The Oscar season is coming up quickly and although August is still a bit early to make definitive predictions, looking to last year’s lists might give us an idea of how close consensus choices come to making the grade.

First, let it be known that I polled our site contributors in July for this data, so it might be slightly out of date. However, much of what’s below isn’t likely to have changed with news in recent weeks. With that out of the way, let’s take a look back at our picks in August of 2011. The following were predictions we made unanimously. A Best Picture nomination for The Tree of Life, Rango nominated for Best Animated Feature, Glenn Close and Meryl Streep both as nominees for Best Actress, Christopher Plummer for Best Supporting Actor and Best Original Screenplay for Midnight in Paris. Not only did all six of those predictions carry over to Oscar, Glenn Close and The Tree of Life were the only predictions that also didn’t match the winner. That’s pretty impressive for a first go of it.

This year, however, we have one fewer contributor and a lot more agreement. We all believe three films will be among the year’s 5 to 10 Best Picture nominees: Lincoln, The Master and Les Miserables. Steven Spielberg is agreed to as a nominee for Best Director for Lincoln, while that film’s star Daniel Day-Lewis is also among our predictions for Best Actor. Alongside Day-Lewis are Hugh Jackman for Miserables and Bill Murray for Hyde Park on the Hudson. In Best Actress we also agree that Murray’s co-star Laura Linney will be nominated. In Best Supporting Actor, we have agreed to place Jude Law as a nomination contender for Anna Karenina with Sally Field as our sole unified prediction in Best Supporting Actress for Lincoln.

We aren’t certain all of these will carry over, but our past unanimity may prove a valid precursor…at least we hope.

As a frame of reference, Peter, Tripp and I agreed on quite a few more at this time last year than we did as a group of four. Those additional agreements: Best Picture – War Horse, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Ides of March, J. Edgar; Best Original Screenplay – J. Edgar; and Best Adapted Screenplay – The Ides of March and War Horse. In those cases, our predictiosn only carried over 3 of 7 times. Added to our other agreements for August-to-Oscar, we still had an impressive 9 of 13. Also of note, on our first predictions of 2011, we only had 3 unanimous predictions (and 6 with just the three of us). This year, we agreed on even more, 13, than previously…perhaps not the best sign. But, you can decide for yourselves.

KEY:

Best Picture

• Amour (A)
• Anna Karenina (A) [New] (O)
• Argo (O) (O)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild (A) [New]
• Brave (O)
• The Dark Knight Rises (O)
• Django Unchained (O) (O)
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (O) (O)
• Hyde Park on the Hudson (O) (O)
• Lawless
• Life of Pi (A) [New] (O)
• Lincoln (O) (A) [New] (O)
• The Master (O) (O) (O)
• Les Miserables (O) (O) (O)
• Moonrise Kingdom (A) [New]
• The Sessions (O)
• The Silver Linings Playbook (O)
• Zero Dark Thirty (O) (O)

Best Director

• Ben Affleck – Argo (O)
• Paul Thomas Anderson – The Master (O) (O)
• Kathryn Bigelow – Zero Dark Thirty (O) (O)
• Michael Haneke – Amour (A) [New]
• Tom Hooper – Les Miserables (O) (O)
• Peter Jackson – The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (O)
• Ang Lee – Life of Pi (A) [New]
• Ben Lewin – The Sessions (O)
• David O. Russell – The Silver Linings Playbook (O)
• Steven Spielberg – Lincoln (O) (O) (O)

Best Actor

• Bradley Cooper – The Silver Linings Playbook (O)
• Daniel Day-Lewis – Lincoln (O) (O) (O)
• John Hawkes – The Sessions (O) (O)
• Philip Seymour Hoffman – The Master (O)
• Hugh Jackman – Les Miserables (O) (O) (O)
• Bill Murray – Hyde Park on the Hudson (O) (O) (A) [New]
• Joaquin Phoenix – The Master (A) [New]
• Brad Pitt – Killing Them Softly (O)

Best Actress

• Sandra Bullock – Gravity (O)
• Marion Cotillard – Rust and Bone (A) [New]
• Viola Davis – Won’t Back Down (O) (O)
• Helen Hunt – The Sessions (O)
• Keira Knightley – Anna Karenina (A) [New] (O) (O)
• Jennifer Lawrence – The Silver Linings Playbook (O)
• Laura Linney – Hyde Park on the Hudson (O) (O) (O)
• Meryl Streep – Hope Springs (O)
• Quvenzhané Wallis – Beasts of the Southern Wild (A) [New]
• Michelle Williams – Take This Waltz (O)

Best Supporting Actor

• Bryan Cranston – Argo (O) (O)
• Russell Crowe – Les Miserables (O)
• Robert De Niro – The Silver Linings Playbook (O)
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt – Lincoln (O)
• Tommy Lee Jones – Lincoln (O) (O)
• Jude Law – Anna Karenina (O) (O) (O)
• William H. Macy – The Sessions (A) [New] (O)
• Joaquin Phoenix – The Master (O)
• Peter Sarsgaard – Lovelace (O)
• David Strathairn – Lincoln (O)

Best Supporting Actress

• Amy Adams – The Master (O)
• Amy Adams – Trouble with the Curve (O)
• Samantha Barks – Les Miserables (O) (O)
• Judi Dench – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (A) [New]
• Laura Dern – The Master (O)
• Sally Field – Lincoln (O) (O) (O)
• Anne Hathaway – Les Miserables (O)
• Frances McDormand – Moonrise Kingdom (A) [New]
• Maggie Smith – The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (A) [New]
• Jacki Weaver – The Silver Linings Playbook (O)
• Olivia Williams – Hyde Park on the Hudson (O) (O)