The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced a number of major changes for the Oscars on Friday, including a new policy allowing multiple nominations for a single actor in one category, as well as barring acting and writing awards for work done by AI.
According to new statutes decreed by the group’s board of governors, only performances “demonstrably performed” by humans with their consent will be eligible for acting Oscars, while only human-authored screenplays can be up for any writing awards.
The clearer policy appears to address questions of eligibility raised by the posthumous completion of a performance by Val Kilmer, who died in 2025, using AI. The academy also retained the right to request more information about a film’s use of AI.
In a notable shake-up of the now-standard Oscar campaign season, actors may henceforth be nominated for multiple performances in the same category. For decades, it was not possible for an actor to be nominated twice for, say, best actor; if a single performer gave multiple performances that earned enough academy votes to be in the top five for the category, only their highest-tallying performance would receive the nomination.
The new change puts acting awards in line with other categories – in 2001, for example, Steven Soderbergh was nominated for best director for both Erin Brockovich and Traffic, winning for the latter.
Additionally, the academy revised its longstanding policy that the category of best international feature (formerly best foreign film) only consider one film per country or region, as determined by a local academy-approved selection committee. From now on, a non-English language film can qualify by winning the top prize at one of several major film festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, Busan, Sundance, Toronto and Venice. A single country can now also have more than one film nominated in the category.
In another major change, the award for best international feature will now be credited to the director, rather than the country of origin. Though the Norwegian director Joachim Trier directed Sentimental Value, which won the category this year, the award technically went to Norway. Directors’ names will henceforth be included on trophies and in the record books.
The academy also introduced a number of smaller tweaks, such as increasing the number of people eligible for best casting per film from two to three, and solidifying the shortlist for best cinematography at 20.
The 99th Oscars will be held on Sunday 14 March in 2027, at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. Beginning in 2029, the show will move to the Peacock Theater for the subsequent 10 years, and shift its broadcast from ABC to YouTube.
