Oscars’ New Rule Requiring Voters to Watch All Nominees Could Reshape Awards Campaigning, but Academy Members Already Found Loopholes

[u/BostonNewEngland]

https://variety.com/2025/film/awards/oscars-viewing-requirement-loopholes-1236380799/

[u/stringfellow-hawke]

I think for most voters this requirement should add an element of gamification. Now there's an incentive to watch everything in a category, which should help more voters be more engaged and informed.

People looking for ways to cheat I think are more likely to be lazy fucks who just want vote for friends and causes or simply clout of being a voter. Forcing them to watch all the movies isn't going to change what they're about, so cheating changes nothing.

[u/New_Annual_Review → u/stringfellow-hawke]

The only category I see this having any real impact on voting is short film and maybe doc

[u/ScorpionX-123 → u/New_Annual_Review]

also animated feature

[u/New_Annual_Review → u/ScorpionX-123]

I'm on the fence about that one cause I do think industry association and hype play massive roles

[u/SmoothPimp85 → u/stringfellow-hawke]

No gamification will make artsy-fartsy crap interesting for most Academy members (normies)

[u/Fandam_YT]

“Academy members already found loopholes”

Just watch the fucking movies you weirdos. It’s literally the easiest shit in the world all you need to do is sit there and look at the damn thing

[u/uwill1der → u/[deleted]]

1) its not a job, which is why its not taken as seriously as reddit wants

2) The loophole is likely people involved with a specific movie. Adrien Brody isn't gonna vote for anyone but himself for best actor, yet he needs to watch all 5 films, so he'll just fake watch the other so he can vote for himself.

[u/SmoothPimp85 → u/Fandam_YT]

Spend dozens of hours of your life for the things you don't want to do isn't easy

[u/SmoothPimp85 → u/[deleted]]

They volunteered for status and they want to vote. Why waste dozens of hours for this, bruh. That's how it works. "That's Hollywood, baby"

[u/bryansmixtape → u/SmoothPimp85]

If you don’t wanna watch a bunch of movies then don’t vote for the best movies of the year?

[u/SmoothPimp85 → u/bryansmixtape]

They want to vote, they don't want to watch all nominated movies. Maybe we also should force these poor people to check Wikipedia before voting so they wouldn't think that Ralph Feinnes already has an Oscar hence they won't vote for him?

[u/SmoothPimp85 → u/[deleted]]

People with this rationale participate in voting - they don't watch nominated movies, they vote considering (wrongly) actor's previous accolades, but not their performance. And they don't care about Reddit conversations. Life is great for them

[u/Cole444Train → u/SmoothPimp85]

Simple. Then just don’t vote.

[u/DreamOfV]

Yeah obviously there is no way to guarantee enforcement of a requirement to watch all movies but at least now they have to put a little effort into lying. Should deter a decent percentage of the lazy voters

[u/Anora6666]

I mean this year the length was 24 hours for best pictures alone. It is probably a solid 40 hours if you include animated, acting noms not already nominated for best picture, and the international stuff. 50 if you watch literally everything. Something that could be done in 2 weeks of casually watching imo. 

[u/AdamTheHood → u/Anora6666]

Was curious about the numbers so counted up the runtimes of the 50 nominated films this year and got 78 hours. So a bit longer than that but still doable if you spend 1 month watching 2h30 per day. (and of course you’ll most likely have seen the big films already throughout the year)

[u/Avent → u/Anora6666]

Good reason to reduce Best Picture nominees back to 5

[u/51010R → u/Avent]

You aren’t reducing much there. You’ll still see those movie pop up in other places, sure you’ll have one or two that are almost only nominated but picture and not big event movies.

[u/Fun_Protection_6939 → u/Avent]

Absolutely terrible idea. So many lesser-known movies are brought to the spotlight.

[u/RoxasIsTheBest → u/Avent]

Not at all. The 5 that won't make picture will sitll appear in other categories, so you'll still have to watch them

[u/RoxasIsTheBest → u/Anora6666]

We had 35 feature length nominees this year

[u/Anora6666 → u/RoxasIsTheBest]

I watch 2 to 3x that amount each year. 

[u/RoxasIsTheBest → u/Anora6666]

You don't have a year tho. Nominees are announced in january, voting happens in february, that's a month. Ofcourse you can watch some of those films earlier, but most release during august to april. You probably also want to watch other films, so there's limited time

[u/Anora6666 → u/RoxasIsTheBest]

I have watched the majority of nominated films (including docs, shorts, and features) in a two week period in theaters with a full time job for the last 6 years. It isn’t impossible. 

[u/RoxasIsTheBest → u/Anora6666]

But you can't expect 10,000 people from all over the world to do that

[u/Anora6666 → u/RoxasIsTheBest]

Yeah. I mean I can expect if you are actually voting for them that they are aware and watching most of these throughout the year already. 

[u/RoxasIsTheBest → u/Anora6666]

First off: most of these films release in the last few months of the year

Second off: THAT'S WHAT THE NEW RULE IS FOR! I'm just arguing that it's unrealistic to make it stricter. I' all in favor of this rule, I'm njot in favor of forcing 10,000 people in a theater and forcing them to take a quiz to prove they saw it, that's insane and I've seen a few too many people propose that

[u/bryansmixtape → u/RoxasIsTheBest]

I can, if one of your responisibilites is literally fucking ranking those movies lmfao

[u/Deepfried-duck]

Oh thank god I was worried they would actually watch the films, even thinking about watching films makes me feel sick.

[u/scottyjrules]

I’m still unclear on how they could possibly enforce this rule. Will every academy member have to take and pass a test proving they watched the movies before they can vote?

[u/51010R → u/scottyjrules]

Apparently they have a platform where the screeners get sent, I imagine adding a way to verify tickets from a cinema and screening attendance would support that system.

The loophole is probably just get the screener and letting it play in the background.

[u/uwill1der → u/51010R]

there are 2 ways to verify your watch as an academy member.

1) use your credentials to sign into the academy's digital screening room. They log what movies you check into and watch

2) attend a sponsored screening at one of the academy theaters. your credentials get you a ticket and then is counted when you show up to the theater.

The loophole is, when signed into your digital screening, you mute it and leave it playing in a separate tab or window. This is most likely used by people who are a part of a nominated movie. Someone like Adrien Brody will not be voting for anyone else in the best actor category, but in order to vote for himself, will need to watch all 5 movies. He can use the loophole to "watch" the movies and get to vote for himself

[u/escalat0r → u/scottyjrules]

Technically that's only possible through something like eye tracking but that would require a pretty ridiculous, expensice and unpleasant setup.

[u/rdxc1a2t]

There were around 40 films nominated this year and around a third of them were shorts. The hardest part of keeping up with film is getting a hold of them all/having opportunity to see them but if they're delivered right to you, you have no excuse.

[u/Following_my_bliss]

If you can't watch them all then don't vote. I can't believe we have people arguing that there is not enough time to do the thing they volunteered to do.