Oscar Winners Based on Readership Data: Taboola Predictions for the 95th Academy Awards

Streaming services might be the death of the movie theater, but audiences certainly haven’t soured on films themselves. These days, top streaming services are producing an increasing number of critically acclaimed movies. Netflix, for example, earned one Oscar nod back in 2014, but this year, its movie content has racked up 16 nominations, including one for Best Picture.

So, as we approach the 95th Academy Awards, several questions remain. Will this year be as wild of a ride as last year’s, full of ups, downs, hits (ok, slaps!), misses, and plenty of awkward moments that set the internet ablaze? Which celeb reactions will forever be immortalized as memes? And, most importantly, who will take home those coveted golden Oscar statues?

We’re here to address that last question. While most people make their predictions based on emotion (for sure, a solid way to choose), we here at Taboola like to turn to something else: pageview data, or which films, cast, and crew would be called up to the stage for their moment in the spotlight if the winners were determined by who earned the most searches on the open web.

Our predictions are based on data pulled on February 1st, 2023. They reflect the pageview totals we saw across Taboola’s publisher network over a 90-day period.

If a nominee has ‘N/A’ next to their name in the data, we haven’t seen enough articles published about them on the network. If multiple nominees were nominated together, we searched their names separately and then combined their pageviews.

The public seems more interested in the Oscars this year; as a search term, ‘Oscars’ accumulated 5,418,400 pageviews, a considerable increase from last year’s 4.277,950.

Now, without further ado, the (predicted) winner is…

Best Picture

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Taboola’s Prediction: Elvis

Let’s be honest: it’s a movie about the King, the highest-selling solo recording artist of all time, an icon who fascinates generation after generation. From the acting to the visuals to the music, Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis brought it in every way. The movie earned an impressive 94% on Rotten Tomatoes from the public, and it’s easy to see why people couldn’t stop searching for info about the film, the man, and the legend.

Best Director

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Taboola’s Prediction: Steven Spielberg

Unsurprisingly, Steven Spielberg earned more pageviews than any other nominated director. He’s an industry heavy hitter, and fans were likely intrigued by the fact that his nominated film, The Fabelmans, is semi-autobiographical, which might have impacted the high number of searches as audiences tried to determine what was fact versus fiction in the film. Regardless, as usual, Spielberg brought us into a world of family drama and the internal conflict talented artists wrestle with as they embrace their gifts.

Best Actor

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Taboola’s Prediction: Austin Butler

Butler spent over two years intensely researching Elvis, which showed in his phenomenal performance. He embodied Elvis so perfectly that even critics who found fault with the film offered him incredible praise. He’s already earned an impressive Golden Globe win, so an Oscar isn’t out of the question. And for what it’s worth, statistically speaking, seven of the last ten Best Actor awards went to actors playing real-life people.

Best Actress

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Taboola’s Prediction: Michelle Yeoh

We’re so glad that Michelle Yeoh didn’t end up pulling out of Everything Everywhere All at Once, as we can’t imagine another actress playing so many versions of the same character with such finesse, going from a martial artist to a chef to having hot dog fingers. She deserves recognition for this performance and her 40-year career.

Best Supporting Actor

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Taboola’s Prediction: Ke Huy Quan

Talk about making a comeback! After taking a hiatus, audiences fell in love with Data from the Goonies all over again, first for his performance as Waymond Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once and then again during his emotional speeches at the Globes and Critics Choice Awards. Please don’t leave us again, Ke Huy Quan. We need more of you!

Best Supporting Actress

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Taboola’s Prediction: Jamie Lee Curtis

We absolutely love that scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis literally let it all hang out instead of using prosthetics for her role as the odd and cranky IRS inspector in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Like her co-star Yeoh, Curtis also almost passed on the movie, but the insane amount of award nominations and wins proves she made the right choice.

Well, what do you think? Did our data-backed predictions match yours? Were they right? We’ll all find out soon enough!