How the Academy Awards use ranked choice voting to choose the Best Picture
At last night’s 97th Academy Awards, the big winner was Anora, which took home five awards including Best Picture. Anora’s win – and the entire Oscars broadcast – are a testament to thousands of talented artists… but they also wouldn’t be possible without ranked choice voting (RCV).
In January, FairVote wrote about how the Academy uses proportional ranked choice voting to choose a diverse set of nominees for its awards – reflecting the wide range of Academy voters’ views. For instance, among the nominees for Best Picture were serious indies like Anora and Nickel Boys, alongside the sci-fi spectacle Dune: Part Two and big-budget crowd-pleasing musical Wicked – films with tones that couldn’t be more different.
However, the Oscars don’t just use RCV for nominations. In this post, we’ll focus on how the Academy uses RCV to give out its most prestigious award: the Best Picture winner.
RCV was introduced for Best Picture category following controversy in 2009, when Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight was not nominated despite both mass critical acclaim and commercial success due to its memorable, Oscar-winning villain; thrilling plot; and top-notch special effects.
The Academy expanded the Best Picture category to 10 nominees, and implemented RCV to ensure the winning film had both deep and wide support from members. Since then, Best Picture voters get a wider range of choices, and the ability to rank their favorite films of the year in order of preference. Gone are the days when a film could win just because other films “split the vote.”
Rather than having a method where… [you’re voting] against something, it was about shifting it to being more about voting in the affirmative, voting for the ones that you love, the ones that you respond to.
– Tom Oyer, former senior vice president of member relations and awards at the Academy
This year, enter Anora – a consensus powerhouse that picked up five major awards, winning in marquee categories like Best Actress and Best Director in addition to Best Picture. Ranked choice voting means that many Academy members passionately support it, and nearly all members of the Academy can find something about it they like.
The reasons the Academy has embraced RCV – better choices and more representative winners – are the same reasons Americans all over the country have embraced it. Right now, RCV is reaching nearly 14 million voters across 51 cities, counties, and states – and that doesn’t even account for the roughly 100 colleges and universities, and dozens of businesses and organizations, using it too.
Whether your organization is selecting its favorite film, or your country is picking its head of state, RCV is the best way to do it. To win adoption of RCV in your community, find an RCV group in your state!
Hungry for even more Oscars content? Check out our webinar with Tom Oyer, who played a critical role in modernizing the Academy’s voting processes, including expanding the use of proportional RCV!