The Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences has 6,261 voting members. The entire body votes for the best picture.
Nominations for most of the remaining categories are determined by the balloting of the academy’s various branches. A committee selects the foreign-language film nominees.
Nominations for the four acting categories are determined by the actor’s branch. It is, by far, the academy’s largest branch with 1,138 voting members.
To become a member of the actor’s branch, an actor had to apply in writing and have that application signed by two current branch members. Under those rules, to qualify for membership, an actor needed three film credits, including one from the past five years. One exception: Most Oscar nominees receive an immediate invitation.
The academy’s board of governors, currently 51 members, three from each of the academy’s 17 branches, votes on each applicant at a scheduled meeting with the results announced in June.
For each of the four acting categories, lead actor and actress, supporting actor and actress, voters are asked to list up to five names, ranking them in order of preference.
These nomination ballots are sorted based on the voters’ first-place ranking. Actors receiving enough first-place votes, more than the threshold number arrived at by taking the total number of ballots received per category and dividing it by six (the number of possible nominees plus one), become nominees.
The Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars, are the most prestigious film-making prizes and have been held annually since 1929 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, located in Beverly Hills (California, U.S.).
The ceremony was first broadcast by radio; however, since 1953 is live televised and viewed by millions of spectators worldwide. The Academy is made up of around 6000 members who are involved in the movie industry either in the past or currently, being all of them are responsible for deciding who goes home with the statuette.
