And the Oscar goes to… Who picks the winners?

It is the day of Hollywood’s biggest night. The 98th Academy Awards are being announced on Sunday (March 15) as cinephiles around the world watch with their eyes glued to their screens.

Nicknamed "the Oscars," the ceremony is expected to be full of glamour, pizzazz and emotions. As nominees vie for the gold-plated statuettes, who decides the winners?

Let’s check out.

What's the Academy?

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences boasts more than 10,500 “global film industry artists and leaders”, as per the Academy’s website.

These members, divided among 17 branches, include actors, writers, directors, costume designers, makeup artists, producers and other film industry professionals.

Anyone can become a member of the Academy, given that they are involved in the movie business in some capacity and have “demonstrated exceptional achievement in the field of theatrical motion pictures”.

More from Explainers

Why are Oscar statuettes are only worth $1?

5 reasons why fans think Oscars 2026 nominations are controversial

The Academy expands its membership each year. To become a member, the person has to be sponsored by two existing members.

All Oscar nominees are automatically considered for the Academy’s membership.

In recent years, the Academy has attempted to diversify its membership by inviting more women, people of colour and filmmakers from across the globe, as per Vanity Fair. 

Who decides nominees?

Nominees are selected by members of the relevant branch. For example, actors nominate actors, directors nominate directors, writers nominate writers and so on.

All voting members can nominate films for Best Picture. Best international feature film and best animated feature have their own nomination rules.

For the 98th Academy Awards, nominations voting began on January 12 and ended on January 16. Nominations were declared on January 22.

Final voting opened on February 26 and closed on March 5.

How are Oscar winners selected?

According to the Academy, its voting groups are “limited to film artists working in the production of theatrically released motion pictures” and members are split into 17 branches.

All Academy members vote for winners in all categories. This means that actors, directors, writers, costume designers, etc., will cast their votes for Best Actor and so on.

Earlier, Academy members were not required to see every best picture nominee before voting. But a new rule was announced last year. Now, members must watch all nominated films in each category to be able to vote in the final round for the Oscars.

Voting takes place entirely online.

A worker retouches the backdrop as preparations are made on the red carpet arrivals area ahead of the 98th Annual Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, on March 13, 2026. AFP

For almost every Oscar category, the nominee who gets the most votes is declared the winner.

The results are calculated by the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has been tallying all the Oscar votes since 1935.

What about Best Picture?

The voting process for Best Picture is different.

Since 2009, the Academy has used a preferential ballot system to determine Best Picture.

Under this, members rank the movies in order of preference. This is being done to ensure that the eventual best picture winner is the film most widely preferred by the entire Academy.

According to the Academy website, “Voting members rank the best picture nominees – 1 to 10 – from their favourite to their least favourite. The film that gets 50 per cent or more of the votes is the winner. If one movie doesn't get 50 per cent out of the gate, the one with the fewest votes is eliminated, and the members who voted for that as their top choice have their votes added to the film that was next on their list.”

For example, if a member chose Movie A as their first choice and that movie gets out of the race due to a lack of votes, given that no film has received a majority, then that member's ballot goes to the movie they put as their second preference.

This goes on until a clear winner emerges.

Does anyone know the winners beforehand?

Only two PricewaterhouseCoopers partners know the results beforehand, as per the Academy website. Each partner stays in the Dolby Theatre's wings during the ceremony with a full set of winners' envelopes. They hand over the sealed envelope to the winner.

With inputs from agencies