And the Oscar goes to: A movie that we can totally predict?

This research primarily aimed to combine and add to previous studies who delved into the individual aspects that are considered to influence a film’s critical recognition (defined in this research as a film’s success at the Oscars, both in terms of nominations and wins). For this study, three main influential factors were established, who operate as agents in the persuasion knowledge model (Friestad & Wright, 1994), as they try to influence the persuasion target, which is the Academy. The three factors in this study consisted of the box office performance, public reception and critical reception. For the critical reception, it was argued that the job of critics (namely, rewarding films of the highest quality) lines up with the main goal of the Academy, thus resulting in the facile assumption that there is a relation between the two. For the public, it was argued that films who appeal to the public regarding a certain contemporary social discussion, or controversy, have to a higher chance of being critically recognized (e.g. as evidenced by Moonlight (Jenkins et al., 2016) and the #OscarsSoWhite (Cox, 2017) controversy), which means that the public reception of a film has an influence on the Oscars. Finally, the box office indicates the films that were seen in theaters by the majority of the public. Given that the Academy frequently nominates (although never actually rewards) a few of these films in order to lure in viewers for their ceremony, it can also be argued that the box office has a persuasive effect on the Academy. Each of the four components of this research were operationalized. First, the public reception was operationalized by combining the online IMDb and Cinema scores. Second, the critical reception was operationalized by combining two statistics (Tomatometer and average rating) on the Rotten Tomatoes website. Third, the box office was operationalized as the domestic box office numbers, adjusted for inflation. And finally, critical recognition was operationalized in terms of a film’s number of Oscars nominations, Oscar wins, and Oscar wins in the big five (the most prestigious Oscars) category. A sample of 290 films (N = 290) was drawn, ranging between the years 1995 and 2017, and 3 consisting of all kinds of films that were eligible for Oscar recognition (blockbusters, flops, poorly reviewed films, big five winners, etcetera.). OLS regression models, negative binomial regression models and Baron-Kenny mediation models were calculated in order to analyze the relationships between the four components of this research. In the end, it was found that critical reception is a strong and consistent predictor for a film’s critical recognition. The public reception was found to be a moderate predictor, and it was found that its predictive value decreases as the degree of critical recognition increases. Finally, the box office was the weakest (although still a significant) predictor. Moreover, the box office variable was found to be a weak and mostly insignificant mediator when mediating between public or critical reception (IV) and critical recognition (DV). This was explained by the Academy simply caring more about the critical or public reception, rather than the box office numbers.