How did Microsoft’s Oscar predictions fare? 

Microsoft Research’s David Rothschild predicted the winners of the 85th Academy Awards. Rothschild is famous for predicting the 2012 presidential election with startling accuracy: he correctly predicted the results in 50 of the 51 voting jurisdictions. But considering how different U.S. elections and the Oscars are, how did Rothschild’s Oscar predictions stack up against the actual results?

His predictions were close, with six out of eight predictions correct. He correctly predicted that Best Picture would go to Ben Affleck’s Argo. He was right about Daniel Day-Lewis taking Best Actor for Lincoln and Jennifer Lawrence winning Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook. He also correctly predicted that Anne Hathaway would win Best Supporting Actress for Les Misérables, that Brave would win Best Animated Feature and that Adele would take home Best Original Song for her song “Skyfall.”

Not all of his predictions were correct, however. Rothschild predicted Steven Spielberg would win Best Director for Lincoln, while the award actually went to Ang Lee for Life of Pi. He also incorrectly predicted that Best Supporting Actress would go to Tommy Lee Jones for his role in Lincoln, but Christoph Waltz took the award for Django Unchained.

Rothschild’s predictions were similar to those of Nate Silver, the famous analyst known for predicting political elections. Silver predicted the six biggest categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress), and, like Rothschild, got all but two correct. Silver also incorrectly picked Best Director and Best Supporting Actor.