When it comes to the prestige of competitions, awards, and achievements, you don't shed the belief systems ingrained in you as a child. When hockey players say their World Cup would be nice to win, but let's be honest, it's not the Olympics, they are referring to the deep-seated admiration they have for the latter.
I'm not a member of the Academy yet, but I ought to write like I am, to take nominations and voting as seriously as members do. Or dare I say, members ought to take them as seriously as I do. How can I so arrogantly say that? Because one day when I was a small boy, I stumbled across an encyclopedia's list of Best Picture winners. Because soon after that, I found the framed piece in my grandparents' basement that captured in ranks and files every Best Picture poster. This is the list that makes my eyes widen, that I can recite by heart. Like the names engraved on the Stanley Cup, this is the list you grow up dreaming to be on. No salary, no profession can forge that kind of awe.
You create films for many reasons, artful, personal, economic, social---but you should always aspire to make the best. You play to win the game. So each year I present my Academy Award ballot.
Voting Process
It can be difficult to find in one place, so here is how voting works. The Academy classifies its 7,000 or so members into categories according to their specific expertise. This week, they will nominate five films in their category. Directors submit nominations for Best Director, writers for Best Original and Adapted Screenplays, editors for Best Editing, and so on. And everyone nominates five films for Best Picture.
The five candidates with the most votes earn nominations. This is as straight up as it gets. The exception, since 2009, is Best Picture. The Academy can nominate up to ten films should it deem their performance on the initial ballot warrants their inclusion. These are announced on Nomination Monday morning. This year it's January 13.
On January 30, final votes may be cast. All Academy members then, from the list of nominees, vote for their selection for each award. The winner is the films with the most votes (plurality voting).
The process is different for Best Picture, for which the Academy now employs instant runoff voting. Voters rank each nominee in order of preference. The winner must receive a majority of first-place votes, not merely a plurality. If after round one no film has it, the last-place film is removed. The ballots that listed the last-place film in the top slot now are redistributed to their second choices. This continues for as many rounds are necessary until the winner has more than 50% of first-place votes.
That means as a writer I would, if admitted to the Academy today, be in the writers' category. I'll post my ballot under that assumption, then. Since I've also directed, edited, and scored (very very short, student-level, amateur and amateurish) films, I will also submit my nominations in those categories.
These would be the five best, in my opinion, but I will give great consideration to including fringe candidates, ones I love that others might ignore, to try to get them into the dance. Once in the dance, anything can happen, but you have to get in first.
When it comes to the winners, I will vote for all winners just as members do. This process is simple: Vote for the one I believe is best.
For Best Picture, because of the unique voting method, I will produce my instant runoff ballot, albeit with notes. Typically the instant runoff system is designed to reward full honesty, but sometimes I make the distinction between films that I personally enjoy and films that I believe would be worthy champions of the highest honor in film.
You'll see the distinctions as well in my analysis of the final vote for the other Oscars, where I will submit three picks for each award to satisfy my theory: the candidate I want to win and would vote for, the candidate I believe the Academy should choose, and the candidate I believe will in fact win. These are separate things entirely and while they may overlap, they represent different philosophies on how to select the top honor, similar to how baseball writers debate the meaning of Most Valuable, Most Outstanding, etc.
We are voting for Best Picture, and that means different things to different voters. Is it best achievement that year? Is it the most entertaining? The timeliest societal statement? Can a light masterpiece eclipse a serious drama? Does it have to have gravitas? The beauty is that it simply says Best Picture, and I have my own philosophy on what ought to represent that title, and you have yours.
My nominees are in alphabetical order, since voting for the winners comes later. I'll whittle these down and bolster the list as the deadline approaches.
Nomination Ballot
Best Picture
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Knives Out
Marriage Story
Parasite
Best Director
Noah Baumbach, Marriage Story
Greta Gerwig, Little Women
Bong Joon-ho, Parasite
Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Taika Waititi, Jojo Rabbit
Best Original Screenplay
Dolemite is My Name
Knives Out
Marriage Story
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite
Uncut Gems
Best Adapted Screenplay
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Downton Abbey
The Good Liar
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Little Women
Toy Story 4
Best Editing
The Irishman
Little Women
Marriage Story
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
Parasite
Best Original Score
1917
Dolemite is My Name*
Frozen II
Little Women
Marriage Story
Parasite*
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Toy Story 4*
(*Three of my picks aren't even on the shortlist for the Oscars, so I've included others to finish my ballot.)
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