How to win Best Picture

Oscar trophies via Smithsonian Magazine. 

Every year, Hollywood plays host to the most important players in the entertainment industry to celebrate the very best of cinema at the Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' awards. After delivering 23 statuettes, the last and most expected award of the night goes to the Best Picture of the year. Though on occasion a great low-profile movie can beat the favorite, the Oscars aren't exactly a meritocracy. Here's how you make the Best Picture: 

Via GIPHY.

The perfect recipe

Ever since the first Academy Awards were held in 1929, the definition of what the "best movie of the year" is has been determined by recurrent trends. Generally, a winning film will have at least one of these factors: 

• A big issue

Whether it's racial discrimination (12 years a slave, Green Book), gender inequality (Million Dollar Baby, Out of Africa) or power plays and conflicts, (Argo, No Country for Old Men),  a movie that deals with relevant social or political issues will surely call the Academy's attention. Bonus points if the film is a period piece, a war film or inspired by a true story. Examples of this factor are the winning Spotlight, The Hurt Locker and Schindler's List. 

• Darling celebrities 

Nothing draws attention like a stellar cast. A film may be a known actor's masterpiece in a transformative role or the perfect ensemble that puts all your favorite actors in the screen at the same time. There are actors that even have a reputation of earning nominations by default like Meryl Streep or Denzel Washington. There's a correlation between the cast's talent and the movie's success, as evidenced by winning duets Marlon Brando and The Godfather, Jodie Foster and The Silence of the Lambs, or Colin Firth and The King's Speech. 

• Movies about the industry

The Academy loves to reward stories about Hollywood and the entertainment industry. At the end of the day, they celebrate the art of making movies and what better way to do it than by rewarding films that talk about just that? Birdman is about an actor and his efforts to stage a comeback, The Artist follows two actors in their transition from silent to sound film, and Chicago tells the story of an aspiring actress that becomes a celebrity.

Once you make a movie with the perfect recipe, it's time to find the right platform to have an impactful premiere. It's time to get a spot in a film festival. 

A fabulous premiere

Official poster for the 2020
Sundance Film Festival. 

Sundance is the most important independent film festival in the United States. Every January, Sundance hosts an auction of promising indie films to big distributors and gives out around 30 awards in their competition. All in all, this festival has become a very important platfom to define future trends in the industry, present innovative proyects, discover emerging talents, and firing up the first conversations about potential Oscar contenders. Movies like Call me by your name, Little Miss Sunshine and Whiplash premiered at this festival.

The Cannes Film Festival takes place in May, without a doubt the most globally recognized festival, as prestigious as the Oscars themselves. Located in the luxurious French Riviera and held for industry professionals only, this festival is elegant, exclusive, and very traditional. The magic of the Cannes experience relies on the audience reactions; at the end of a screening, a movie can get minute-long standing ovations or actual outright boos. This festival has launched the careers of filmmakers like Quentin Tarantino and Francis Ford Coppola. This year, Parasite took the Palme d'Or and is nominated to 6 Academy Awards. 

Bong Joon-ho receives the Palme d'Or via Shutterstock. 

Cannes might be the most prestigious festival, but the most glamorous one is the Venice Film Festival. It is the oldest ever film festival and the last big event before award season kicks in, which makes it the perfect event to present movies with serious probabilities of earning an Oscar. Because this festival celebrates the entertainment value as well as the artistic craft of filmmaking, Venice's selection is usually a blend of critical and commercial success. Joker, Roma and Brokeback Mountain are some of the movies that have won this festival's Golden Lion.

Opposite Cannes and Venice, the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is known for being very accesible and very influential. For two weeks, the canadian city is flooded by profesionals, press and film enthusiasts alike. Open to general audiences and with an annual seleccion of around 400 movies, here is where rumors about Oscar contenders get solidified. This festival's biggest award is the People's Choice Award, awarded to the movie with highest ranking according to audience votes. TIFF set the precedent for movies like Slumdog Millionaire, The King's Speech and La La Land.

Lady Gaga at the 76ª Venice Film Festival via Tumblr.

Last but not least, the Telluride Film Festival, held in Colorado, is a relativelly small and simple event. It lasts for only a weekend, does not anounce a lineup before the event, and offers no awards. Due to a sort of informal tradition in which they only select movies that have not yet been released in North America, Telluride has earned a reputation for presenting little-known movies that become the season's biggest revelation. In 2017, this festival's selection included 3 out of the year's 9 Best Picture Oscar nominees: Lady Bird, The Darkest Hour and the winning The Shape of Water.

These last three festivales take place in September and mark the beginning of the real race for the Oscars. They define the movies that have Oscar potential, but from that point on, it's up to the studios to exponentiate those rumors and turn them into nominations.

For your consideration

As in any other election by votes, in order to win an Oscar, you must have a campaign strategy. To get audiences to see a movie in theaters and earn commercial success, movies are promoted in two ways: with massive advertisement such as trailers and billboard, and with a press tour in which cast and crew attend their movie premieres all over the world and hold tons of interviews that usually consist of the exact same questions.

@kateyrich via Twitter.

In order to invite the member of an academy or guild to nominate and vote for your movie, however, the approach is not the same. Though the press tour is one same strategy, different events apply. Beside interviews and red carpets, the movie's spokepeople attend conversation panels at film festivals, or private screenings with Q&A's, luncheons and cocktail parties hosted by sponsors and advocates. On the other hand, film critics and industry professionals can get promotional packages sent to them, which may include a screening tape, the OST, copies of the script and a few gifts. Big studios tend to invest an additional 3 to 10 million dollars on "for your consideration" campaigns.

A popular strategy is building a narrative, i.e. creating a story around your movie to explain why it deserves an Oscar. They are stories about the struggle against all odds to get a perfect shot and create a masterpiece, a director's passion proyect he finally gets to do, or a script that wouldn't have been greenlit five years ago. This narrative can also be webbed into the cultural social context of the time, making the movie a tentpole for an issue that people believe in and can get behind.

Joker's campaign via Warner Bros. 

Basically, a movie's public figures exploit their proyect's perfect recipe to get other people to care for their movie personally and vote or even advocate for it. If this sounds cynical or political is because it is an electorial campaign after all.

Every vote counts

Finally, awards season begins and its time to vote. Most of these events rewards movies by most number of votes in their favor by the members of the hosting asociation, like the Golden Globes and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards, or the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Like the SAG, every branch of the filmmaking industry has a guild that host their own awards. These celebrations can naturally influence and even set the chances a movie has of winning an Oscar, but the Academy's voting process leaves room for doubt.

Olivia Coleman won the 2019 Best Actress Oscar after a full season of Glenn Close wins. 

The Academy is divided into 17 branches that echo the guilds and every branch votes for the categories they fall into. However, members of all branches vote on Best Picture through a system called the preferential ballot. In a preferential ballot, every voter lists the nominated films in order of preference. For a movie to win, it must obtain 50% + 1 of first place votes. Generally, no movie achieves this in the first round. The next rounds consist of the following: they take the ballots that enlisted in first place the least voted film, cross it out, and take the film placed in second place as the vote. This process is repeated until a movie reaches the required percentage to win. This is how, finally, the Best Picture is selected; not the movie most liked by members, but the movie liked by most members. Something to consider when you fill out your ballot.

Today, the 92nd Academy Awards are celebrated, and my (admittedly safe) prediction is that 1917 will be the most awarded movie of the night and will take home the Oscar for Best Picture. 

Edit: So... I was wrong. Parasite took home the two most important awards of the night, Best Picture and Best Director, while 1917 won only 3 awards out of 10 nominations. My ballot till won among my friends, though.