The Oscars' New Voting Rules Explained & Why It's So Important

The Academy Awards have announced several big changes that will take effect in the 2026 ceremony, the most recent of which changes a long-standing rule that could mᴀssively impact future winners. This new change comes shortly after several other big announcements concerning changes to the Oscars in coming years. In past weeks, the Academy announced the creation of a new Stunt Design category for 2028. A year before that, a Best Achievement in Casting category was announced which will go into effect for films this year.

The additional categories are a great change to the Oscars, which dedicated industry professionals have been campaigning years for. While these additions make complete sense, the Academy’s newest update on voting rules does have some viewers puzzled as to why it wasn’t implemented sooner. The 2025 Oscar winners were widely celebrated and deserving of their awards, but the new change could have actually altered the results and will certainly make voting fairer in future years, making it a necessary addition.

The Oscars Have Added A New Rule Requiring Watching All Movies In A Category To Vote

Voters Will No Longer Be Able To Vote For Movies They Haven’t Seen

The Academy has recently announced that they will change their rules for the upcoming 2026 Oscars to require all voters to have seen all the nominated movies to be able to vote. This rule is per category, meaning that viewers would still be able to vote in some categories provided they have seen each of its nominees. For example, if a voter has not seen every nominee in the Best Animated Feature category, they would not be able to vote for it, but they could still vote for Best Picture if they have seen every Best Picture nominee.

In order to enforce this new rule, Academy voters will have to provide proof that they have screened the films, otherwise the digital ballot will not allow voters access to the incomplete category. When speaking to Entertainment Weekly, an Academy spokesperson stated that a member’s screenings are tracked by the Academy Screening Room service. Either watching movies through this service or completing a “seen elsewhere form” will ensure that each Academy member has access to vote in their completed categories.

Why The Oscars Didn’t Already Require Voters To Watch Every Movie & How It Worked

Members Were Voting On The Honor System

The Academy’s new system for voting seems straightforward enough, so perhaps the better question is why this was not already standard procedure. The Academy’s members are likely very busy, and the old system takes into account that voters may not have time to watch every movie. To reflect this, the voting guidelines were largely based on the honor system, ᴀssuming that members would vote as fairly as possible given the films that they had seen.

Per the Oscars’ 2024 guidelines, Academy members were “asked to watch as many films as possible and only vote for the films that they have actually seen.” This ruling ᴀssumes that film industry professionals would likely want to watch the films, but simply may not get around to seeing them all. However, the wording does subtly highlight how the former guidelines did automatically rule out potentially great films, as voters were encouraged not to vote for movies that they had not seen rather than ruling out categories that were incomplete.

In essence, then, the new ruling is simply a stronger enforcement of what the Academy already hoped that its voters were doing.

That being said, the guidelines do state that voters are able to omit categories if they do not feel qualified to make a solid choice or if they have not seen enough of the entries. In essence, then, the new ruling is simply a stronger enforcement of what the Academy already hoped that its voters were doing. Though Oscar voters likely were not trying to be unfair, the new rule will definitely help ensure that voters are fully knowledgeable before casting their ballots.

How The New Voting Rules Will Impact The Oscars 2026

People Will Actually Have To Watch The Movies Before Choosing A Winner

The new voting rule will definitely have a positive impact on the Oscars in future years because it will allow each of the nominees to start out on equal footing. It confirms that people will actually have to watch all the movies they are voting on, which stands in contrast to previous years when some anonymous voters revealed they had not watched the nominees. This became the case for the 2025 Oscars when some voters acknowledged that they had not watched The Brutalist of Dune: Part Two because of the length of the films.

This means that these films are overlooked automatically when members begin voting based on the Oscars’ own guidelines.

If voters are willing to overlook great movies that have long runtimes or fall outside of viewers’ tastes, those movies automatically lose ground compared to other nominees. This means that these films are overlooked automatically when members begin voting based on the Oscars’ own guidelines. With the new rule firmly in place for 2026, this will no longer be the case, meaning that movies which would have been overshadowed in the past could now become Academy Awards favorites.

Sources: Entertainment Weekly, Oscars Guidelines