Trivia

Facts and Trends Covering The First Four Years of the Cosmique Movie Awards

The Cosmique Movie Awards have been underway now for four years, and three of those years have been dedicated to awards focusing primarily on films from the preceding calendar year. (The first awards were all lifetime achievements.) That has given us enough data points to detect some clear trends about how voters tend to react. But note, however, that a trend does not guarantee future behavior, but merely predicts its probability. As they say in the stock market, past performance is no guarantee of future behavior. But then again, as they say in human resources when hiring job applicants, past performance is still the best indicator of future behavior. In other words, you be the judge...

Best Film Winners

• The film directed by the winner of the Best Director category has always gone on to win (or tie) for Best Film.

  In 2001, Robert Altman won Best Director for Gosford Park, which went on to tie for Best Film with The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. In 2002, newcomer Rob Marshall won Best Director, as his film Chicago won Best Film. And in 2003, Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won Best Film the year that he finally took home the prize for Best Director.

• Every year, the movie that wins Best Film has always also won one of the two major genre categories: Best Dramatic Film, or Best Comedy/Musical.

  In 2001, Gosford Park won Best Drama and then tied for Best Film with The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. In 2002, Chicago won Best Film and Best Comedy/Musical. And in 2003, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won both Best Film and Best Dramatic Film.

• Every year, the film that wins Best Film has always been one of the top two most positively nominated films.

  In 2001, Gosford Park received 12 nominations, the second-most of the year (behind Moulin Rouge), but the most positive nominations (since two of Moulin Rouge's 13 nominations were in negative categories). The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the third-most nominated film, tied with Moulin Rouge for the second most positive nominations, and ended up tying with Gosford Park for Best Film. In 2002, Chicago received 16 nominations, coming in second behind The Lord of the Ring: The Two Towers' 21 nominations, but ended up taking home the top prize. And in 2003, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King dominated with a record 26 nominations and took home Best Film among its 12 trophies.

• Since the creation of the Movie Ratings Awards in the third season of the Cosmo Awards, the Most Watched film was always gone on to win Most Popular even though it was not necessarily the highest rated. And it has also always gone on to win Best Film.

  In 2002, Chicago was seen and rated by 83% of the voters who returned their ratings ballots, beating out The Lord of the Ring: The Two Towers, which was seen by 71% of the voters. With an averaging rating of 8.36, it easily became the most popular film, beating out 25th Hour and Talk to Her, which had higher averages but weren't seen by enough voters to achieve a sufficiently high enough popularity score. Chicago also won Best Film that year. In 2003, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King swept all three, winning Most Watched (100% of the voters) as well as the highest average rating (9.17), guaranteeing a win for Most Popular. It also won Best Film. 

The Mosts and Bests

• The Wizard of Oz is the only film with more than two nominations to ever sweep every category for which it was nominated.

  At the first annual Cosmique Movie Awards, The Wizard of Oz was nominated in four categories and won or tied in every one. It won for Most Quotable Movie of All Time, tying with The Women, Best Movie Musical of All Time, tying with Singin' in the Rain, and Best Film Villain of All Time for Margaret Hamilton, tying with Glenn Close for Dangerous Liaisons and Anthony Hopkins for The Silence of the Lambs. But most importantly, it also won the first Best Movie of All Time award, becoming the very first inductee into the Best Film Hall of Fame.

• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the most-nominated film in Cosmo history.

  In 2003, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King received a record 26 nominations, beating out the previous record of 21 nominations held by The Lord of the Ring: The Two Towers. In third place is Chicago with 16 nominations, followed by X2: X-Men United (15 nominations) and Big Fish, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and Gosford Park with 12 each. Moulin Rouge technically should be behind Chicago, but only 11 of its 13 nominations were in positive categories. The Hours and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring also received 11 positive nominations, and with 10 nominations, Far From Heaven is the only other film to break into double digits for number of nominations.

• Ian McKellen is the most-nominated individual in Cosmo history.

