Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

Nine films are nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards on Sunday. In what parts of the country was each contender the most popular?

We wanted to find out for a few reasons. There has been an increasing disconnect between films that are hits and films that Hollywood honors. The last three best picture winners (“Spotlight,” “Birdman,” “12 Years a Slave”) went unseen by most Americans, at least during their theatrical runs.

With the country so politically divided, we also wanted to know whether audience support for nominees fell along similar urban-rural or coastal-heartland fissures.

Studios don’t disclose ticket sales by region, so we did the next best thing, looking at how many active Facebook users in a given county “liked” each of the nominees. Studios increasingly use Facebook as a home base for films, with photos, videos and news regularly fed to fans.

We found that the best picture contenders had surprisingly stratified fan bases. Compare “Moonlight” and “Fences,” for instance. The poetic “Moonlight,” about a black man from a poor Miami neighborhood coming to terms with his homosexuality, had a fairly thin following in the South; its heaviest support came from New York and San Francisco. The more commercially minded “Fences,” featuring a predominantly black cast but without a gay theme, drew much of its power from Mississippi and the Carolinas.

Over all, it was interesting to see how much a film’s setting affected its fan base and what kinds of themes resonated in the center of the country. Take a look:

Hidden Figures

U.S. Box Office: $145.4 million
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This movie, about the overlooked contributions of black women in the NASA space race of the 1960s, has done better at the domestic box office than any of its best picture rivals. But the fan base for “Hidden Figures,” starring Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe, was relatively concentrated in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and the Carolinas.

La La Land

U.S. Box Office: $135.2 million
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A musical about young dreamers in Hollywood, “La La Land” was especially popular in Southern California — shocker — and in conservative, largely white states like Utah, Idaho and Wisconsin. Starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, “La La Land” is considered the strong favorite to win best picture. But the escapist musical has also been criticized for its liberal, white worldview, in particular when it comes to the subject of jazz.

Arrival

U.S. Box Office: $100 million
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A science-fiction thriller about a linguist (Amy Adams) recruited to decipher alien communication, “Arrival” drew most of its support from the Northwest — the film’s primary setting — and from liberal strongholds in the East, including college towns in Vermont and Maine. (Fun fact: Maine also has a lot of U.F.O. sightings.) Just as striking was a lack of fandom in conservative Southern states with large nonwhite populations.

Hacksaw Ridge

U.S. Box Office: $66.8 million
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Directed by Mel Gibson, “Hacksaw Ridge” tells the true story of Desmond T. Doss, an intensely religious man who insisted on going into combat during World War II without a weapon — and saved dozens of wounded men in Okinawa alone. The patriotic film’s deepest support was in Appalachia, with other rural areas (Montana, North Dakota) also strong.

Fences

U.S. Box Office: $55.5 million
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The polar opposite of “Arrival.” Starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis and set in Pittsburgh in the 1950s, “Fences” had many fewer fans in the Pacific Northwest than in the South, home to nine of the top 10 counties where support was strongest. The remaining top county was Allegheny in Pennsylvania — that is, Pittsburgh and its suburbs.

Manchester by the Sea

U.S. Box Office: $46.1 million
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The counties with the largest concentration of fans could all be found in Massachusetts or New Hampshire. Directed and written by Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea” tells the story of a handyman (Casey Affleck) tormented by guilt and grief. Like other nominees with primarily white casts, “Manchester by the Sea” had a small fan base in Southern cities. Over all, this film had the fewest Facebook followers of all of the nominees.

Lion

U.S. Box Office: $38 million
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Set largely in India and focused on an adoption, “Lion” landed particularly well in affluent counties on the coasts — Marin in California, Bergen in New Jersey and Westchester in New York were among the top 10 in fan support. The reason may involve its highbrow form: Starring Dev Patel, the arty film is heavily subtitled and hops around in time.

Hell or High Water

U.S. Box Office: $27 million
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No surprise here: Facebook users in Texas and New Mexico loved “Hell or High Water,” the story of two outlaws (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) who rob small-town Texas banks while trying to outwit a pair of colorful lawmen (Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham). Conversely, this film had the fewest fans of any of the nine nominees in the Northeast.

Moonlight

U.S. Box Office: $21.4 million
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The definition of a big-city movie: New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle. The nation’s heartland was not as enthusiastic, and the film’s subject matter appears to have polarized black audiences, holding it back at the box office. “Moonlight” is the year’s least-watched nominee, although it also cost the least to make — about $1.5 million.