The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has approved a significant set of updated rules for the 99th Oscars in 2027. I’ve narrowed it down to the three most important changes …
Remember when Matthew McConaughey predicted AI actors and films would infiltrate the Oscars in “five years”? Turns out, McConaughey ain’t Nostradamus. The Academy is now pushing back hard on artificial intelligence, practically banning it from key categories.
— The Academy has updated its Oscars rules to exclude AI-generated work from winning an Oscar, reinforcing that recognition is reserved for human creativity. Only “human-authored” screenplays are eligible for nomination, meaning scripts must be demonstrably written by people rather than produced or substantially generated by artificial intelligence tools.
Furthermore, in the acting categories, only performances “demonstrably performed by humans with their consent” are eligible for nomination, reinforcing that acting awards must recognize real human embodiment of a role. This means that while digital tools or enhancements may still be used in post-production, the core performance must originate from a consenting human actor whose work forms the foundation of what appears on screen.
— A major shift also comes in the Best International Feature Film category. The Academy has expanded how movies can qualify in this category. Traditionally, each country could submit only one film, which often led to criticism that strong contenders were excluded due to internal selection politics. Under the new system, eligibility will no longer depend solely on national submission.
Going forward, films can qualify in two ways: either by being officially selected by their country — the current method — or by winning a top prize at one of six major international festivals: Berlin, Busan, Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, and Venice.
This change could allow acclaimed films previously overlooked by their countries to still enter the race, with recent examples like Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall,” which France did not submit in favor of “The Taste of Things” in 2023.
More significantly, if a festival-qualified film wins the category, the Oscar statuette will now officially go to the film itself rather than the country. The director will receive and hold the award on behalf of the creative team, further shifting emphasis away from national attribution and toward the film as a collaborative artistic work.
— Finally, the other big rule change from this afternoon’s announcement has actors now eligible to garner multiple nominations in the same category if more than one of their performances lands in the top five votes. Previously, even if an actor delivered two award-worthy performances in the same year, they could effectively cancel each other out in the voting process.
This update brings acting in line with how other categories already function and is meant to reduce what’s often called “category fraud”—when studios or campaign teams strategically place a performance in Supporting instead of Lead (or vice versa) to avoid splitting votes between two strong roles.