Article #256643

With voting now closed, the months-long campaign for Oscar glory is over – but industry insiders are still dissecting every award-season clue in a tight best picture race

Voting for the Oscars closed at 5pm PT on Thursday, meaning that the months-long campaigns of the favoured films have hung up their spurs: the red carpets have been rolled up, hospitality pavilions shut down, the PR minders putting their feet up until the Oscars ceremony itself takes place. The prefatory campaign – on-stage Q&As, special-screening paparazzi shoots, the string of lesser awards ceremonies – is over, and there is now nothing for the nominees to do but kick back and count the days.

Over the long haul of awards campaigning, which can reasonably be said to start with the near-simultaneous late summer film festivals in Venice, Telluride and Toronto and hits its peak in mid-February as Oscar voting opens, reading the runes has become a full-time activity across the entire film industry, and an absolute obsession for Hollywood insider publications such as Variety, the Hollywood Reporter and Deadline. Every ebb and flow of the process – a critics-awards nomination here, a trade-guild snub there – is endlessly picked over for what it might mean for the end result.