The Academy Awards are hailed as the most prestigious evening of the movie industry each year, but how exactly do the vaunted winners get picked? Here’s how Oscar nominations and voting works.
Measuring the Success of Creative Works
Across all creative media, there are processes for reviewing and, later, voting on potential award winners. The Golden Globes, seen as a warm-up to the Oscars, uses the preferential voting method for the top five picks, with the voters strictly being professional media critics. The Game Awards work similarly, but also allow for a public voting phase that accounts for ten per cent of the final voting scores.
Of course, media reviewing is seen as very subjective, so individual reviews for films and games, in these examples, aren’t explicitly made factors. In other realms of entertainment, such as when it comes to no deposit casinos in the UK, reviews carry much more weight. For instance, a player wanting to find a free no deposit £10 bonus on Slotozilla to play for real money will see a ranking of sites based on review scores. Factors in this ranking include how strong the offer of the particular bonus is, as well as the pros and cons of the platform. So, in the case of online casinos, individual reviews and rankings count for more than in prestigious awards voting. For more glamorous award shows, however, unpredictability becomes part of the allure, meaning a more elusive form of consensus is required.
Who Votes for the Oscars?
Only the 10,000 or so members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences can nominate a film for an Oscar. Members then vote within their specialist category. That is, until it comes to the Best Picture Award. Criteria to consider when picking the Best Picture nominees include:
- Quality of its storytelling;
- Technical execution;
- Themes of the film and its narratives;
- Creative leadership on the project;
- Its ability to resonate with audiences;
- On-screen representation of underrepresented groups.
Starting with the 2025 ceremony, a new Oscars voting criteria will come into play. For the 98th Academy Awards, votes from an academy member will only count if they have watched every film in the category. This will, in theory, be confirmed by tracking viewership on the Academy’s exclusive streaming platform.
What Films are Eligible for an Oscars Nomination?
To be eligible for the Academy Awards voting process to begin with, the film needs to be shown at public theatres in Los Angeles County for at least a week. Films from overseas, short films, documentaries, and foreign-language films can be submitted via their producers instead. Members of the academy will submit their nominations to a nomination vote.
How Oscars Voting and Ranking Works
Over the last five years, these are the films that won Best Picture as a result of the standing voting process.
| Academy Awards Ceremony | Best Picture Winner |
| 97th (2024) | Anora |
| 96th (2023) | Oppenheimer |
| 95th (2022) | Everything Everywhere All at Once |
| 94th (2021) | CODA |
| 93rd (2020) | Nomadland |
Generally, votes work within a standard system where the film with the most votes wins. Best Picture voting, since 2009, has used a preferential choice system akin to Golden Globes voting. Here, voters rank picks from one to ten with a film needing 50 per cent of the vote to win. This can take place over multiple rounds of voting, cutting the least-voted picks until a winner is found.
