The votes have all been counted in Hollywood, California. Millions of people around the world will watch the Oscars on Sunday, the glitziest night in show business, but most of them have no idea how the winners are selected.
The honorees are chosen by more than 9,300 people in the entertainment industry. The figure is a new high. But who are they, and how did they end up on the ballot?
Here’s a glimpse at the complicated, often perplexing mechanism that leads to the 23 Academy Award winners.
Who votes?
There are officially 9,362 voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles.
Candidates must be involved or have “achieved distinction” in the industry, and membership is divided into 17 branches – actors, directors, producers, costume designers, and so on.
Two Academy members from the applicant’s division must fund them.
Oscar winners and candidates are automatically accepted into the club and do not need sponsorship.
The Academy’s Board of Governors reviews applications once a year and has the final say over who joins the prestigious club.
To avoid getting voters who are no longer interested in the sector, “voting status” has been limited to ten years and is reversible since 2016.
Only after three 10-year terms should you get lifetime voting rights. Many that are no longer participating are designated as “emeritus” members and are unable to vote.
Who are the Academy members?
The Academy has kept its voting list secret for a long time, but nothing prohibits a member from claiming to be able to vote.
The Academy announced that 93 percent of its 6,000 members were white and 76 percent were men during the #OscarsSoWhite controversy in 2015 and 2016, over the absence of candidates of colour. The average age was 63 years old.
To cultivate a more diverse climate, the Academy declared it will double the number of women and minorities members by 2020.
The company declared last summer that it had achieved that aim. One-third of the Academy’s members are women, and 19 percent are “underrepresented minorities.”
The group’s international membership has also increased dramatically. More than 2,100 people are still non-citizens of the United States.
How are the nominees chosen?
Each of the 17 divisions selects candidates in their respective fields of expertise. The largest voting party, the actors’ branch, submits nominations for acting categories, while directors submit nominations for best director, and so on.
Unique committees select nominees for such honours, such as best foreign film and best animated picture.
The best picture candidates are chosen by a majority of the entire membership.
How are the winners chosen?
The winners are chosen by all of the voting participants.
In 22 of the 23 categories, the person who receives the most votes wins.
However, since 2009, Oscar voters have used a complex preferential ballot system in which they rate films from most favourite to least favourite while voting for the prestigious best picture award.
Five to ten candidates can be chosen; this year, eight films are up for consideration.
If a film receives more than 50% of the votes, it is declared the winner.
Otherwise, the vote is counted in rounds, with the film with the fewest first-place votes being discarded and those votes being distributed to the voters’ second preference.
The elimination process continues until only one film remains with more than 50% of the vote.
“The idea of the preferential ballot is to represent the preferences of the largest number of voters,” said Ric Robertson, who was the Academy’s chief operating officer when the procedure was updated in 2009.
“Otherwise, you could end up with a film that 25% of the people enjoy and the rest despise,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
“Hopefully, you’ll end up with a winner that most people will live with.”