New requirement for the 94th Academy Awards

The Oscars are returning to a set number of 10 nominees for Best Picture, rather than the recent rule that between five and 10 films could be nominated depending on vote totals. This is clearly in hopes of getting more popular crowd-pleasers in contention and hopefully helping dwindling ratings that hit an all-time low for the April 25 telecast on ABC (admittedly severely impacted by Covid considerations and theaters being closed all year for the most part). By the way, although not mentioned in today’s release or in the actual rules document, the Academy Inclusion Standards form kicks into action with the 94th Oscars and will be required as part of the submissions process, but still not go into actual working effect until the 96th awards. This of course is all about meeting certain standards of diversity in the actual making of Best Picture contenders.

Tweaks to the rules also include a significant change in the Music branch, where now only 35% of total music in a film is necessary to be eligible, down from 60%. Also, for Original Song, no more than five tunes from a single film can now be entered for consideration. For the Sound award, which last year was reduced from two to one category combining mixing and editing, there will now be a preliminary round of voting to get a shortlist of 10 films, along with a bakeoff-style presentation similar to that used in some other branches.

The Academy board also agreed to expand the shortlist of contenders for Documentary Short, Animated Short and Live Action Short from 10 to 15 films.