The Oscars’ Best International Feature Film category has broken free of its longstanding one-country, one-film rule, actors are now able to receive multiple nominations in a single category and Tilly Norwood is not going to be receiving any Academy Awards in the near future.
Those are among the takeaways from the rule changes for the 99th Academy Awards, which were announced by the Academy on Friday.
On the AI front, the new rules spelled it out in six key categories: For the acting awards, only roles “demonstrably performed by humans with their consent” are eligible, while screenplays “must be human-authored” to qualify. For overall qualifying, the Academy also said it “reserves the right to request more information about the nature of the use and human authorship.”
The new language is the strongest-yet dismissal of AI contributions to come from the Academy.
In another tweak in the acting categories, actors can now be nominated for multiple performances in the same category. In the past, the rules said that if an actor received enough votes for two nominations in a category, he or she would receive a nomination only for the film for which they received the most votes. The rule change brings the acting categories in line with other Oscar categories, in which a person can be nominated more than once.
It’s rare for an actor to have two potentially eligible performances in the same year. Eleven actors, most recently Scarlett Johansson in 2019, have been nominated for two different performances in the same year. But in every case, one of the nominations has come in the lead category and the other has come in supporting. (Barry Fitzgerald was an anomaly, nominated in both lead and supporting for “Going My Way” before the rules were changed to make that impossible.)
The biggest change comes in the Best International Feature Film category, which since its inception in the 1950s has been open to a single submission from each participating country. In recent years, that has led to complaints about worthy films being excluded because they weren’t chosen as official submissions by their home countries.
In the future, films will have two ways to qualify for the award: being submitted by the country, or winning the top award at one of six film festivals. Those are the Berlin International Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival (World Cinema Grand Jury Prize), Toronto International Film Festival or Venice International Film Festival.
If that rule had been in effect in recent years, films that would have qualified without a country submission would have included Cannes Palme d’Or winners “Anatomy of a Fall” and “Titane” along with “The Room Next Door” and “Happening” (Venice), “Yellow Letters” and “Dreams (Sex Love)” (Berlin), “Gloaming in Luomo” (Busan), “To the Victory” and “They Will Be Dust” (Toronto) and “Shame and Money” and “Cactus Pears” (Sundance).
The rule will likely expand the number of qualifying films in the category by four or five each year, with Cannes perhaps having the least impact because its winners are typically selected as Oscar submissions by their home countries. It will also make it easier for a film with creative input from numerous countries to qualify without having to prove that a specific country had the bulk of the input.
To that end, the international award will no longer officially go to the country of origin, but to the film itself. As has been done for the last several years, the director’s name will go on the statuette and the director will accept and retain the award on behalf of the entire creative team.
Other rule changes increased the number of possible statuettes in the casting category from two to three and expanded the cinematography shortlist from anywhere from 10 to 20 to a flat 20.
Revisions to the campaign regulations were less substantive, making changes in the number of possible moderators and the restrictions on members of the Board of Governors and the Academy president.
Complete rules are available at oscars.org/rules.
From the Academy press release, here is the description of the most significant changes:
- In the Acting category, actors may be nominated for multiple performances in the same category if those performances place in the top five votes, which aligns with achievements in other award categories.
- Additionally, in the Acting category, only roles credited in the film’s legal billing and demonstrably performed by humans with their consent will be considered eligible.
- In the Casting category, the number of statuettes awarded will increase from a maximum of two to a maximum of three statuettes.
- In the Cinematography category, the preliminary voting round will produce a shortlist of 20 films rather than 10-20.
- In the International Feature Film category, there are now two ways to submit a film for consideration. In addition to a film being submitted as an official selection by a country or region via the Academy-approved Selection Committees, a non-English language film can now be submitted for consideration by winning a qualifying award at an international film festival as specified in the International Feature Film Award Qualifying Festival List. Qualifying festivals for the 99th Oscars® are the Berlin International Film Festival (Golden Bear for Best Film), Busan International Film Festival (Busan Award – Best Film Award), Cannes Film Festival (Palme d’Or), Sundance Film Festival (World Cinema Grand Jury Prize), Toronto International Film Festival (Platform Award) and Venice International Film Festival (Golden Lion).
- Additionally, in the International Feature Film category, the film will be credited as the nominee rather than the country or region, and the award will be accepted by the director on behalf of the film’s creative team. The director’s name will be listed on the statuette plaque after the film title and, if applicable, the country or region.
- In the Makeup and Hairstyling category, Makeup Artists and Hairstylists Branch members must attend at least one of the two final branch meetings (roundtables) to be eligible to vote in the preliminary round.
- In the Original Song category, the rules clarify a song’s eligibility when based on its placement in the end credits. For songs submitted as the first new music cue once the end credits begin, the video clip must include the last 15 seconds of the film before the credits begin.
- In the Visual Effects category, all Academy members must view the three-minute Before and After reels from the Visual Effects Bake-Off to be eligible to vote in the final round.
- In the Writing categories, the rules codify that screenplays must be human-authored to be eligible.
- For Governors Awards recipients, a minimum of three disciplines must be represented in a given Awards year.
- Under Eligibility (Rule Two) regarding Generative Artificial Intelligence, the Academy reserves the right to request more information about the nature of the use and human authorship.
Here are deadlines and key dates:
Thursday, August 13, 2026: First submission deadline for Animated Short Film, Documentary Feature Film, Documentary Short Film and Live Action Short Film categories Thursday, September 17, 2026: First submission deadline for General Entry categories, Animated Feature Film, Best Picture and Representation and Inclusion Standards Entry (RAISE) form Wednesday, September 30, 2026: Submission deadline for International Feature Film Thursday, October 8, 2026: Final submission deadline for Animated Short Film, Documentary Short Film and Live Action Short Film categories Wednesday, October 14, 2026: Submission deadline for Music (Original Song) Thursday, October 15, 2026: Final submission deadline for Documentary Feature Film Wednesday, November 4, 2026: Submission deadline for Music (Original Score) Thursday, November 12, 2026: Final submission deadline for General Entry categories, Animated Feature Film, Best Picture and Representation and Inclusion Standards Entry (RAISE) form January 8 – 10, 2027: Casting, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound and Visual Effects voting events (bake-offs)
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