2015 Oscar winners revealed!

In 2013, we made this Oscars infographic that ended up getting us an Information is Beautiful award. In it we tracked every character played by the winner of the best actor and best actress Oscars since 1928 to find the ultimate gong-winning combination of traits. This year, we decided to use the near-comprehensive* data we gathered to do something we Slow Journalists really shouldn’t do: predict the future.

Using an entirely unscientific points system, we calculated which of the 2015 nominees for Best Actor and Best Actress are most likely to take golden statuettes home.

We allocated a full point to actors each time their characters matched one of the most represented features in our six categories (eg one point for fictional characters) and a fraction of a point for listed but less widely represented traits.

We are proud to exclusively reveal that on Sunday the Best Actor gong will go to Michael Keaton for his performance in Birdman, with Bradley Cooper pushing him close. Julianne Moore is a dead cert for the women’s award while Reese Witherspoon might as well stay home and get some chores done.

Here are the complete results:

Best actor in a leading role
1. Michael Keaton (4.63 points)
2. Bradley Cooper (4.5 points)
3. Steve Carell (3.53 points)
4. Eddie Redmayne (3 points)
5. Benedict Cumberbatch (2.5 points)

Best actress in a leading role
1. Julianne Moore (5 points)
2. Marion Cotillard (4.38 points)
3. Rosamund Pike (4.03 points)
4. Felicity Jones (3 points)
5. Reese Witherspoon (2.53 points)

Click here to see a zoomable version of our original Oscars infographic.

*Data excludes results for the 2014 Academy Awards

Posted on Friday, February 20th, 2015 - Categories: Delayed Gratification magazine, Extras, Past Articles, What We Do.