The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are one of the most renowned honours in the movie industry.

Behind the front line every one knows — that is red carpets, emotional speeches and the anticipation associated with the wins — there is a carefully prepared, complex, and sometimes faulty procedure that determines which movies and artists receive the prestigoeus accolade.

What is the Academy?

The Oscars are organised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), which was founded in 1927.

As of today, the Academy has over 10,000 members from around the world, including actors, directors, writers, costume designers, composers and many other professionals connected to the film industry.

Membership of the Academy is by invitation only, with each candidate needing to be sponsored by two active members from the branch they wish to join. All Oscar nominees, however, are automatically considered for the membership in the Academy, and do not need to be sponsored.

After public backlash, the Academy made efforts to make their membership more diverse — for a couple of years now, it invites new members every year, with new members reflecting the global diversity of filmmaking.

How to get a nomination?

To qualify for the Oscars, films have to meet certain requirements. Most importantly, they must have had a commercial theatrical release in Los Angeles County, New York City, the Bay Area, Chicago, Miami, or Atlanta theatre between January 1 and December 31 of the award year, run for at least 7 consecutive days, and have a running length of over 40 minutes.

Some categories, however, have different rules, in order to recognise films that are produced or distributed differently from the mainstream feature films. For example, International Feature Films are usually released primarily in their home countries rather than in the United States, and Documentaries or Short films often reach the audiences through limited screenings instead of longer commercial theatrical runs. In consequence, such categories follow alternative qualification rules.

How members vote?

The voting is a two-step process. In the first round, Oscar candidates are nominated by the members of the Academy. In the second, they vote for the winners in each category. Voting takes place entirely online, using a secret voting ballot.

The first round of the Oscars voting process starts with nominations, during which Academy members vote within their own branches to select nominees – actors nominate actors, directors nominate directors, and so on.

There are some exceptions to this process as well, such as Best Picture or Best International Feature Film where all Academy members can select the nominees. Every Academy member may pick as many as five candidates for their own branch, listing them by preference.

For the second and final part of this process, Academy members choose the winners among the nominees for each category. This time, every active or lifetime Academy member is allowed to vote for candidates in any category, although they are discouraged to vote within branches in which they lack expertise.

In most cases, this process goes smoothly, but there have been mistakes, resulting in humiliating scenes that reverberated through the media. One of the most famous examples would be the 2017 ceremony, during which one of the PwC accountants handed the wrong envelope to Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, so they announced La La Land as the winner of the Best Picture, instead of Moonlight. Correction of the error resulted in chaos on stage.

This complicated process of keeping the results of the vote secret may seem designed to result in mistakes – but in itself it is a result of a scandal dating back to the 1940s, the list of the winners was leaked and The Los Angeles Times published the names before the ceremony.

The system is by no means failsafe. In 2000, the Oscars ceremony was a complete mess – that year, 55 statuettes had been stolen and more than 4,000 ballots had been lost in mail, making it one of the most chaotic moments in the Academy’s history.

Despite these calamities, the Oscars ceremony is still catching attention, generating interest in winning and nominated films, and giving both traditional and social media plenty of opportunities for heated discussions about how the Academy members’ choices align with the expectations of the audience.

As we too look forward to finding out who the winners will be, and whether any unfortunate slips or controversial sightings will take place this year – tune in with the Harbingers’ Film & Book Club, which will follow the Oscars closely!