How do they work and who votes at the Oscars?

What's behind that «And the Oscar goes to» that every year captures the attention of millions of people eager to discover what the best of Hollywood is? Beyond the glitter of the ceremony and the stars who take turns on the stage of Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, it is good to remember that the Oscar they are a complex system that has existed since 1927 and which, every year, rewards the best products and the most competent workers through a mechanism unknown to most. Who votes at the Oscars, and how does that vote translate into the sentence that the presenters read once they open the envelope? We're here to find out.

Who votes at the Oscars

The awards are assigned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – often abbreviated to AMPAS -, i.e. a professional organization made up of representatives of the sector who have centered their careers in the world of cinema. It's about 10,500 members which belong to the following 19 categories: actors, associates, casting directors, directors of photography, costume designers, directors, documentary makers, managers, editors, hair and makeup artists, marketing and public relations workers, members-at-large, musicians, producers, set designers, animators, sound people, visual effects people, and screenwriters. Each member has the right to belong to only one of these branches. You become a member of the Academy if you have been nominated for an Oscar or by proposal: those who are already members can, in fact, nominate the name of another person based on their contributions in the cinematographic field.

How Oscar voting works

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The Oscar voting procedure is structured in two parts. The first decrees the nominations, made public just over a month before the ceremony: everything starts from the lists of films suitable for voting (proposed by the respective production companies and accepted based on compliance with some fundamental requirements). These lists are sent to active Academy members at the end of December and, at that point, each member is asked to choose his favorites by secret vote, selecting no more than five nominations for each category in order of preference. The exception is the prize for the best film which must include no more than ten nor fewer than five applications. At this stage members can only vote for titles belonging to their categories, except for Best Film, which can be voted on by everyone. As regards the categories reserved for animation (best animated film, best animated short) and documentary (best documentary, best short documentary), special committees decide the nominations which include not only those voted for from the documentarist and animator branches , but also other members of the Academy who offer themselves on a voluntary basis. The second round of voting chooses the Oscar winners. Here the mechanism is simpler: all Academy members can, in fact, vote for each category by casting only one vote for each individual award. The awarded categories, let us remember, are 24, excluding some special prizes awarded during the ceremony.

The magic number for the nomination

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A peculiarity of the Oscar voting is the famous magic number, or the magic number. But what is it? In the first round of voting – the nomination round -, we wrote that each voter indicates five preferences, even if only the first title is taken into consideration. If this is already nominated, then we proceed to climb until we reach five for each category (that of best film includes, however, from 5 to 10 nominated titles). Each candidate must have reached the magic number of votesor a minimum number that is calculated based on this count: the number of potential voters in that category divided by the number of candidates, plus one (in almost all cases, 5 + 1 = 6). The result is rounded up and becomes the magic number that ensures the presence of a film in the top five.

How to vote for the best international film

International films, unlike the other Oscar categories, deserve a separate discussion. In fact, each country selects its own representative film, which is submitted to the Academy and voted on in two rounds. In the first, the Committee for the preliminary voting of international feature films examines the films and produces a first shortlist of fifteen films. Then, the International Feature Film Nominations Committee reviews the fifteen selected films and select five, which make up the five nominated films. Finally, to decide the winner, there is a final vote entrusted to members of the Academy on a voluntary basis, who must have seen all five nominated films.

The criteria that allow a film to be nominated for an Oscar

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Let's close the circle with a seemingly banal question: what must a film have to compete for the Oscars? Must respect some rules required by the Academy: duration over 40 minutes (except shorts), theatrical release for at least 7 days in Los Angeles County (in the time of Covid, theatrical release regulations had obviously been revised), certain video and audio characteristics, and, most importantly, the release in the calendar year preceding the Oscar ceremony.