Will the Oscars end with the biggest Best Picture nominee shutout in 9 years?

For the second consecutive year and 13th time ever, the present Best Picture Oscar lineup consists of an even 10 nominees. As has been the case since 2009, the winner will be decided by a preferential voting system. Over the past 13 years, only twice — at the ceremonies for the films of 2014 and 2018 — has every Best Picture contender won something. An annual average of 2.4 films recognized in the top category during the period wound up with zero trophies, with the biggest shutout having affected five of the nine 2013 nominees. Since several films in this year’s group have reached the point where they’d be lucky to pull off one win apiece, that preferential era record could easily be matched or even broken.

The films competing for the 2022 Best Picture Oscar have a collective total of 65 nominations across 18 categories. According to Gold Derby’s current odds, the most-recognized movie of the year, “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” is expected to take the top honor and triumph on five more of its 11 bids: director, actress, supporting actor, original screenplay and film editing. The only other Best Picture contenders we predict will score multiple wins are “Elvis” (actor, costume design, and makeup and hairstyling) and “All Quiet on the Western Front” (cinematography and international film).

Right now, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Top Gun: Maverick” and “Women Talking” are each expected to receive one Oscar (visual effects, sound and adapted screenplay, respectively). That leaves four Best Picture nominees — “The Banshees of Inisherin,” “The Fabelmans,” “TÁR” and “Triangle of Sadness” — without leading positions in any of this year’s races. If these four actually are blanked, “All Quiet on the Western Front” could overtake “Top Gun: Maverick” or “Women Talking” in their strongest categories to bring the number to five. And the shutout number will reach record-breaking territory if the war film beats both of them. Since two of its seven BAFTA wins were for its sound and writing, this scenario is highly plausible.

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Aside from triggering a new preferential era numerical record, the potential of six 2022 Best Picture nominees leaving empty-handed would make this year one of 11 with a 60 percent shutout rate. The last was 1999, back when there were only five top prize contenders each year. In that case, “The Green Mile,” “The Insider” and “The Sixth Sense” all won nothing, while “American Beauty” took Best Picture and four other awards and “The Cider House Rules” ended up with two.

The general numerical shutout record was set at seven in 1934, when there were 12 Best Picture nominees for the first of only two times. “It Happened One Night” notably conquered the top five of the then-16 categories, while another five wins were divided among “Cleopatra,” “The Gay Divorcee,” “One Night of Love” and “Viva Villa.” Those that finished with nothing in this case were “The Barretts of Wimpole Street,” “Flirtation Walk,” “Here Comes the Navy,” “The House of Rothschild,” “Imitation of Life,” “The Thin Man” and “The White Parade.”

Including the two examples from the preferential period, there have been 20 years in which every Best Picture nominee won at least one award. The first time this happened was at the 18th annual ceremony honoring the films of 1945, while the latest pre-preferential case involved the 2007 group, led by “No Country for Old Men.” In all, 418, or 72 percent, of the 581 films that were nominated for Best Picture during the academy’s first 94 years were each given at least one Oscar.

The shutout average for preferential era years with fixed lineups of 10 Best Picture nominees is 3.7, with 2021’s completely unlucky contenders having been “Don’t Look Up,” “Licorice Pizza” and “Nightmare Alley.” There surely would have been more casualties if an awards juggernaut like “Everything Everywhere All at Once” had also been in the mix. Given that its presumed domination of the above-the-line categories could very well trickle down into the craft ones, there may indeed not be very many scraps for other films to pick up.

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