Gracenote identifies primary ‘moods’ for Oscar nominees
February 28, 2024
Do films with certain characteristics tend to get nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards? Nielsen’s Gracenote ran an analysis to answer this question tapping its descriptive metadata around entertainment content.
Among other characteristics, the taxonomy of Gracenote Video Descriptors cover 294 different Video Moods organised hierarchically from broad, high-level concepts (Level 1) to more granular, specific concepts (Level 4). For example, under the broad L1 mood descriptor of ‘fun’ sits ‘quirky,’ one of 22 more granular mood descriptors.
Gracenote ascribes progressively granular descriptors to movies and TV shows to provide the clearest understanding of their makeup across multiple dimensions. The hierarchical nature of the taxonomy also enables comparing and contrasting content through the corresponding broader, higher-level parent descriptors.
The analysis found:
• The most important moods of 82 per cent of the 136 movies nominated for Best Picture since 2010 include those classified under just four of the possible 17 at the top of Gracenote’s mood hierarchy – ’emotional’, .’fun’, ‘powerful’ or ‘tense’.
• This year, nine of the 10 nominees’ most important moods come from within one of these four groups. The sole exception is Poor Things whose primary mood is ‘wondrous’, classified under ‘fantastic’ by Gracenote’s taxonomy.
• The ‘thoughtful’ Parasite (2020) is the only Best Picture winner since The Departed (2007) which does not have a primary mood classified under ’emotional’, ‘fun’, ‘powerful’ or ‘tense’ in Gracenote’s Video Descriptors.
• ‘Powerful’ movies have been the most popular nominees for Best Picture over the past 15 years. The ‘epic’, ‘gripping’ Oppenheimer, the ‘compelling’ Killers of the Flower Moon and the ‘uplifting’ Past Lives are all ‘powerful’ nominees this year.
• Past Lives also has a ‘romantic’ mood and is therefore the only one of this year’s nominees with one of the eight calmer L1 moods amongst its primary descriptions.
• Only 26 per cent of nominees for Best Picture in the last 10 years have had one of these eight calmer L1 moods amongst their most important features – ‘heartwarming’, ‘thoughtful’, ‘introspective’, ‘mysterious’, ‘upbeat’, ‘romantic’, ‘serious or ‘dark’ according to Gracenote’s analysis. In the 10 years from 2005 to 2014, 42 per cent of Best Picture nominees had one of these primary L1 moods.
• American Fiction, Barbie and The Holdovers are this year’s ‘fun’ nominees with all three being either ‘satirical’, ‘hilarious’ or both according to Gracenote.
• The ‘moving’ Maestro and ‘somber’ The Zone of Interest both have ’emotional’ moods. The Zone of Interest, like Killers of the Flower Moon, also has a ‘frightening’ mood amongst its most important.
• ‘Frightening’ moods are unusual amongst Best Picture nominees. Since 2010, the only ‘frightening’ Best Picture nominees before this year’s pair were the ‘terrifying’ Get Out (2017) and the ‘brutal’ 127 Hours (2011).
• The ‘tense’ Anatomy of a Fall and the aforementioned ‘fantastic’ Poor Things complete this year’s Best Picture nominees.
