How Are Oscar Winners Chosen?

Who gets to vote for the Oscars?

Oscar winners are chosen by the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the rules limit voting on every award to its active and life members.^[1] Membership is by invitation of the Academy's Board of Governors and is reserved for people who have distinguished themselves in the film industry.^[5]

The Academy says it has more than 11,000 members, organized into 19 branches by profession, such as Actors, Directors, Writers, Film Editors, Music and Sound.^[5] Older reports give a lower figure: an Associated Press (AP) explainer from March 2023 counted 17 branches.^[7]

The head count changes as new members join: the AP reported in June 2026 that the Academy had invited 529 people and that, if all of them accepted, it would have 11,319 members, 10,338 of them voting members.^[6]

How do Oscar nominations and final voting work?

This article follows the rules for the 99th Academy Awards, approved by the Academy's Board of Governors and announced on May 1, 2026.^[1][4] In October 2026 the Academy's rules page still presented these 99th Oscars rules, and the Academy says rules and dates can still change.^[9][4]

Every round of voting is a secret online ballot, and there are up to three rounds.^[2]

• Preliminary voting. In 12 categories, among them International Feature Film, Cinematography and Visual Effects, a first vote cuts the entries down to a shortlist.^[2]
• Nominations voting. All 24 award categories are voted on in this round.^[2] Most are decided by members of the matching branch, though some are open to members of all branches.^[2] Directors Branch members, for example, rank up to five films, and the five with the most votes become the Directing nominees.^[1] Each award has at most five nominees, except Best Picture, which has ten.^[1]
• Final voting. All eligible Academy members may vote in all 24 categories.^[2] A member must have viewed every nominated film in a category to vote in it.^[1]

For the final round, the rules say ballots are counted by "the plurality or preferential system" and that write-in votes do not count.^[1] The AP's 2023 explainer put the plurality part simply: in most categories, the nominee with the most votes wins.^[7] If two achievements tie for first place, both receive an award.^[1]

The Academy's calendar for the 99th Oscars shows how the rounds are spaced.^[3]

How is the Best Picture winner chosen?

Best Picture nominations come from the whole membership rather than one branch: all active and life members rank up to ten films, and the ten with the most votes become the nominees.^[1][2]

The final count differs too: Best Picture uses ranked-choice voting, also known as preferential voting, the AP explained in 2023.^[7] Voters put the nominees in order of preference, and a film that takes more than 50% of the first-place votes wins at once.^[7] If no film reaches that mark, the one with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated and its ballots pass to those voters' second choices.^[7] The steps repeat until one film has a majority.^[7]

Entry is stricter too: a Best Picture contender also needs theatrical releases in nine additional markets, for at least ten in total, and must meet two of the Academy's four Representation and Inclusion Standards.^[1]

What makes a film eligible for an Oscar?

Under the rules for the 99th Oscars, an eligible film must normally be feature length, defined as over 40 minutes, and be shown for paid admission in a commercial theater in one of six U.S. metro areas: Los Angeles County, New York City, the Bay Area, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth or Atlanta.^[1] The qualifying run must last at least seven consecutive days in the same theater, with at least three screenings a day, one of them starting between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m.^[1] The run has to begin between January 1, 2026, and December 31, 2026.^[1][4]

A film whose first public showing is anything other than a theatrical release, such as a television broadcast or streaming, is not eligible in any category.^[1] A film that goes to those platforms on or after the first day of its qualifying run stays eligible.^[1]

Films from all countries can compete if they meet the other rules and carry English subtitles when they are not in English.^[1] The Academy must also receive a completed Oscars Submission Form for the film.^[1] Short films, documentaries, international features and some other awards have alternate or additional ways to qualify.^[1] On generative artificial intelligence, the rules say such tools "neither help nor harm the chances of achieving a nomination."^[1]

Who counts the Oscar votes, and how is the result kept secret?

The rules require that completed ballots be received and counted by a firm of certified public accountants chosen by the Academy President.^[1] The Academy names the firm as PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which it calls independent and which tabulates every round.^[2]

Few people know the outcome in advance: citing the Academy's website, the AP's 2023 explainer said just two PwC partners know the results beforehand, and each waits in the wings of the Dolby Theatre during the ceremony with a full set of winners' envelopes.^[7]

A PBS NewsHour report from February 27, 2017, described further safeguards used at that time: counting was split among several PwC team members so that no one could know the actual total except the two lead partners, who memorized the winners and travelled to the show in separate cars on separate routes, carrying the envelopes in briefcases.^[8] The same report followed a failure of that system the night before, when a presenter was given the wrong envelope and "La La Land" was announced as Best Picture instead of "Moonlight."^[8] Until then, PwC said, there had been no major mistake in the 83 years it had handled the balloting.^[8]