The Academy Awards are upon us this year so in this post we’ll examine the films which usually win Oscars and the one’s that don’t. While the Academy Awards are designed to award the best of the best, sometimes this is not true and there have been years when that gold statuette went to someone far less deserving of the prize. Sometimes the reason is obvious and sometimes it’s not. So without further adieu, here is a little cheat sheet to figure which movies win Oscars and which ones don’t regarding to all the major categories everyone cares about.

Best Picture:

1. Genres that usually don’t nominated in this category: comedy, science fiction, animation, westerns, action, suspense thrillers, popular franchise, and fantasy.

2. Genres that usually get Oscar nods but may not win: independent produced dramadies (may get one for screenplay), biopics, musicals

3. Genres that do get the Best Picture Oscar: dramas, war movies, epics, historical fiction, and period pieces

4. Oscar Best Picture winners are usually big budget films and are produced by major studios.

5. Oscar Best Picture winners are usually rated either PG-13 or R.

6. Oscar Best Picture winners usually have a following and do well at the box office. (They may not be box office blockbusters but they usually do earn a profit and are relatively popular.)

7. Oscar Best Picture winners usually receive warm receptions from critics. (Of course, this is a no brainer.)

8. Oscar Best Picture winners usually have one A-list star in them or a famous director behind the camera.

9. If an Oscar nominated film has someone embroiled with scandal, it will not win.

10. An Oscar Best Picture winner should cater to at least white middle aged males.

Best Director:

1. Those who win Best Director are usually white, middle-aged, and male.

2. Winners of Best Director will usually have a film nominated for Best Picture which will usually win as well.

3. Best Director winners are usually people you may or may not have heard of yet certain directors seem to win more often than others.

Best Actor:

1. Winners are usually white and between the ages of 30 to 60.

2. Winners have a lifetime performance that will overshadow Leonardo DiCaprio, Richard Burton, or Peter O’Toole if they’re also nominated for this category.

3. Winners must be reasonably good-looking.

4. Winners are usually the protagonist in the film they’re nominated for.

Best Actress:

1. Winners are usually white and between the ages of 20 to 50.

2. Winners have lifetime performance that will overshadow Meryl Streep if she’s also nominated in that category.

3. Winners must be reasonably good looking (offscreen) and don’t always have to be the protagonist in the film they’re nominated for.

4. Role has to entail looking ugly or being in a terrible situation viewers will take pity for if the actress is the protagonist.

Best Supporting Actor:

1. Winners are usually older than the guy who wins Best Actor.

2. Winners are usually big name stars who may or may not have much recognition or character actors.

3. Winners are usually the uglier than their leading counterparts if they’re character actors.

Best Supporting Actress:

1. Winners are usually less conventionally attractive than the woman who wins Best Actress.

2. Winners are usually women who wouldn’t be playing leading rules due to some technicality.

3. Winners usually have the most talked about performance of the year in that category.

Best Animated Feature:

1. Winners are usually films you heard of and/or by Pixar.

Best Screenplay: (Original and Adapted)

1. Winners are usually films that are nominated for Best Picture as well as usually win.

2. If an indie film ever wins any Oscar, its usually in this category. The Best Picture winner usually does, too.

I could go on with other categories but most of them usually result in seeing people you really never heard of do their Oscar speeches. Oh, and some of the categories will feature films you didn’t even know existed but you will never see.