Do The Golden Globes Predict The Oscars? How Similar, Different Academy Awards Have Been In The Past Decade

With the Golden Globes kicking off Sunday night, viewers may ponder what seems like an age-old question: Will the winners of the shiny spherical trophies walk away from this year's ceremony expecting to garner the similarly shiny man-shaped prizes one week later?

As the numbers of winners of both Oscar and Golden Globe Awards over the past 10 years tells us, it depends on the category.

Comparing the two can in some areas be like comparing apples to oranges, as there are a few key differences. The Academy Awards, for example, have two categories for screenplays — original and adapted — while the Globes have just one screenplay slot. Conversely, the Globes split the best picture and best actor categories into “drama” and “comedy or musical,” while the Oscars give more films a chance to take home the prize.

Keeping those similarities and differences in mind, we can get a rough idea of the likelihood that a winner on Sunday night will be given a little gold man on Feb. 26.

Pairing the Golden Globes’ award database with that of the Academy Awards from 2007 to the previous year, it’s clear that winning a best actress, best actor or best supporting actor award at the Globes heralds a likely Oscars victory a little more than a month later. All 10 best actress Oscar winners from the 2016 ceremony had taken home a Golden Globe beforehand, two of them in the Globes’ comedy or musical category and the rest in the drama category. For best actors, the numbers were close to the same, with nine of the Academy Award winning actors in starring roles having won a Golden Globe, one of whom was in the comedy or musical category.

Eight of the ten past supporting actor Oscar winners had won Golden Globes, as did six of the past ten supporting actress victors. (The Globes don’t sort supporting role acting prizes into drama and comedy or musical categories.)

Seven of the past ten Academy Award winners in the best original score category had won Golden Globes. The same can be said for best screenplay Oscar winners — three of which were adapted, while the other four were original.

For best picture and best director, things became less certain. Even after combining the Globes’ categories of drama and comedy or musical for comparison with the Academies’ general best picture prize winner, only four of the past 10 Golden Globe winners won the top Oscar prize; one of them was in the comedy or musical category. Best director nominees have faced the same disparity, with 40 percent of Oscar-winning directors in the past 10 years also winning Golden Globes.

The reason some silver screen stars, notably lead actresses and actors, supporting actors and composers, were doubly awarded at such a high rate could be related to the motives of who votes, Entertainment Weekly film writer Anthony Breznican told the New York Daily News ahead of the 2014 awards ceremony.

“[The Globes] put on a really phenomenal TV show that looks important and significant, and if the viewers knew who were the people actually voting on the awards, they would laugh,” he said, referring to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which decides Sunday night’s winners. “It’s not like Academy voters, where it’s made up of thousands of filmmaking peers, but less than 100 people who work as international journalists.”

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, he added, has tried to give favored or well-reviewed films the appearance of higher merit ahead of the Academy’s vote. It has also tried to give itself the appearance of greater credibility as a group of film writers.

“The Globes try very hard to analyze the [Academy] voters—where they think the race is going—and I think that influences the Globes, not the other way around,” Breznican said. “It’s more about ‘How can we honor ourselves by giving out the awards,’ rather than who could use the exposure.”