Film Award Choices

Three sources—domain experts, consumers, and professional film critics—engage in the recognition and validation of cinematic excellence. Each signals its approbation with awards, ratings, reviews, and lists of the best. Notwithstanding a generous body of research, congruence among these sources remains unclear. For example, research findings show the influence of critics’ reviews on box office receipts—consumers—vary from strong to nil. Some studies report similarities in critics’ and consumers’ cinematic taste; others report differences. This article seeks a clarification of one facet of the role of critics in the recognition of cinematic excellence by comparing critics’ film award choices—not their ratings—with Oscar awards, in four categories: best actor, actress, director, and film. For each pair of award categories, chi-squares were performed on cross-classifications of the frequency of critics’ choices matching Oscar’s. Cramer’s V sheds light on auteur theory, actress–actor differences, and coat-tail effects of best film awards.