{"id":7965087,"date":"2026-02-26T06:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/?p=7965087"},"modified":"2026-02-26T08:53:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T16:53:21","slug":"oscar-voting-2026-new-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thewrap.com\/industry-news\/awards\/oscar-voting-2026-new-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Runaway Favorites, Unsettled Races and New Rules: It\u2019s Time to Vote in Another Odd Oscar Season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n

Like the old story about the blind men and the elephant, this year\u2019s Oscar race<\/a> is a lot of different things, depending on your vantage point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a fait accompli, with Paul Thomas Anderson\u2019s \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d<\/a> seemingly coasting to inevitable Best Picture and Best Director wins and \u201cHamnet\u201d star Jessie Buckley doing the same in the Best Actress category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s a complete mystery, with the Best Supporting Actor and Actress categories completely up in the air, with pundits going for Stellan Skarsgard and Teyana Taylor, betting sites making Sean Penn and Taylor the favorites and TheWrap\u2019s Awards Tracker<\/a> giving the top spots to Jacob Elordi and Wunmi Mosaku.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a sprint, with the Academy using the time constraints of their ABC broadcast as a reason to eliminate performances of three of the Best Original Song nominees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s a marathon, with 35 days between the nominations announcement and the beginning of final voting and 10 more days between the end of final voting and the Oscar show, stretching out a season that began before Labor Day and won\u2019t end until the Ides of March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a ritual, with all the usual signposts along the way: Governors Awards, shortlists, nomination voting, giddy, reaction statements, Nominees Luncheon, interview, campaign stop, rinse, repeat\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it\u2019s an experiment,  thanks to what the Academy called \u201ca procedural change\u201d when it was announced in a press release last April: \u201cAcademy members must now watch all nominated films in each category to be eligible to vote in the final round for the Oscars.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of those things come together on Thursday, Feb. 26, as eight days of final voting begin. Let\u2019s look at where we stand and what it means.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
An Academy email reminding a voter what they have and haven’t watched<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The New Rule<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Academy always wanted voters to watch every film before voting, but they never made it an official requirement, except in certain categories. (More on that in a minute.) But this year, with the rise of the members-only Academy Screening Room as the main viewing portal for nominated films, AMPAS is tracking what its members watch and insisting that they see every nominee in a category before they can vote in that category. And the organization hasn’t been subtle about it: In recent weeks, members have been getting a steady stream of emails reminding them of what they\u2019ve seen and what they still need to see, listing the categories in which they\u2019ve qualified to vote and the ones in which they haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most members we\u2019ve talked to support the new rule while also being annoyed by all those emails \u2013 but then, the Academy has been known for being on the nagging side as voting approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\tRead Next<\/strong>
\n\t\t\tOne Movie After Another: Paul Thomas Anderson's Casting Director Tells All<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Where voting in some preliminary categories requires members to identify where and when they\u2019ve seen a film outside the ASR, final voting is essentially on the honor system. The Academy knows when a member streams a film on the platform, but voters also have the option of clicking on a \u201cMark Watched\u201d button to certify that they\u2019ve seen the film elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Assuming that voters are honest and they do see all the nominees before voting in any category, one big question is whether that will affect the outcomes. More than a decade ago, the international and documentary categories had rules in place that restricted voting to people who\u2019d seen all five nominees in a theater, which simultaneously reduced the number of voters in those categories and led to some major upsets: \u201cThe Lives of Others\u201d over \u201cPan\u2019s Labyrinth\u201d in international, \u201cBorn Into Brothels\u201d over \u201cSuper Size Me\u201d in documentary \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With movies more accessible on the site and the theatrical viewing requirement eliminated, the potential for upsets like those is reduced. But it can\u2019t be discounted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Paul Thomas Anderson, Teyona Taylor, Chase Infiniti and producer Sara Murphy backstage after winning the Golden Globe for “One Battle After Another” (Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Best Picture Race<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s a question I\u2019ve been hearing a lot out on the circuit: \u201cIt\u2019s over, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It, in this case refers to the Best Picture category, and my answer is generally along the lines of \u201cWell, it feels<\/em> like it is.\u201d \u201cOne Battle After Another\u201d has won pretty much everything there is to win \u2013 from the Critics Choice Awards, where it was thought to be neck-and-neck with \u201cSinners,\u201d to BAFTA, where \u201cHamnet\u201d seemingly had home-court advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conventional wisdom says that it can seal the deal on Saturday by winning at the Producers Guild Awards, the only other major awards show that uses the same ranked-choice voting system that the Oscars uses for Best Picture. There is one thing to keep in mind, though: For some reason, PGA voting ended a full 25 days before the results are being announced. So if there\u2019s been any kind of recent, underground momentum in favor of  any of the rivals to \u201cOne Battle,\u201d it won\u2019t be reflected in the Producers Guild results, which will show us how those voters were feeling a month ago, not how they\u2019re feeling now.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Ethan\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\tRead Next<\/strong>
