Guild Guides 2024

As we come to the pointy end of awards season 2023-24, let’s have a look at some statistics regarding the guilds: Producers Guild of America (PGA), Directors Guild of America (DGA), and Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

PGA Oscars crossover

The PGA Award winner for Feature Film has gone on to win the Best Picture Oscar seven of the last ten years – a reasonable correlation.

Documentary Feature is a crap shoot – only 5/10 years.

But Animated Feature is the real standout stat – 9/10. If The Boy and the Heron gets up here (and Miyazaki has never been nominated for a PGA Award before), it will really shake up the race.

DGA Oscars predictor

At the DGAs, Best Director has matched up with the Director Oscar nine of the past ten years, but only matched up with Picture Oscar 4/10 years – a testament to the modern trend of splitting Picture & Director.

Documentary is a paltry 3/10. (There’s always value to be had in Documentary! As The Professor has written, no-one knows what’s going on!)

WGA irrelevancy

The Writers Guild of America have made themselves completely irrelevant this year, by moving their awards back until after the Oscars ceremony.

SAG individual awards: reliable Oscars correlation

The SAG individual award correlations are always strong:

• SAG Actor winner has matched with the Oscar Actor winner 8 of the last 10 years Actress 8/10

• Supporting Actor 9/10

• Supporting Actress 9/10.

• SAG Ensemble matches Oscar Picture only 5/10 years.

Films with small main casts, however strong, never do well in the Ensemble category. With SAG, it’s very often a case of, the larger the ensemble, the better! Ultimately, it’s best to dismiss SAG Ensemble entirely as a reliable Oscar Picture predictor.

Speech enhancements

Now of course, winning anything always helps your campaign. Any time someone has the opportunity to give a speech, particularly if it’s televised, particularly if it’s moving and/or funny, it undoubtedly adds to their overall appeal during awards season. (Although we’re seeing lots of written speeches being directly read this year. Very strange, and not terribly endearing, I would’ve thought…)

The tailwinds of recency bias

But winning during the Oscar voting week specifically is another level up. It’s one of the most important factors in determining the final Oscar winners in the major categories.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) voters undoubtedly fall for recency bias. Check out these results over the past four years:

• In 2023, the biggest awards given out during Oscar voting week were the WGA Awards (granted, not the greatest marker, as not every major screenwriter is a member of WGA.) Both WGA winners went on to win their respective Oscars.

• The PGA and SAG Awards were held the week before Oscar voting week, and all four individual SAG winners, and the PGA winners for Feature Film, Animated Film and Documentary all matched the Oscar winners.

• In 2022, the BAFTAs and Critics Choice Awards were just before Oscar voting, and the PGAs and WGAs were during Oscar voting. PGA went 3/3 in Feature Film, Animated & Documentary, WGA 1/2, CCA 6/8 in the Pic/Dir/Acting/Writing categories, and BAFTA 5/8.

• In 2021, the BAFTAs and DGAs were closest to Oscar voting week, and the Oscars went 8/8 in Pic/Dir/Acting/Writing categories with the BAFTAs (including two major upsets), and Zhao won the DGA.

• In 2020, the BAFTAs and WGAs were during Oscar voting week, and the Oscars went 6/8 with BAFTA (a predictable bias towards 1917 at BAFTA), and 2/2 at the WGAs.

On the whole, very strong. This year, both the SAG and PGA Awards are held during Oscar voting week, so keep an eye on those winners, as any upsets will definitely be worth a bet.