The process for determining the winner of the Best Picture category at the Academy Awards is different from the process used to determine the winners in the other 22 categories. In the other categories, the winner is chosen by popular vote, meaning that voters select just one nominee and the nominee with the most votes wins the award. However, the winner of the Best Picture category is determined using a modified version of the preferential voting system that was used to determine the nominees in the other categories. This means that the winner of the Best Picture category is not necessarily the nominee with the most votes, but rather the nominee that has the most support from the voters. The exact details of how this modified preferential voting system works are not specified in the context provided.
The Academy reintroduced the method of preferential voting for the final Best Picture ballot in 2010 when it increased the number of nominees in this category to 10 for the first time since 1943. This method was kept in place in 2011 when the number of nominees was changed to between five and 10. The Academy believes that this method of voting “best allows the collective judgment of all voting members to be most accurately represented.” This method of preferential voting was first used in 1934 when there were 12 nominees for Best Picture, and it was also used in 1935, 1936-1943 with 10 nominees, and in 1944 and 1945 with only five nominees.
This year, voters will be asked to rank the 10 nominees for Best Picture in order of their preference. If a nominee receives more than 50% of the first-place votes, it will win Best Picture. If no nominee reaches this threshold, the nominee with the fewest first-place votes will be eliminated, and its votes will be reallocated to the nominee that was the second-choice on those ballots. If still, no nominee reaches the required 50%+1 votes, the process will be repeated, eliminating the nominee with the fewest first-place votes and reallocating its votes to the next choice still in the running, (i.e. if the second-place choice is no longer in the running, then the ballot would be reapportioned to the third-place choice and so on.)
Up until a film receives at least 50% plus one ballot, this process of elimination and reapportionment continues. The Best Picture winner will be announced as the final prize during the Oscars on March 12.
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