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As the countdown to the 98th Academy Awards begins, curiosity about the Oscars’ voting system has grown among movie fans. With final voting now closed and winners set to be revealed on March 15, many people are asking a simple question: how exactly are Oscar winners chosen?
Here is a simple breakdown of how the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences selects nominees and winners every year.
Who Votes For The Oscars? Inside The Academy’s 10k Plus Members
The Oscars are decided by members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, an organization composed of professionals from various branches of filmmaking.
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The Academy has over 10k members from 17 professional branches, including actors, directors, writers, editors, costume designers, and publicists. Almost all of them are eligible to vote for the Oscars, except a small number who hold emeritus status.
The actor’s branch is the largest in the Academy, giving it significant influence during the nomination stage.
How Oscar Nominations Actually Happen: Inside The Academy’s Branch Voting Process
The Oscars use a branch voting system to choose nominees in most categories. Which means the actors vote for acting categories, the directors vote for Best Director, the writers vote for writing awards, and the cinematographers vote for cinematography. However, all Academy members vote for Best Picture nominees, not just one branch. The nominations are decided using a ranked-choice voting system, also called a preferential ballot.
Firstly, voters rank their favorite candidates in order. If a nominee receives enough votes to cross the required threshold, they get nominated. If a contender has too few votes, they are eliminated. Votes from those ballots then shift to the voter’s next preferred choice. This process continues until the final list of nominees is determined.
Preferential Ballot Explained: The Ranked Voting System Behind The Oscars
According to The Oscars, the voting process changes slightly when deciding winners. For most categories, all Academy members vote, regardless of their branch. The nominee with the most votes wins. But Best Picture uses the preferential ballot system again.
In this category, voters rank all nominated films from 1 to 10. If a film does not reach 50 percent of the votes, the lowest-ranked film is eliminated. Votes for that film are redistributed to each voter’s next preferred choice. The process repeats until one film reaches 50 percent, making it the Best Picture winner.
This system often leads to a consensus choice, meaning a widely liked film can win even if it was not everyone’s first choice.
Oscars 2026 Rule Change: Academy Members Must Watch Every Nominee Before Voting
Ahead of the 98th Academy Awards, the Academy introduced an important rule. Members are now required to watch all nominees in a category before voting, as EW reported.
The move aims to ensure fairer decisions and prevent voters from selecting winners without seeing every performance or film.
The process is designed to reflect a broad consensus from professionals across the film industry.
According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ official Oscars calendar, preliminary voting for the 98th Academy Awards took place from December 8 to December 12, followed by the announcement of shortlists on December 16. Nomination voting ran from January 12 to January 16, with the official Oscar nominations revealed on January 22. The final round of voting was held from February 26 to March 5, and the winners will be announced at the ceremony on March 15.
With thousands of industry professionals participating, the Oscars voting system is designed to balance expert opinion and broad industry consensus.
While debates over nominations and winners occur every year, the structured voting process ensures that every Academy Award is the result of multiple rounds of careful selection.
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