With the Oscars® upon us this weekend, the competition is fierce. Will this finally be Leonardo DiCaprio’s year? Who will take home the Oscar for Best Picture?
As the world gets ready for Hollywood’s biggest night of the year, we partnered with Pixability to analyze the characteristics of the movie space on YouTube, where viewers are watching and engaging with their favorite film content. Here are some of the findings:
The Movie Space on YouTube
People are tuning in to YouTube to watch all types of movie content, across all genres. Of the top movie content on YouTube, trailers are the most popular followed by clips and reviews.1 And, among those trailers, fantasy trailers have the most user engagement, including likes, comments, and shares, followed by action trailers.1
“Most internet platforms feature marketing as interruption, while YouTube remains a platform of engagement for advertisers promoting content. It is still, by far, the go-to destination for people who want to find the latest movie trailers,” said Rob Davis, Executive Director of Social and Content at OgilvyOne.
Trailers are a great way for studios and other creators to tell their stories and get moviegoers excited. Pixability found that fans are significantly amplifying the conversation by posting their favorite trailers on their own YouTube channels, generating nearly as many views and engagements as studio content.1
Not surprisingly, Pixability also found that publishing of movie content peaks on YouTube during the summer blockbuster and holiday seasons,1 which is also when awards season kicks into high gear.1
YouTube Movie Trailers Leaderboard: Oscars 2016
With the Oscars just a few days away, we also took a look at how fans engaged with the eight best picture nominees on YouTube.  In 2015, the top performing trailers from each nominee have collectively been watched over 200 million minutes on YouTube -- that’s over 3.3 million hours,2 or the equivalent of nearly a million Oscar telecasts. So, which of the nominees walks away with the top spot according to fans on YouTube?


And the envelope goes to.... “The Revenant," which took home the #1 spot from YouTube viewers on our Oscar Trailers Leaderboard. Mad Max: Fury Road and The Martian followed.2


For the full list, grab some popcorn and visit Think with Google.


 1. Pixability, all time global data (2005 - Feb 2016)
2. YouTube Analytics. For nominees with more than one trailer in 2015, the most popular trailer was counted. Ranked in order of views including studio channels and some of the most popular trailer aggregators. Videos uploaded between January 1, 2015 and December 31, 2015. Global views from YouTube Analytics as of February 14, 2016.