Bad news for Academy members who aren’t Kirsten Dunst, but in an announcement from the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, members will have to watch every film in a category in order to vote in that category starting with the 2026 Oscars. This is one of several changes the Academy has made in recent years, including adding a Casting Oscar starting in 2026 and a Stunt Design Oscar starting in 2027. Prior to this shift, which will track members’ viewing on the Academy’s screening-room app as well as ask them to fill out a survey if they saw a movie at a festival or in a theater, no Academy member was required to see anything in particular. That meant if you wanted to, say, only watch Emilia Pérez and vote for Emilia Pérez down the line all the way, that was a feasible strategy for an awards body that arguably cements that which is essential and valuable in art.
For years, people have wondered how actors (and writers, directors, editors, composers, costume designers, and so forth) make the time to see all the movies up for nomination each year when they’re expected to continue doing their jobs during awards season. Short answer: They didn’t! But that time is over. Will suddenly requiring the members of the Academy to actually watch all the movies — or as many as they can in each category —result in a change in winners? It’s too soon to know, but without the convenient luxury of simply voting down the line for their friends’ movies, maybe there will be room in future years for performers in smaller films on the bubble of nominations to get the necessary push they need. What’s more, we might see fewer long movies in the mix, given everyone now has to set aside time to sit and watch the films. Is this all The Brutalist’s fault? Did Anora take home Oscar gold because it was a rollicking 70 minutes shorter? Probably not, but the landscape may come to resemble that of the BAFTAs, which implemented a like-minded strategy last year.
Of course, as in any system with rules, members will likely find viable workarounds so they don’t have to see something they don’t want to, whether it’s because their ex is involved in a nominated movie (do we think Kathyrn Bigelow is really watching those Avatar sequels?) or because they don’t have three and a half hours, even with an intermission. But these solutions might be complicated or convoluted: setting up the screener app in your home theater and walking away, sending a lookalike to a festival to sit through low-budget, moody debut features, or hiring a CalTech student to make a plug-in that lets you watch nominated films at 1.5 speed. If celebrities are good at anything, it’s finding a way out of systems that the rest of us otherwise have to endure. That said, for any Academy member out there who might be looking to toss their Academy Screening Room digital log-in to a lowly entertainment blogger, you know where to find me.
