What Studios Can and Can't Spend to Court Oscar Voters

The Academy's rules governing 'For Your Consideration' campaigns—the industry term for Oscar lobbying—set strict limits on how studios can spend money to court voters. These regulations control everything from the value of gifts to who can attend screenings to how screeners reach Academy members. Studios that violate them face consequences ranging from campaign suspension to member sanctions. The rules matter because they draw the line between legitimate promotion and improper influence.

The current regulatory framework emerged from a series of controversies around heavily promoted films and has been tightened significantly since 2023, most recently updated in February 2025. The Academy undertook what it called the 'most significant overhaul' of campaign rules since their inception in 1994, responding specifically to questions raised by the grassroots campaign for "To Leslie," a micro-budget film that resulted in Andrea Riseborough's surprise best actress nomination for a film that grossed only $27,000 at the box office.

What Studios Can Give and Spend

Gifts to voters have a hard cap. Studios may give items worth no more than $100 per voter, a limit that applied when the Academy updated its rules in February 2025. This covers branded promotional merchandise and similar items intended to promote a film.

Beyond gifts, studios may spend on trade publication advertising, digital billboards, press releases, and physical promotional materials like mailers and posters. These traditional marketing channels remain available to campaigns without specific spending limits imposed by the Academy rules themselves.

Studios may also conduct limited personal outreach via email or phone to Academy members, but with restrictions. Campaigns must use Academy-verified contact information and cannot make unsolicited calls to private lines. This distinction matters: cold calls to personal numbers are banned, but calls to verified Academy contact information are permitted under the rules. Studios cannot suggest that a voter's ballot choice will influence future employment, contracts, or opportunities.

The Academy Screening Room and Screener Distribution

Digital screeners—the online versions of films sent to voters—must be distributed through the Academy Screening Room (ASR) or a private link sent via an Academy-approved mailing house. The ASR is available on Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku, Android TV, the Academy website and mobile app. Studios pay $20,000 to place films on the platform, though an alternative rate is available for films with budgets of less than $10 million. The Academy added these reduced-rate options to ensure that smaller productions could compete without prohibitive fees.

The Academy Screening Room distributes screeners as secure, watermarked streams rather than downloads, tracking each voter's email, timestamp, and IP address. This is intended to prevent leaks and let the Academy audit who watched a given film.

Studios cannot distribute screeners before late September or after 48 hours before voting closes in mid-January. This window compresses campaigns into roughly four months. During the 2025 awards season for the 98th Oscars, the Academy began uploading new films to the platform every Friday starting August 15.

Rules for Screenings and Access

Industry screenings remain a core part of Oscar campaigns, but they operate under constraints. FYC screenings must remain open to entire Academy branches, not restricted to select voters. Studios cannot host VIP screening experiences that favor particular voters or demographic groups.

Screenings also cannot be affiliated with third-party brands or sponsors unless the third party is a film festival or established screening series. Studios cannot, for example, host a screening co-branded with a luxury hotel or fashion house and send invitations through the Academy's mailing system.

All FYC materials sent to members—including invitations, digital materials, and screening information—must be sent through an Academy-approved mailing house, not directly from studios or campaigns. This centralization gives the Academy oversight of what voters receive and when. The requirement prevents campaigns from targeting Academy members outside official channels. Board of Governors members face additional restrictions: they cannot host private events, screenings, or moderate panel discussions unless they are directly associated with the film itself. This rule prevents Academy leadership from appearing to endorse or promote particular campaigns.

What Campaigns Cannot Do

The rules explicitly prohibit several common lobbying tactics that prompted the 2023 overhaul. Studios cannot publish misleading campaign material about a film's critical reception, eligibility status, or box office performance. They cannot claim a film has won awards it has not won or misrepresent its achievements. They cannot suggest that a voter's ballot choice will influence future employment, contracts, or opportunities.

Social media represents a particular focus of current regulations. Campaign accounts cannot disparage other films, reference voting strategies, or discuss whether competitors meet Oscar eligibility requirements or comply with the Academy's inclusion standards. The "To Leslie" campaign had included social media posts comparing it favorably to other contenders and using coordinated language like "a small film with a giant heart" across multiple celebrity accounts, suggesting orchestrated messaging rather than organic support. The Academy also prohibits Academy members from 'singling out' other nominees by name while campaigning, directly addressing violations in the Riseborough campaign.

Coordinated messaging itself raises regulatory concerns. Multiple celebrities using identical phrasing in posts suggested orchestrated messaging written by the same person rather than genuine grassroots enthusiasm. In the Riseborough campaign, an anonymous awards strategist told TheWrap that her manager had "mobilized an army of older white ladies" to lobby for her — a tactic the strategist said Academy members aren't permitted to use.

Enforcement and Consequences

Violations have serious consequences. The Academy can suspend or revoke mailing house and communications privileges, disqualify a motion picture or performance from awards consideration, rescind an Oscar nomination, revoke voting privileges, suspend or expel membership from the Academy, and revoke privileges to attend Academy events. For Academy members, first-time violations of specific regulations carry a one-year suspension of membership, with expulsion for any subsequent violations.

The Academy established a formal reporting process for campaign violations. Studios, members, and others can report concerns to promotionalregulations@oscars.org, triggering an investigation and review process. The Academy exercises significant enforcement power, with violations potentially affecting not just individuals but entire films or campaigns. If any promotional activity is determined to have violated these regulations or the spirit in which they were intended, the Academy may take corrective actions or enact penalties up to and including disqualification.

In the "To Leslie" case, Riseborough retained her nomination, with Academy CEO Bill Kramer stating that the organization 'did discover social media and outreach campaigning tactics that caused concern' that were 'being addressed with the responsible parties directly.' That determination led directly to the 2023 overhaul that remains in effect today, revised and refined each year by the Board of Governors.

How the Academy Verifies Voting

The Academy has introduced mandatory viewing requirements for nominated films. As of 2025, Academy members must certify through the Academy Screening Room that they've viewed nominated films in a category before they're eligible to vote. Films watched in full on the ASR are automatically recorded and applied toward the voter's eligibility.

For films viewed outside the Academy Screening Room—at a guild or Academy screening, festival, theatrical showing, or private event—members submit an online form stating when and where they saw the film. These forms operate on an honor system, a practice the Academy has used for years in specialty categories such as international feature, animated feature, and the three short film races. The honor system reflects the Academy's assumption that members are committed to fair voting.