Three New Oscar Rules Allow Multiple Nominations and Ban AI Performances

The Academy's rule changes approved for the 99th Oscars—permitting multiple acting nominations in one category, opening Best International Feature to festival winners, and banning AI-generated performances from eligibility—redirect how studios, publicists and international filmmakers approach this season's race. Each change eliminates a previous constraint that shaped campaign decisions, opening new pathways while narrowing others.

Studios with actors in multiple films will no longer split votes between lead and supporting roles. International filmmakers rejected by national selection committees can now submit through festival wins. And productions using AI to perform credited roles will face automatic disqualification. For industry professionals accustomed to decades of rules requiring single nominations per performance and country-based international submissions, these changes represent a structural reordering of how Oscar campaigns operate.

Multiple nominations in the same category reverse an 80-year rule

For decades, actors competing in multiple films during the same year faced a strategic choice: campaign one as a lead and another as supporting to avoid vote splitting, a tactic known as "category fraud." The Academy's decision to allow actors to secure multiple nominations in the same category if their performances rank in the top five votes eliminates this math entirely. The change represents the first reversal of a rule established in 1946, the year after Barry Fitzgerald became the only performer in Oscar history to receive nominations for both lead and supporting actor for an identical role.

At the 17th Academy Awards in 1945, Fitzgerald received nominations for both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Father Fitzgibbon in the Best Picture winner *Going My Way*. The film, produced by Paramount, was nominated for 10 awards total and won 7, including Best Picture and Best Director for Leo McCarey. Fitzgerald won in the Supporting Actor category while his co-star Bing Crosby took Best Actor. The studio's decision to submit Fitzgerald in both categories sparked controversy, leading the Academy to implement the rule that "if an actor received enough votes for both acting categories, they would only be nominated in the category where they received the greater percentage of the total votes." That rule remained unchanged for 80 years.

The old constraint created a strategic vulnerability. Studios with actors in multiple qualifying films had to choose which performance would receive the bulk of campaigning resources, risking that the less-promoted performance would not accumulate enough votes to reach the top five in either category. Under the new rule, an actor's multiple qualifying performances could each theoretically earn nominations if they placed in the top five votes.

This changes how studios allocate their limited campaign resources when a single performer carries multiple roles. Instead of positioning one performance to compete in supporting and another in lead, a campaign team can now push both in the same category if the material warrants it. The constraint that forced this choice—protecting the majority of voters' expressed preferences in a single category—no longer applies. Studios can campaign dual roles with equal vigor, knowing both remain eligible if each accumulates enough support.

International feature submissions bypass national gatekeepers

The Academy's second major change reshapes how non-English-language films reach the international feature ballot. Beginning with the 99th Oscars, films can now be submitted through two distinct pathways: the traditional country selection committee route, or through winning a qualifying award at one of six international festivals.

Films must be submitted to the Academy by deadline to be considered for the nominating ballot.

The six qualifying festivals—Cannes (Palme d'Or), Venice (Golden Lion), Berlin (Golden Bear), Busan (Best Film), Sundance (World Cinema Grand Jury Prize), and Toronto (Platform)—now serve as alternative gatekeepers alongside traditional country committees. A foreign-language film that wins one of these specific prizes can bypass its home country's selection committee entirely and submit itself directly to the Academy. The award itself no longer goes to a country delegation but to the film's director, accepted on behalf of the creative team. This represents a fundamental shift in how the category honors films: it recognizes the film and its director rather than a country's selection process.

This expansion creates a backup pathway for filmmakers whose home countries do not select them through official channels. A critical film rejected by its national committee can still pursue an Oscar campaign if it has won a major festival prize. For example, a film that wins the Palme d'Or at Cannes but is not selected by its country's committee can submit directly to the Academy as long as it meets other eligibility requirements. The change also elevates festival awards from cultural markers to direct Oscar qualifiers, meaning festival organizers and distributors now calculate strategy with Oscar eligibility as a concrete outcome. International distributors report tension between the expanded opportunity and limited promotional budgets; Germany's export organization noted it previously could concentrate resources behind one official submission, but now must assess whether multiple festival-qualified films warrant simultaneous Oscar campaigns. Countries also face the possibility that filmmakers will circumvent national selection by targeting festival wins, weakening the country committees' traditional gatekeeping role.

AI performance and screenplay bans narrow production approaches

The Academy's third major change establishes eligibility requirements that shape how films can be produced. The rule states that only performances "credited in the film's legal billing and demonstrably performed by humans with their consent" qualify for consideration. For screenplays, they must be "human-authored." The Academy reserves the right to request additional information about how AI was used in a project and the extent of human involvement, establishing a precedent for auditing AI's role in award-eligible work.

This rule does not ban AI use in filmmaking broadly; it draws a line at award eligibility. The restriction targets performances and writing, the two categories most visibly attributed to individual creators and therefore most subject to claims of authorship and performance by specific people. For acting campaigns, this means studios cannot substitute AI-generated performances for human actors and pursue an Oscar nomination. Productions that use AI to replace or augment human performances in credited roles will be ineligible. The rule's requirement for "consent" also signals that the Academy expects human performers to explicitly agree to how their likenesses or performances are used, a safeguard against unauthorized digital performances created without actor knowledge.

For screenwriters, the requirement that screenplays be "human-authored" bars submissions of scripts generated, written or substantially drafted by generative AI without human authorship. The Academy's right to request documentation means campaigns for writing-category films may need to provide evidence of the writing process and human involvement.

How campaigns will adapt to simultaneous rule shifts

Individually, each rule change addresses a specific aspect of Oscar eligibility. Together, they reflect a shift toward expanding access (festival winners can submit) while tightening requirements (human-only performances and writing, multiple nominations without vote-splitting penalties). For campaigns, this means larger nomination pools in some categories and clearer eligibility rules in others. Studios with dual-role actors now have freedom they lacked before; they can campaign both roles in the same category without worrying that one will cannibalize the other's votes. International producers have insurance against rejection by their home country committees, knowing a major festival win provides a direct path to Oscar consideration. Productions using human talent and human writers know their eligibility is secure.

Publicists and campaign managers will spend the next year learning how these changes cascade through early-career festivals, national selection timing, and submission decisions across all three categories simultaneously. The changes do not become effective until the 99th Oscars (2027), giving the industry time to adjust, but the ripple effects are already visible. Festival organizers are expanding selections and modifying jury structures. National selection committees are reconsidering their procedures. Studios are evaluating which films they can campaign in multiple acting categories.