# What should win Best Picture? (please vote and rank)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-win-best-picture-please-vote-and-rank/780405>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [February 21, 2017, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-win-best-picture-please-vote-and-rank/780405 "2017-02-21T18:58:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-win-best-picture-please-vote-and-rank/780405/21 "2017-02-26T17:34:52Z")

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Oscar Day bump

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**Author:** ![Richard\_John\_Marcej](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Richard\_John\_Marcej](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_John_Marcej)\
**Post date:** [February 26, 2017, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-win-best-picture-please-vote-and-rank/780405/22 "2017-02-26T17:48:27Z")

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Didn’t get a chance to see all the films this year, first time in a long time (money’s been tight) here’s how I’d rank them:

1. Manchester by the Sea
2. Moonlight
3. Hell or High Water
4. Fences
5. Arrival
6. Hidden Figures
7. La La Land

Lion (hope to see this next week)  
Hacksaw Ridge (unfortunately, may never see this, I can’t stand Vince Vaughn and avoid his work like the plague)

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**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\
**Post date:** [February 27, 2017, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-win-best-picture-please-vote-and-rank/780405/23 "2017-02-27T21:07:35Z")

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Plotting out the voting among those who ranked things made things play out interestingly (and perhaps a primer on how _La La Land_ lost last night).

Even though _LLL_ got 6 votes in the above poll, we need to remember that preferential voting applies for Best Picture (which is different from weighted voting). This means that if your preferred film gets the fewest #1 votes, that title is cancelled and its ballots are redistributed to the next film listed on each ballot that is still eligible. Then, they take the next film with the fewest #1 votes, cancel that, redistribute those ballots, rinse and repeat. So it’s always one ballot-one vote, though that vote may continue to shift around.

So as I started doing the early canceling (_Fences, Hell, Lion, Hidden, Hacksaw, Moonlight_) something interesting occurred: All those votes redistributed to either _Arrival_ or _Manchester_. So by the time the 7th round was upon us, among those who ranked their choices in this thread, _La La_ had failed to pick up any redistributed ballots, so by the 7th round, it had the fewest #1 votes.

Moving on from there, this thread’s ultimate winner was **Manchester by the Sea** even though it didn’t win the plurality of the votes in the actual poll itself. So it’s not enough to get more votes than anyone the first round (a product of a passionate minority). You need to be a consensus choice and one that isn’t divisive. For whatever reason, it appears that _LLL_, though I’m sure it got a ton of votes the first round, failed to pick up enough in the subsequent rounds to stave off a surge from _Moonlight_, which was already extremely well-positioned anyway.

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