Oscar Survey: Moviegoers Put ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ and ’12 Years a Slave’ in a Dead Heat (Exclusive)

A survey conducted by Survata exclusively for TheWrap finds that moviegoers predict a tight race — but they disagree with the experts on which films are battling it out

Moviegoers agree with Oscar experts that this year’s Best Picture race is an exceptionally close one, with two films neck-and-neck and another not far behind. But they don’t agree on which two films those are – because while the pundits put “12 Years a Slave” and “Gravity” together at the top, an exclusive survey conducted for TheWrap by Survata said that movie fans are predicting that either “Slave” or “Wolf of Wall Street” will win the top prize on Sunday.

Those two films were each predicted to win by 23 percent of the 444 movie fans surveyed between Feb. 23 and 26, with “Gravity” in third place at 17 percent, “American Hustle” fourth at 15 percent and “Nebraska” perhaps surprisingly fifth at 10 percent, ahead of “Captain Phillips,” “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Her” and “Philomena.”

Also read: Oscar Predictions: ‘Gravity’ Will Be the Biggest Winner, But Will It Win the Big One?

The movie fans, all of whom had seen at least one film in the past six months, went for some high-profile actors over Oscar favorites in the acting categories, with Leonardo DiCaprio (“Wolf”) holding a substantial lead over Matthew McConaughey (“Dallas Buyers Club”) for Best Actor and Sandra Bullock (“Gravity”) dominating the Best Actress race with prohibitive frontrunner Cate Blanchett (“Blue Jasmine”) way down in fourth place.

In the supporting categories, a pair of “American Hustle” stars, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, are in front, with Lawrence getting 41 percent of the vote to 24 for Lupita Nyong’o (“12 Years a Slave”) and Cooper leading Jonah Hill (“The Wolf of Wall Street”) 29 to 23 percent.

Also read: 17 Greatest Hollywood Unknowns to Win Oscar Gold – From Anna Paquin to Hilary Swank (Photos)

The Best Picture chart is at the top of the page. Here are the other categories.

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Best Actor:  With more than double the votes of his nearest competitor, DiCaprio more than doubles the votes of his closest competitor – and poor Bruce Dern, who campaigned tirelessly, ekes out a paltry 3 percent of the vote.

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Best Actress: The pros say it’s Cate Blanchett in a romp (with Amy Adams as the only potential spoiler),  but movie fans see an equally easy victory for Sandra Bullock (with Adams again number two).

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Best Supporting Actor: While experts give Jared Leto a huge lead, moviegoers see him in the middle of the pack, and put BAFTA winner Barkhad Abdi dead last.

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Best Supporting Actress: Fans agree with pundits that Lawrence and Nyong’o are the top two – but where most experts see a tight race and give Nyong’o a narrow lead, fans are predicting an easy win for J-Law.

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