The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has approved new and updated substantive rules for the 99th Oscar Awards set for 2027, marking an evolution in standards regarding eligibility, original authorship and global participation.
Headlining the update is a notable change in the actor category. Performers can receive multiple nominations in the same category if their performance ranks in the top five vote-getters, a move that ultimately aligns the performer’s race with the rest of the voting results. The change could neutralize some of the presumed “categorical fraud,” at least for actors with two performances in the same year, where election teams strategically push one turn in support to avoid splitting the vote.
One of the most notable examples was Kate Winslet’s candidacy in 2008, when she campaigned for the lead role in “Revolutionary Road” and supporting role in “The Leader,” winning Golden Globe Awards for both. By the time the Oscar nominations were announced, “The Leader” had been promoted to lead role and “Revolutionary Road” had been shut out. She would end up winning the Best Actress award. Under the previous rules in place, if a performer finished in the top five with two performances in the same category, the one with the most votes would be nominated, and the other would be eliminated. There’s a fair amount of speculation that both of Winslet’s performances were in the top five that year.
The mechanics of acting rules date back to the early days of the Academy Awards. The last notable acting rule change was at the 17th Academy Awards in 1945, when Barry Fitzgerald became the only actor in Oscar history to be nominated for both leading and supporting roles for his role as Father Fitzgibbon in Going My Way (1944). The Academy soon thereafter limited each performance to one nomination.
Effectively, the new framework removes the “body of work” element. This may lead to more duplicate posts within the same category. Last year, Paul Mescal had two controversial lead performances in “The History of Sound” and “Hamnet,” and the team nominated him for supporting actor in the latter. On the morning of his nomination, he received one of the most shocking snubs. Under this rule, that fear might have been alleviated, allowing Mescal to campaign for his turn as playwright William Shakespeare.
Another example is Sebastian Stan, who received double nominations at the 2024 Golden Globe Awards for Best Drama and Best Comedy for his films The Apprentice and A Different Man, winning for the latter but receiving an Oscar nomination for the former. Would he have been double nominated that year? In this new world order, that possibility is very high.
Leonardo DiCaprio stars in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (2006)
Photo by Andrew Cooper
If this rule existed previously, other potential beneficiaries include Leonardo DiCaprio. DiCaprio received critical acclaim for both Blood Diamond and Best Picture winner The Departed (2006). Sean Penn starred in 21 Grams the same year he won for Mystic River (2003). And Jessica Chastain broke out in 2011 (after appearing in seven films), earning a supporting role nomination for The Help and could easily have earned a second slot for The Tree of Life or Take Shelter. Alicia Vikander could have been second-guessed the year she won an Oscar for The Danish Girl, winning acclaim for her role in the sci-fi drama Ex Machina, which earned her Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations in the same season.
Additionally, in the acting category, only roles credited to a film’s legal bill and clearly played by a human being with consent will be considered eligible. This is a source of great tension in the industry after Val Kilmer’s likeness was used in the upcoming film As Deep as the Grave.
The Academy also reserved the right to address generative AI more broadly and request additional information about the nature of its use and the scope of human copyright in submitted films. In the screenplay category, the rules officially codify that a screenplay must be written by a human to be eligible. The organization emphasized that while the rules will continue to evolve with technology, the commitment to human artistry remains the same.
Basically, it looks like writers and actors won’t win Oscars (for the time being).
Another big change has come to the international feature category, allowing multiple films from the same country to be eligible for nomination. We call this change the “Autumn Anatomy” rule.
In addition to submissions from official national or regional selection committees, non-English films can now qualify by winning a designated top prize at one of six recognized festivals. The film festivals and awards included are Berlin International Film Festival (Golden Bear), Busan International Film Festival (Best Picture), Cannes Film Festival (Palme d’Or), Sundance (World Cinema Grand Jury Award), Toronto International Film Festival (Platform Award), and Venice Film Festival (Golden Lion).
This means this year’s Golden Bear winner, “Yellow Letters,” a Turkish-language production by German director Ilker Çatak, will have a little easier time regardless of whether Germany or Turkey submits it. Same goes for Kosovan director Visar Molina’s Shame and Money, which won the Sundance World Cinema Award and is an Albanian-language drama co-produced across Germany, Kosovo, Slovenia, Albania, North Macedonia, and Belgium.
This rule provides a practical path for films to be approved by their country’s submission committee. The most notorious recent example was Justine Triet’s French courtroom drama Anatomy of Fall (2023), which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival but was not selected to represent France at the Academy Awards. Instead, the country chose runner-up “The Taste of Things,” which was not nominated. Anatomy of a Fall was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture, and won Best Original Screenplay.
It also relieves some of the pressure on filmmakers working in difficult political conditions, such as last year’s Palme d’Or winner Jafar Panahi. His It Was Just an Accident was not always considered an Iranian candidate, given his long-standing conflict with the Iranian government. France eventually stepped in as a friendly third-party submitter, the same workaround Germany had used a year earlier with Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Sacred Fig Seed.
As a result, the credit structure for this category has also been tweaked. From now on, the film itself will be credited as a nominee, rather than the country or region, and the director will accept the award on behalf of the creative team. The director’s name appears after the film title on the statue’s plaque, along with the country or region if applicable. As a result, there is a possibility that no country will be designated as an Oscar statuette.
In the Foundry category, the number of statuettes awarded increases from a maximum of two to three. The film department will create a fixed shortlist of 20 films in the preliminary voting round, instead of the previous range of 10 to 20 films.
For makeup and hairstyling, chapter members must attend at least one of the chapter’s two final roundtables to be eligible to vote in the preliminary round. In Visual Effects, all Academy members must watch a three-minute before and after reel of the Visual Effects Bake Off to vote in the final round. The original song category has also been updated accurately. For songs submitted as the first new music cue after the end credits begin, the submitted video clip must include the last 15 seconds of the film before the credits roll.
For the Governor’s Award, winners must represent at least three disciplines during the year.
The Academy has also updated its promotional rules for the campaign. Pre-nomination screenings that involve Q&A sessions or panel discussions may increase the number of moderators from one to two. All ebrust and FYC calendar entries distributed to Academy members through approved mailing companies must include an email address or phone number for inquiries regarding accessibility and disability accommodation, including whether the host theater meets relevant requirements.
These rules are developed by the Awards Committee in collaboration with the Chapter Executive Committee, the International Feature Film Executive Committee, and the Science and Technology Awards Executive Committee, and are subject to final approval by the Board of Directors. All rules, regulations and dates are subject to change.
Key submission deadlines for the 99th Oscars include August 13, 2026 for early short film and documentary entries. General Entry categories, Animated Works, Best Film, and Representation and Inclusion Standards Entry (RAISE) forms September 17th. The international feature film is released on September 30th. The final deadline has been extended to November, with a Bake Off voting event for casting, makeup and hairstyling, and sound and visual effects scheduled for January 8-10, 2027. To be eligible, feature films must have a qualifying theatrical release between January 1, 2026 and December 31, 2026.
The upcoming 2026 nominations are already showing great promise thanks to box office hits like Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s Project Hail Mary and highly anticipated films like Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part 3 and Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s Digger.
The 99th Oscar Ceremony will be held on Sunday, March 14, 2027, followed by the 100th Oscar Ceremony on Sunday, March 5, 2028. Both awards ceremonies will be broadcast live on ABC starting at 7pm ET and broadcast from the Dolby Theater at Ovation Hollywood to more than 200 locations around the world.
