96th Oscars: How the Oscars Best Picture is selected: criteria, ranking system and timeline

The 96th Academy Awards will take place on March 10 in Dolby Theatre, Hollywood, LA, at 7 pm onwards (and will be telecast in India at 4 am on March 11 on Disney+ Hotstar).

The Academy’s switch to a new voting system for Best Picture still seems to confuse many. The Academy Award for Best Picture, traditionally the final award of the night and the most prestigious, is awarded basis voting via Preferential Ballot System, and the award goes to the producers of the film. It is complicated, yes. Preferential voting is the Oscar equivalent of the electoral college, says the American magazine Variety. The electoral system in New York City also votes via preferential ballot.

Best Picture is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible to submit a nomination and vote on the final ballot. More than 10,500 global film industry artists and leaders (actors, writers, directors, costume designers, makeup artists, producers and other film industry professionals) are voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), according to the Academy’s website. The Academy expands its membership each year and, last year, invited nearly 400 industry insiders to join.

The 2024 nominees for the Oscars Best Picture are…

The 10 Best Picture nominees are The Holdovers (produced by Mark Johnson); American Fiction (co-produced by Ben LeClair, Nikos Karamigios, Cord Jefferson and Jermaine Johnson); Anatomy of a Fall (by Marie-Ange Luciani and David Thion); Barbie (David Heyman, Margot Robbie, Tom Ackerley and Robbie Brenner); Killers of the Flower Moon (by Dan Friedkin, Bradley Thomas, Martin Scorsese and Daniel Lupi); Maestro (by Bradley Cooper, Steven Spielberg, Fred Berner, Amy Durning and Kristie Macosko Krieger); Past Lives (by David Hinojosa, Christine Vachon and Pamela Koffler); Poor Things (by Ed Guiney, Andrew Lowe, Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone); The Zone of Interest (by James Wilson); and, the most likely to win, Oppenheimer (by Emma Thomas, Charles Roven and Christopher Nolan, Producers).

What are the criteria for Best Picture?

There are two main categories of criteria for the Best Picture nomination:

·        Baseline Eligibility: These are technical requirements to be considered a movie. The film must be at least 40 minutes long, have a theatrical release, and meet specific quality standards for projection in the US.

·         Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) Standards: Implemented recently, a film needs to fulfill at least two out of four benchmarks focusing on representation on screen, creative leadership, industry access, and audience development.

Who votes for Oscar nominees and winners?

All Academy members, from all 17 branches of the Academy, are eligible to nominate films for best picture award, but for most of the 24 Oscars categories, Academy members vote for nominees within their own field — so, actors nominate actors, editors nominate editors, and so forth. Every Academy member votes for best picture, outside of their respective branch association.

Final votes are conducted online, and the results are tabulated by the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. Only two partners at PwC know the results before they are announced live during the Oscars ceremony.

Ranking system: How is the Best Picture voting happens?

For most categories, the nominee with the most votes wins. But for the Best Picture, it’s a bit more complicated. And while the Oscars says the preferential ballot is the “fairest possible” outcome there have been goof-ups in the past, for instance, when La La Land was announced the Best Picture by mistake before correcting the oversight and awarding the actual winner Moonlight in 2017.

Voters rank the eligible films in order of their preference. If one film receives the majority of the top votes, it's automatically the winner. If no single nominee gets over 50% of the vote, the movie with the fewest votes is eliminated, and the voters who had that film as their number one have their votes count for their next choice. This process continues until one movie gets over 50% of the share. The movie that has 50% plus one vote is the clear winner, the reason for doing such a kind of voting is to maximise the impact of each ballot. This complicated system is to reward a movie that most Academy members like. Members/Voters are encouraged to list the 10 films in order of their preference, listing only one or two votes minimises the impact of their votes.

“Depending on how long it takes to determine a winner, that Academy member’s one vote could ultimately transfer to a number of different movies before ultimately landing in its final resting place,” explains the Los Angeles Times, “And that’s how and why the Oscars’ best picture winner sometimes isn’t the movie that is most passionately loved. Often, it’s the film that is most generally liked — or, for those glass-half-empty types, the picture that is least disliked.”

Let's break it down

·         Ballots with a single rank (only one film listed) are discarded.

·         The votes with the film ranked #1 receive the most points.

·         If no film gets a majority (over 50%) of #1 votes, the film with the fewest #1 votes gets eliminated.

·         Ballots that ranked the eliminated film as #1 are then redistributed to the films ranked #2 on those ballots.

·         This process continues until one film has a majority of points, becoming the Best Picture winner

In fact, the preferential ballot or ranked choice voting system for the Oscars Best Picture can benefit a film like Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Even if it’s not everyone’s absolute favourite, voters who rank it highly on their ballots can contribute to its overall score and a strong performance across the board can lead to victory.

ALSO READ: Why Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer will likely be the 2024 Oscars Best Picture winner?

When the voting system was changed

Starting with films for 2009, the Academy doubled the number of best picture contenders to 10, hoping for more varied fare. Many commenters noted the expansion was likely a response to public criticism of popular films like The Dark Knight and WALL-E (both 2008), among others in previous editions, not being nominated for Best Picture.

At the same time, the voting system was switched from first-past-the-post to instant runoff voting (or preferential ballot/ranked choice voting). In 2011, the Academy revised the rule again so that the number of films nominated was between five and 10; nominated films must earn 5% of first-place rankings. This system lasted until 2021, when the Academy reverted back to a set number of 10 nominees from the 94th Academy Awards onwards.

Oscars season timeline & key dates

The timeline for Best Picture selection involves several stages:

·         October to December: Studios submit eligible films for consideration.

·         December: Voters (Academy members) receive screening links and ballots.

·         January: Voting window opens.

·         February: Nominees announced (typically around late January/early February).

·         Late February/Early March: Voting for the final awards takes place.

·         Mid-March: The Academy Awards ceremony is held, where the Best Picture winner is announced.

The general entry categories submission deadline for the 2023 Oscars season was November 15, 2023. Preliminary voting began 9 am on December 14 to 5 pm on December 18. Oscars Shortlist was announced on December 21 and the eligibility period ended on December 31. Governors Awards were given on January 9. Voting for nominations had begun at 9 am on January 11 and concluded at 5 pm on January 16. Oscars nominations were announced on January 23. The Oscars nominees luncheon was held on February 12. Finals voting began at 9 am on February 22 and concluded at 5 pm on February 27. The Scientific and Technical Awards were announced on February 23. The final results will be announced at the 96th Academy Awards today, on March 10, at 7 pm onwards at Dolby Theatre in the Ovation Hollywood, LA (and can be streamed from 4 am on March 11 in India on Disney+ Hotstar).