  In 2003, Ian McKellen received a total of eight nominations, including four individual and four shared ensemble nominations for his work in both The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and  X2: X-Men United. This was a record number of nominations received by any individual in a single year, and his four individual nominations also set a new record for the most individual nominations received in a single year. This brought his lifetime total number of nominations to 12, catapulting him into first place for the most nominations ever, beating out Cate Blanchett who has currently achieved 11 nominations (eight individual and four ensemble, including three Hall of Fame nominations and one Best Performance of All Time nomination).

• Meryl Streep is the only performer in Cosmo history to receive a Hall of Fame nomination in every year of the awards.

  Meryl Steep was nominated for the Best Actress Hall of Fame in the first year of the awards (losing to Katharine Hepburn), and was subsequently nominated again in the second year (losing to Maggie Smith) and the third year (losing to Bette Davis). At the fourth annual awards, she was nominated again for the fourth consecutive time, but her nomination streak was effectively ended because that year she was finally inducted into the Hall of Fame, and one cannot be inducted twice. Other actors have come close, but none have matched her record. Bette Davis was nominated the first three years, finally inducted during the third year and therefore wasn't eligible for nomination thereafter. Cate Blanchett has been nominated every year except the first (though the first year she did receive a lifetime achievement nomination for Best Individual Performance of All Time for Elizabeth). Jack Nicholson was nominated the first three years, but failed to achieve a fourth nomination last year. And Jimmy Stewart was also nominated the first three years; his induction the third year blocked his eligibility for future nominations.

• Julianne Moore is the only performer in Cosmo history to win in Leading and Supporting categories in the same year..

  At the 2002 awards, Julianne Moore won Best Actress for her performance in Far From Heaven, and also won Best Supporting Actress for her performance in The Hours.

• Renee Zellweger and Ian McKellen are the only performers to be nominated in the same individual acting category in all three years of the awards dedicated to films of a particular calendar year.

  In 2001, Renee Zellweger received a Best Actress nomination for her performance in Bridget Jones's Diary. That same year, Nicole Kidman was received double nominations for her performances in Moulin Rouge and The Others. (They lost to a tie between Cate Blanchett for Bandits and Audrey Tautou for Amelie.) The next year, both were nominated again, Renee for Chicago and Nicole for The Hours. But third time wasn't a charm for Nicole - the following year, she failed to achieve her anticipated third nomination for Cold Mountain, although it did receive an ensemble nomination. And while Renee was picking up Supporting Actress awards right and left for Cold Mountain, she surprisingly wasn't nominated for it at the Cosmos. Instead, even more surprisingly, she picked up her third consecutive Best Actress nomination for her performance in Down With Love.

  At the same time, Ian McKellen received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his 2001 performance as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, an award which he won. The following year, he won a nomination for the reprise of the role in the sequel, The Two Towers, but lost to Chris Cooper for Adaptation. And for the final film in the trilogy, The Return of the King, he received his third consecutive Supporting Actor nomination for the same role as well as an additional Best Supporting Actor nomination for X2: X-Men United, but lost to Rings co-star Sean Astin for his performance as the faithful Samwise Gamgee. (Incidentally, most of the Lord of the Rings actors share ensemble nominations all three years, but Ian McKellen was the only actor to receive individual nominations all three years.)

Strange But True

• Moulin Rouge is the only film to be nominated for both Best Film and Worst Film.

  Moulin Rouge received a total of 13 nominations, including being one of the five nominees for Best Film of 2001. But in addition to that coveted honor, one of its two negative nominations was for Worst Film of 2001. Cosmo voters were clearly polarized by the film; it ended up losing in both the Best and Worst categories (but managed to take home the honor for Best Comedy/Musical).

• Nicole Kidman is the only performer to be nominated in both Best and Worst categories for the same performance.

  Just as Moulin Rouge was nominated for Best Film of 2001 as well as Worst Film of 2001, so too was Nicole Kidman painted with the same brush for her performance in the same film, achieving nominations for both Best Actress and Worst Performance. Like the film, she lost in both categories.

