How many votes does a film need to receive a nomination for Best Picture at the Oscars?

For most of its existence, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has maintained an aura of fame surrounding its highest honor, Oscar for best film. There have been huge missteps in this category to be sure (eg "How Green Was My Valley" over "Citizen Kane" in 1941, "Driving Miss Daisy" over even the nominated "Do the Right Thing" in 1989, and Green Book over anything projected on the big screen in 2018), but for the most part, Academy voters end up zeroing in on a worthy winner; that movie might not be your favorite of the year, but you can at least root for it to take home the top prize.

One of the reasons why the Best Picture Oscar is so coveted is that everyone in the AMPAS membership, from actors to publicists, can participate in the nomination process. Whereas nominees in other categories tend to be decided by members of each branch, Best Picture is a free-for-all, making it the truest reflection of how the industry feels about the state of movies (and, to some extent, society ) in that given year. Sometimes a film hits hard at the moment ("The Best Years of Our Lives" may be the best example of this), while other times a film is clearly a timeless classic upon arrival (like "The Silence of the Lambs").

So how does a film rise above the vast majority of its competition to become a Best Picture nominee? There is an actual number of votes that will pass the movie threshold and it changes from year to year.

The Best Picture category has a magic number

For most of the Academy Awards' existence (ie from 1944 to 2008), the Best Picture category was awarded to five nominees each year. This changed in 2009 when AMPAS expanded the field in response to criticism over critically acclaimed blockbusters like The Dark Knight failing to make the final five. Initially, the size of this expansion will be determined each year depending on the total vote; the field could be as large as 10 and as small as five. Finally, the Academy has moved to a fixed field of 10 nominees, which is probably good news for box office smash as "Wicked" and perhaps Gladiator II (if only because last year's Best Director winner Christopher Nolan is going for it).

Over the past year, AMPAS has added 108 members, bringing its total voting membership to 9,905 (in case you were wondering, the Actors Branch is still the largest at 1,258 members, but the Performs Branch, currently at 758, is gaining more members every year - that is no excellent comment on the artistic values ​​of AMPAS). This means the magic number needed to lock in a Best Picture nomination in 2024 is 901 first-place votes. This total is obtained through ranked choice voting, with each member submitting a list of anywhere between their top five and 10 films of the year.

In relation to the counting of these votes, the first place selections are determined first. The lowest-ranked films are then eliminated, at which point second-place votes are tallied, and so on. And in this way, the Academy will arrive at the last 10 nominees for the best film, which will be announced on January 17, 2025. I was told that Madame Web had already been eliminated.



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