2023 Oscars: Guaranteed 10 Best Picture nominees means multiple rounds of counting

For the 2023 Oscars, there will be a guaranteed 10 Best Picture nominees. This was the case last year and back in 2010 and 2011. In between there had been a variable number of nominees between 5 and 10, which necessitated a modification to the traditional counting using the preferential ballot. (From 2012 to 2021, there was just a single round of counting and a film had to be one of the top choices of at least 5% of the members taking part in the nomination phase to be even eligible for a Best Picture nomination.)

To illustrate how the system of instant run-off voting works, let’s apply it to last year’s Best Picture race. Between our experts (journalists who cover this beat year-round), website editors and readers like you, we cast 8,377 nomination ballots for Best Picture. (By comparison, the academy had 9,487 members last year.) As per the preferential system, we sorted these ballots by first choice and only those movies listed at the top of at least one ballot continued on in the process.

Remember, there will be 10 nominees for Best Picture. In our scenario, the initial threshold — i.e., magic number — for a nomination was set at 762 votes (i.e., 8,377 divided by 11 and rounded up). If each of 10 films reaches this cut-off, they will account for 7,620 votes, making it mathematically impossible for an 11th film to get more than 757 votes.

“The Power of the Dog” had a staggering 5,659 first place votes and earned a bid (as it did in the actual nominations). Usually, these ballots would be set to one side at this point.

However, this newly minted nominee was so popular that it reaped at least 10% more first place votes than needed to be nominated — in our scenario that is 762 votes  — thus triggering the surplus rule (the other categories invoke the surplus rule with a 20% excess). The rationale for this rule is to ensure that someone can vote for a hugely popular contender without fear that their ballot doesn’t matter.

When this happens, the ballots for this nominee are apportioned as follows: a share goes to the nominee such that it reaches the needed number for a nomination and the remaining share goes to the movie below it on the ballot which is still in the running and not yet nominated.

“The Power of the Dog” only needed 762 first-place votes to reach the initial threshold so each of its 5,659 votes is apportioned with .134 of the vote staying with it and .866 going to the film listed in second place, assuming it got at least one first-place vote from someone to remain eligible and is not already deemed to be a nominee. Those fractional votes are the equivalent of 5,659 ballots in all.

” Belfast” racked up a total of 1,370 first-place votes; this strong showing also triggered the surplus rule, with .556 of each ballot being apportioned to it and the other .444 being allotted to the film that was second on the ballot.

Three other contenders registered in the triple digits: “West Side Story” (333 votes), “Licorice Pizza” (263 votes) and “Dune” (219 votes). With so many surplus ballots being apportioned, let’s assume that all three of these films topped the 762 vote mark in this first round.

Before beginning round two, a new second threshold needs to be calculated based on the ballots remaining in the process and the number of nominees still left to be determined. We started with 8,377 ballots and have removed 7,844 [5,659 (“The Power of the Dog”) + 1,370 (“Belfast” ) + 333 (“West Side Story” ) + 263 (“Licorice Pizza”) + 219 (“Dune” ] leaving 528.

As there are five spots left, we divide these 528 ballots by six and round up giving us a new second threshold of 89. If five films each got this many votes they would account for 445 votes, leaving only 83 in play.

Three films — “Don’t Look Up” (65 votes), “King Richard” (61 votes), “CODA” (55 votes) and “Nightmare Alley” (35 votes) — could well reach that new threshold with their share of the surplus votes and become the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth nominees at this stage.

Before beginning round three, a new third threshold is calculated. We remove the 216 ballots listing these four nominees leaving a new total of 312. With one slot to fill, we divide this total by two, giving us a new threshold of 157.

At this point, the accountants redistribute the ballots of the movies with the fewest first-place votes to the next film further down on the ballot that is still in search of a nomination. This will be done with the ballots of each film with the least first-place votes until one reaches the new threshold of 157.

“Drive My Car” did reap a bid last year. In our tally, it started out with 13 votes.

While the Best Picture champ is determined by a version of this preferential system, the winners of the other races are those that top the popular vote — i.e, a voter picks just one of the nominees and the Oscar goes to the one with the most votes.

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