• Three actors - Richard Gere, Ellen Degeneres, and Scarlett Johansson - have been nominated in both leading and supporting categories for the same performance.

  At the 2002 awards, Richard Gere was nominated for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Billy Flynn in the musical Chicago, the first person in Cosmo history to be double-nominated for the same performance. The nomination no doubt reflected a divide in the minds of Cosmo voters over how to categorize his performance, and the split may have hurt his chances to win (he lost to Adrien Brody for The Pianist and Chris Cooper for Adaptation, respectively). The following year, Ellen Degeneres and Scarlett Johansson experienced a similar Cosmo split, both receiving Leading and Supporting nominations for their respective performances in Finding Nemo and Lost in Translation. Interestingly and improbably enough, although they both lost the leading category to Charlize Theron for Monster, they tied and both won in the Supporting Actress category.

• In every year of the Cosmos dedicated to performances from a given calendar year, an actor or actress has had to run against him- or herself in the same category.

  At the 2001 awards, Nicole Kidman received Best Actress nominations for her performances in Moulin Rouge and The Others. She lost to a tie between Cate Blanchett for Bandits and Audrey Tautou for Amelie. That same year, Jim Broadbent ran against himself in the Supporting Actor category for Iris and Moulin Rouge, losing to Ian McKellen for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. At the 2002 awards, Robin Williams ran against himself for Best Villain for his performances in Insomnia and One Hour Photo, winning for the latter. And in 2003, Ian McKellen had to run against himself for Best Supporting Actor for his performances in both The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and  X2: X-Men United, but lost to Rings co-star Sean Astin.

• Gosford Park is the only film to ever win two awards in the same category..

  At the 2001 awards, both Helen Mirren and Maggie Smith were nominated for Best Supporting Actress for their performances in Gosford Park. Usually when this happens, fans of the movie end up splitting their vote and the winner is a performer from some other film. But this year, very unexpectedly, there was a tie, and it happened to be both Gosford Park actresses. As a result, while Gosford Park and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring both won awards in six different categories that year, Gosford Park actually won seven awards, the most of any film that year.

• Ian McKellen is the only actor to receive both heroic and villainous nominations the same year.

  At the 2003 awards, Ian McKellen was nominated for Favorite Male Heroic Character for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and Best Male Villain for X2: X-Men United, the only actor to be recognized in both extremes. Interestingly enough, Uma Thurman almost achieved an even stranger honor: she was nominated for Favorite Female Heroic Character for Kill Bill, Volume 1, but was also just a few votes shy of receiving a Best Female Villain nomination for the same performance.

• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King has records for the most nominations in a single category.

  Many films have found themselves receiving multiple nominations in performance categories, but none can top the unusual record set by The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. In 2003, it received multiple nominations in three different acting categories, just shy of the record of four different multiple category nominations held by The Two Towers, which held double nominations for Best Actor (Elijah Wood and Viggo Mortensen), Best Supporting Actor (Ian McKellen and Andy Sirkis), Best Villain (Christopher Lee and Andy Sirkis), and Actor's Character You Would Most Like to be Intimate With (Orlando Bloom and Viggo Mortensen again). King might have received additional multiple nominations in the same categories if Christopher Lee's performance hadn't been cut, or if Cosmo voters had considered Viggo Mortensen's performance to be a Leading Performance rather than a Supporting One. But even so, King set its own record for the most nominations in a single category. In addition to its unprecedented triple nominations for Supporting Actor (Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, and Viggo Mortensen) and Actor's Character You Would Most Like to be Intimate With (Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, and Viggo Mortensen), it also received a record four nominations for a new category: Favorite Male Heroic Character (Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, and Elijah Wood). But perhaps the two films would have fared better if their efforts weren't so diluted; in every category that they received multiple nominations, they only won once: Sean Astin's supporting performance in the franchise's final film.