As a nod to our age of narcissism, EW is celebrating this year’s Oscars by seeing what they have to do with us. In true Hollywood fashion, we used the most fitting methodology — Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, ahem, Separation (although you will find Kevin Bacon in the chart) — to trace each Best Picture nominee back to Oregon. We left Portland and Portlanders out of the mix because that would be, well, too easy. We learned a lot: Oregon was like catnip for Jack Nicholson in the ’70s; Robert Towne directed not one but two track flicks (Personal Best, Without Limits) in Eugene; and Donald Sutherland, who has starred in not one but two films shot in Eugene (Animal House, Without Limits), has shared the screen with pretty much every actor ever.

Illustrations by Thomas Fernandez