The 90th Academy Awards Scorecard Ballot

So rather than just do that plain old “guessing winners” thing, I’ve decided to make my Oscar picking more complicated. Rather than having a score out of 24, I’ve now also begun doing this, which grades me on how well I can pick an entire category and not just the winner.

The way the Scorecard Ballot works is, you take every category and rank all the nominees in terms of their likelihood of winning. If the nominee ranked #1 wins, you get 1 point. 2 points for a #2, 3 points for a #3 and so on. A perfect score would be a 24 (meaning your #1s in every category won). Ties make things confusing, but it’s only happened 6 times in 89 years, so let’s just figure that won’t happen and deal with it if it does.

Ideally, most people get between 16/24 and 18/24 each year. I try to get between 18/24 and 20/24. So, of the categories you get wrong (say 7, for argument’s sake)… you want your #2 to win, so that way you’re only +7 over the minimum of 24. It’s like golf. Okay, sure, some #3s can win. It happens. But only like two. Then you’re +9. That’s reasonable. To me, a good year on the Scorecard ballot is a +6. +8 is fine, +10 isn’t great, but acceptable, and the higher you go, the worse you dod.

It’s more interesting to me, since I’m about the all-around analysis than just straight up winners. To me, the words “that’s a #4” mean something. To most people, they don’t. So this is my way of quantifying that specificity.

So, for those of you who wanna try a Scorecard Ballot for this year, here is mine for the upcoming ceremony:

Best Picture

1. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
2. The Shape of Water
3. Get Out
4. Lady Bird
5. Dunkirk
6. Call Me By Your Name
7. Phantom Thread
8. Darkest Hour
9. The Post

Best Director

1. Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water
2. Christopher Nolan, Dunkirk
3. Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird
4. Jordan Peele, Get Out
5. Paul Thomas Anderson, Phantom Thread

Best Actor

1. Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
2. Timothée Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name
3. Daniel Day-Lewis, Phantom Thread
4. Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out
5. Denzel Washington, Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Best Actress

1. Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
2. Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water
3. Saoirse Ronan, Lady Bird
4. Margot Robbie, I, Tonya
5. Meryl Streep, The Post

Best Supporting Actor

1. Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
2. Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project
3. Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water
4. Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World
5. Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Supporting Actress

1. Allison Janney, I, Tonya
2. Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird
3. Mary J. Blige, Mudbound
4. Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread
5. Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

Best Original Screenplay

1. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
2. Get Out
3. Lady Bird
4. The Shape of Water
5. The Big Sick

Best Adapted Screenplay

1. Call Me By Your Name
2. Mudbound
3. Molly’s Game
4. The Disaster Artist
5. Logan

Best Editing

1. Dunkirk
2. Baby Driver
3. The Shape of Water
4. I, Tonya
5. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Cinematography

1. Blade Runner 2049
2. Dunkirk
3. The Shape of Water
4. Mudbound
5. Darkest Hour

Best Original Score

1. The Shape of Water
2. Phantom Thread
3. Dunkirk
4. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
5. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Best Original Song

1. “This Is Me,” from The Greatest Showman
2. “Remember Me,” from Coco
3. “Mystery of Love,” from Call Me By Your Name
4. “Mighty River,” from Mudbound
5. “Stand Up for Something,” from Marshall

Best Production Design

1. The Shape of Water
2. Blade Runner 2049
3. Beauty and the Beast
4. Darkest Hour
5. Dunkirk

Best Costume Design

1. Phantom Thread
2. The Shape of Water
3. Beauty and the Beast
4. Darkest Hour
5. Victoria & Abdul

Best Makeup & Hairstyling

1. Darkest Hour
2. Wonder
3. Victoria & Abdul

Best Visual Effects

1. Blade Runner 2049
2. War for the Planet of the Apes
3. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
4. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
5. Kong: Skull Island

Best Sound Editing

1. Dunkirk
2. Blade Runner 2049
3. Baby Driver
4. The Shape of Water
5. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Best Sound Mixing

1. Dunkirk
2. Blade Runner 2049
3. Baby Driver
4. The Shape of Water
5. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Best Animated Feature

1. Coco
2. Loving Vincent
3. The Breadwinner
4. The Boss Baby
5. Ferdinand

Best Foreign Language Film

1. A Fantastic Woman
2. The Square
3. The Insult
4. Loveless
5. On Body and Soul

Best Documentary Feature

1. Icarus
2. Faces Places
3. Strong Island
4. Last Men in Aleppo
5. Abacus: Small Enough to Jail

Best Documentary Short

1. Edith+Eddie
2. Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405
3. Heroin(e)
4. Traffic Stop
5. Knife Skills

Best Live-Action Short

1. The Silent Child
2. DeKalb Elementary
3. The Eleven O’Clock
4. Watu Wote/All of Us
5. My Nephew Emmett

Best Animated Short

1. Lou
2. Dear Basketball
3. Garden Party
4. Negative Space
5. Revolting Rhymes

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