Oscar Nominations

[Alex]

It's just the same bitch and moan as in 1996 when Fargo (67th), Secrets & Lies (108th), Shine (41st), and The English Patient (19th) were competing against Jerry Maguire (4th). Remember how the nominations that year were a sign of doom for the studios? That the world was being taken over by independents.

I wondered what the "most popular" year recently for nominations was so I took the ranking of the nominations and averaged them. Since I did the work out of curiosity, I might as well share the results:

2004: 36.8
2003: 29.8 (and the #1 won)
2002: 36.4
2001: 36.6
2000: 15.2 (lowest was Chocolat at 32nd)
1999: 27.4
1998: 35.5
1997: 16.4 (three top 10 films nominated, #1 won)
1996: 47.8
1995: 33.0
1994: 27.8

As things currently stand the number for the 2005 nominees would be 63.0. With Oscar buzz this number will improve but likely remain higher than 1996 and will be the least commercial nominating class in a decade. The numbers seem to show that as more anomolous than a trend, though.