Half the fun of the Oscars is the guessing game that comes before, and without a host , good speeches, and many of the winners relegated to commercial breaks , it might be the only thing we have left to enjoy. But there’s also a more serious reason to take the Best Picture race seriously. As the only category that the whole of the Academy’s roughly 8,000 members are eligible to vote in, it represents the most comprehensive barometer of the industry as a whole.