Here’s why the voting for Best Picture at the Oscars is way more complicated than we thought

If you’ve ever wondered how voting for Best Picture at the Oscars goes down, well, you’re not alone.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is super mysterious as it is, but FiveThirtyEight has figured out some method to the Oscars voting madness.

Turns out, the way that names get put into those envelopes is way more complex than we thought.

According to FiveThirtyEight, the road to Best Picture is a difficult one. Especially now that the number of nominees in this category has expanded from five to up to ten. Instead of picking just one movie for Best Picture, voters rank the nominees.

Here’s how FiveThirtyEight breaks it down:

1Count up all the first-choice votes.

2If a movie gets a majority, that’s the winner. If none does, eliminate the last-place movie from contention.

3Take all of the ballots with the eliminated movie at the top. Reapportion them to each voter’s next preferred movie.

4Go back to step two.

Once a movie exceeds 50 percent, it is deemed the winner. As a result, movies that have broad appeal are often chosen. And it may be that everyone’s second favorite gets the title, because it was the film most people could agree on.

FiveThirtyEight predicts La La Land will win Best Picture.

"Given that it’s won some of the most predictive awards this year, that it’s a relatively uncontroversial film and that the Oscars are poised to award the film with the broadest appeal based on the voting algorithm, 'La La Land' looks to be a shoo-in."

Definitely brings a whole new perspective to the Oscars!