World’s Most Influential Critics Agree Argo Favored to Win Best Picture Oscar

By Nyerr Parham

On Sunday, February 24, many will tune in to see which top Hollywood talent takes home a little gold statue. It’s a major event in some households. Hors D’oeuvres and drinks are served and bets large and small are made in Oscar pools among friends.

And annually, the Oscars also generate a lot of conversation with film critics, both official and unofficial. Those critics weigh in and provide their predictions for which films, and which actors and actresses, will take home the coveted prizes.

Perhaps this is an old school notion, but one might expect to see Roger Ebert squarely at the top of this list of influencers who are driving conversations around the Oscars. He is in fact one of the top 20 influencers on this particular topic, but the Data Journalism Group from Appinions has revealed others (perhaps less notable) who are influencing the conversations around the Best Picture nominees. Nearly all of the influential critics are giving the edge for the Best Picture award to Argo. Lincoln was favored leading up to awards season but Argo’s Golden Globe win for Best Picture took the stage by surprise and shook up Oscar race. As critic Pete Hammond from Deadline.com points out, “No film has won Best Picture without a Best Director nomination since Driving Miss Daisy 23 years ago – and that was an aberration even then.”

Based on influence insights, the conversations around Best Actress are heating up compared to those around the Best Actor category. Though recent data suggests that Jennifer Lawrence looks like a lock to nab the award for her performance in Silver Linings’ Playbook, Jessica Chastain’s performance in Zero Dark Thirty, had earlier captured the attention of movie industry. Chastain’s Golden Globe win for Best Actress helped in the early days, but her influence plummeted as controversy arose around some of the scenes in her movie. For those of you betting in Oscar pools, our solid influence-based prediction suggests that Daniel Day-Lewis will take home the award for Best Actor for this performance in Lincoln. Denzel Washington’s performance in Flight garnered significant buzz by industry influencers (as seen by his Net Influence Score), but it will be a surprise of epic proportions if he ends up with the award.

We’ll be tuning in Sunday night to see if the influencers are correct. What are your Oscar predictions?