\n\t\t\tWhy Ethan Hawke Needed Shattered Confidence to Play Lorenz Hart in 'Blue Moon'<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

I keep mulling over alternate scenarios to see if any of them make sense. Since ranked-choice voting eliminates the films with the fewest No. 1 votes and redistributes those ballots to other films ranked near the top of those voters\u2019 ballots, could \u201cHamnet\u201d get a surge from voters whose first choices were, say, \u201cTrain Dreams\u201d and \u201cSentimental Value?\u201d Could the wildness of \u201cSinners\u201d appeal more to voters whose ballots were topped by \u201cBugonia\u201d and \u201cFrankenstein?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those scenarios aren\u2019t impossible, I suppose, but \u201cOne Battle\u201d feels as if it\u2019s the kind of film that\u2019ll have a nearly insurmountable lead after all the No. 1 votes are counted. To paraphrase Bob Dylan\u2019s \u201cIt\u2019s Not Dark Yet,\u201d it\u2019s not over yet\u2026but it\u2019s gettin\u2019 there.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Delroy Lindo (Photo by Michael Rowe\/Getty Images for IMDb)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Crazy Acting Categories<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Our Awards Tracker maven Casey Loving will have more to say about this on Friday, but it really is remarkable how jumbled the supporting actor and actress races have gotten. I can easily see a scenario in which each one of the five Best Supporting Actor nominees can win, and one in which four out of the five Best Supporting Actress nominees take the trophy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a way, I kind of hope that SAG-AFTRA voters throw a huge monkey wrench into these categories by giving Sunday\u2019s Actor Awards to Miles Caton and Ariana Grande, who aren\u2019t nominated for Oscars. That would be the piece de resistance in two wild and wooly races.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\""One
“One Battle After Another” (Warner Bros. Pictures)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Damn Calendar<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I know the Winter Olympics are thought to make things difficult for the Oscars, which don\u2019t want to go up against the closing ceremony. But really, why is the season stretched out so long this year? Is that month-long gap between nominations and final voting there because the Academy thinks its members need that much time to catch up with the movies they just nominated? And what about the supersized gap between the end of voting and the Oscar show? The accountants at PwC definitely don\u2019t need that much time to tally the votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve heard that the longer gap after voting is popular with nominees because it gives them more time to rest and not worry about campaigning, and popular with ABC because it frees the network up to run ads that can favor the better-known nominees in a way that would be untoward while voting was still going on. But it also makes the season feel endless, and it leads to other oddities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance: Do members of the American Society of Cinematographers really need 51 days in which to cast their final ballots? Does the Producers Guild really want its members to vote by Feb. 3 and then wait until Feb. 28 to find out who won? And will anybody, anywhere, feel anything but relief when the final envelope is opened at the Dolby Theatre on, appropriately enough, the Ides of March?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, I make my living writing about awards season, and I would be delighted if there were less of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, it\u2019s time to vote. Let\u2019s wrap up yet another odd awards season.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n\t
\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Delroy\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\tRead Next<\/strong>
\n\t\t\tHow Did Delroy Lindo Beat the Odds as an Oscar Nominee?<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year’s Oscar season has been a lot of different things: boring, thrilling, confusing, endless…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1482,"featured_media":7965089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-full-width-with-ads","format":"standard","meta":{"byline":{"profiles":[{"type":"byline_id","atts":{"term_id":504357,"post_id":7302600}}]},"_links_to":"","_links_to_type":0,"nb_breaking_email_type":"748ab317-e4f3-4ae0-9786-7a9d01f09fd9","nb_breaking_template":"pro-single-story.html","nb_breaking_from_name":"TheWrap Awards","nb_breaking_subject":"","nb_breaking_preview":"","nb_breaking_list":[],"nb_breaking_header_img":7562034,"nb_breaking_should_send":false,"nb_breaking_content":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Discover why entertainment executives and professionals rely on the WrapPRO platform daily for exclusive coverage, analysis, deeper reporting, and access to VIP events & screenings throughout the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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