Awards Season Is Here, and I Think I Cracked the Code for an Oscar Nomination

Every awards season brings the same conversations. What got snubbed. What surged late. What felt inevitable from the moment it premiered. And while there is no single formula that guarantees an Oscar nomination, one pattern keeps showing up often enough to be hard to ignore: films rooted in literature enter the race with a built-in advantage.

Look at recent Best Picture lineups and the trend becomes clear pretty quickly. Oppenheimer was based on American Prometheus. Killers of the Flower Moon adapted David Grann’s nonfiction bestseller. Women Talking came from Miriam Toews’ novel. Dune and Dune: Part Two trace back to Frank Herbert. The Power of the Dog, Little Women, The Zone of Interest, Call Me by Your Name, and Nomadland all began on the page before becoming awards fixtures. Year after year, adaptations quietly dominate the ballot.

That is not about prestige for prestige’s sake. Literary adaptations tend to arrive with their thematic weight already proven. These stories have spent years being read, and scrutinized. When a filmmaker successfully translates that depth to the screen, it immediately signals seriousness to voters, even before performances or technical craft enter the conversation.

Adaptations also make awards campaigning easier. The narrative is already there. Press interviews have built-in context. Voters can place the film within a larger cultural conversation instead of evaluating it as a brand-new idea. In a preferential ballot system, that combination of familiarity and ambition can be a real advantage.

This year’s Best Picture nominees continues that pattern, with several high-profile contenders with origins that trace back to novels and novellas. It reinforces what the Academy has nominated over and over. Literary adaptations are something Oscar voters consistently respond to and will probably continue to. 

Obviously there are no guarantees in awards season. Original films still break through. Bad adaptations still miss the mark. But if there is a reliable throughline in Best Picture nominations, history suggests the road often begins with a book.

It may not be a cheat code. But it is the closest thing Oscar season has to one.