announcement day volume

The numbers look similar to their counterparts above. But again, this isn’t a popularity contest, this is something more than that.

While Avatar may indeed be the favorite to walk away with the win, we need something that’ll help level the playing field. In order to do that, looking at how enthusiastic social media users are, not only about the movie itself but about its nomination for an Academy Award, should show us something a little more interesting. So how does one go about calculating enthusiasm in this context? It’s human nature to talk most about that which you find most exciting or surprising, both strong indicators of enthusiasm. I took, then, the percent change from the pre-announcement volume to the post-announcement volume, assuming that the largest increases in volume would be for those films that people were most enthusiastic to see included in the nominees.

With these numbers in hand, I assigned a 1-5 ranking and weighted that with a ranking of each volume number (popularity does matter some after all), assigning the final outcome about a 50/50 split between volume and our rudimentary assessment of enthusiasm.

Fig. 3 – Side-by-side probability of winning

Now we’re seeing something interesting. All of a sudden we have what appears to be a three-way tie for the frontrunner. We have to take a look at decimal points to see who really holds the lead. District 9, the innovative sci-fi film, comes out in front with a very slight lead, beating out Avatar by tenths of a percent, and The Hurt Locker comes out only very slightly below that.

What does this mean? If it were up to social media users, District 9 would pull out a surprising win. Bear in mind, though, that social media users are younger, and more inclined toward action and science fiction films, than the average movie-goer, and presumably than the average Academy member. So will District 9 win? Probably not, but if it does, expect a party on the internet.