Oscars Revises Rules for Acting Categories

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is setting up a new framework for the subsequent editions of the Awards ceremonies.

The Academy has approved a substantive slate of new and updated rules for the 99th Oscars, set for 2027, showing its evolving standards around eligibility, authorship and global inclusion, reports ‘Variety’.

Headlining the updates is a notable shift in the acting categories. Performers may now receive multiple nominations in the same category if their performances rank among the top five vote-getters, a move that finally aligns the acting races with the rest of the ballot. The change has the potential to neutralize some of the presumed “category fraud”, at least for actors with two performances in play in the same year, in which a campaign team strategically pushes one turn into supporting to dodge a vote split.

As per ‘Variety’, one of the most notable examples was Kate Winslet’s 2008 run, when she campaigned in lead for ‘Revolutionary Road’ and supporting for ‘The Reader’, winning Golden Globes in both. By the time Oscar nominations were announced, ‘The Reader’ had been elevated to lead, and ‘Revolutionary Road’ was shut out. She would eventually win Best Actress.

Under the previous rules in place until now, if a performer landed in the top five with two performances in the same category, the higher-vote-getter would be declared the nominee, and the other would be removed. There’s a fair assumption that both of Winslet’s performances were in the top five of her given year.

The acting rule mechanism dates to the earliest days of the Academy Awards. The last notable acting rule change came at the 17th Academy Awards in 1945, when Barry Fitzgerald became the only performer in Oscar history to receive nominations for both lead and supporting actor for the same role, Father Fitzgibbon in ‘Going My Way’. The Academy soon after limited each performance to a single nomination.