The media are all over the Oscars 2010 coming up this Sunday, with tales of nominations and predictions for who may win, but we’ve spotted a rather ingenious method, that doesn’t even entail watching the films involved! The clever way to make your predictions and amaze your friends is to look at statistics from previous years to narrow down the field.

According to dnaindia.com the BBC have developed their own system based on similarities of winners through the years. An in-depth study has taken place of figures over the last 81 years of the Oscars analysing the winners for best actor and actress and found some interesting information. Apparently the average age of the Best Actor award is 44, and for Best Actress 36. No surprises there that women seem to have to be younger than men to take the top prize.

After Americans who are obviously hugely popular, the next country whose actors and actresses are likely to take top spot are from the UK, who make up 20% of the male winners and 18% of female winners. Another fact interesting to note is that only one winner of the Best Actress award has been non-white, with Halle Berry scooping the prize for ‘Monster’s Ball’. In the meantime 93% of male winners have been white.

It’s clear that younger women have advantage over older women in the Academy Awards but strangely this does not work the same way with men, with Adrian Brody for ‘The Pianist’ being the only leading male under 30 to triumph. This contrasts sharply with the 27 women under 30 who have won.

Lastly another interesting fact is that leading males in war films and leading actresses in thrillers are likely to have an advantage. However the top genre for both sexes is romance, with women in romantic films making up 49% of the winners, and 28% of men. Have you ever spotted any of these trends yourself? Based on this information who do you think will come out on top this year?

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