Anatomy of an Oscar Winner: First-time male winners and Golden Globe holders to continue dominance?

The Best Actor and Support Actor categories at this Sunday’s 95th Academy Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles will be claimed by another first-time winner this year, continuing a remarkable trend with the accolades over the past 20 years, according to research from William Hill.

The Awards, commonly referred to as the Oscars, which recognise technical and artistic merit in the American film industry over the most recent calendar year, have in recent decades been a happy hunting ground for first-time winners.

Another notable pattern since the 2003 awards is the frequency with which the corresponding Golden Globe winner goes onto taste victory in the Best Actor/Actress category, holding Colin Farrell, Austin Butler, Michelle Yeoh and Cate Blanchett in good stead for this year’s individual accolades.

We break down some prominent trends in previous ceremonies that could turn the odds in some individual’s favour, alongside the nominations for each of the main categories.

First-time winners dominate Best Actor categories

All of the 10 contenders that subsume the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories this year have never won an Academy Award before, ensuring yet another first-time winner will scoop each of the individual male categories.

Since 2003, a remarkable 80% of winners across the two Best Actor categories had never won an Oscar before, showing that beginner’s luck may triumph over experience when it comes to tasting success in the iconic ceremony, with Will Smith and Troy Kotsur continuing the trend by winning their first Academy Awards at last year’s ceremony – the former somewhat unceremoniously.

In fact, other than The Fabelmans’ Judd Hirsch, who was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 1980, none of this year’s contenders have even been nominated for an Oscar in their careers before. The broader elements of these trends suggest ‘beginner’s luck’ may be a more triumphant characteristic for male Oscar contestants than those with experience of attending the ceremonies.

The current market leader for the Best Actor accolade is Brendan Fraser at 8/11 for his depiction of Charlie in Darren Aronofsky’s The Whale. Austin Butler’s performance as Elvis Presley in the accordingly titled Elvis provides the tightest competition to Fraser at 11/10. Colin Farrell (8/1), Paul Mescal (50/1) and Bill Nighy (80/1) round up the rest of the nominations.

For the Best Support Actor role, Ke Huy Quan is the overwhelming 1/66 favourite to scoop the honour for his brilliant depiction of the multiverse-travelling Waymond in Everything Everywhere All At Once. Barry Keoghan (14/1) and Brendan Gleeson (14/1) from Martin McDonagh’s The Banshees of Inisherin make up the best of the rest.

Golden Globes-winning stars shoo-in for recognition?

There’s often a lot of debate as to what extent the results from January’s Golden Globes correspond with the Academy Awards. Generally speaking, the overlap isn’t particularly strong – of the 266 different Golden Globes handed out in the past 20 years, 132 have gone onto win the corresponding Oscar. That’s a 49% success rate – so pretty much a 50/50 shot.

However, that ratio increases significantly when analysing the Acting categories only – specifically the Best Actor and Actress honours.

Across the last 40 Best Actor and Best Actress honours in the past 20 years, 35 have been won by individuals who won the same accolade for their retrospective category in the Golden Globes. Only Jessica Chastain (2022), Anthony Hopkins, Frances McDormand (both 2021), Sean Penn (2009) and Adrien Brody (2003) have managed to win the Oscar for Best Actor/Actress after not winning either of the awards in the Golden Globes earlier in the year.

Therefore, whilst Colin Farrell’s odds of 8/1 for the Best Actor accolade hardly place him as the frontrunner for the coveted award, the Irishman will be encouraged by his Golden Globe victory for Best Actor in a Comedy/Drama for his emotional depiction of Pádraic in The Banshees of Inisherin. With 85% of Best Actor winners also being recognised in the Globes, Austin Butler’s odds of 11/10 look even more enticing after his Best Actor in the Drama category triumph.

It certainly looks like this sentiment will carry on into the Best Actress honour again this year after Michelle Yeoh and Cate Blanchett were recognised in the Golden Globes in January. The pair lead the market at 8/15 and 11/8 respectively for the prize on Sunday, with Andrea Riseborough (16/1), Michelle Williams (33/1) and Ana de Armas (50/1) rounding off the rest of the nominees.