Best Picture Voting Explained: How the Oscars Count the Votes
Clayton Davis Senior Awards Editor Oscar voting is kicking off, and 366 films are vying for the Academy’s attention for best picture, in addition to their selections in their respective branches. One important note to Academy members: Fill out your ballots in full. Every Academy member votes for best picture, outside of their respective branch association. For best picture, the member is invited to list up to five films in preferential order. In the days of paper ballots, there were horror stories of voters writing the same film five times on their entries, but those days are gone with electronic voting. However, listing five films is crucially important based on the Academy tabulation methods, which involves a lot of math. As we remain in the final year of the “sliding scale,” where the results can produce any number of nominees between five and 10, simply put, all lines matter.