How Many Votes Will It Take to Get an Oscar Nomination in 2025?

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences only grew by 108 members this year, so there’s not much change in the answer to our annual question: How many votes does it take to get an Oscar nomination?

According to an AMPAS Branch Count dated Dec. 11, 2024, the Academy now has 9,905 voting members, 108 more than it did in mid-December of 2023. We’ll get into the number breakdown in a minute, but that basically means that it’ll take 901 votes to get a Best Picture nomination this year, 10 more than it took to get one last year.

The Actors Branch, meanwhile, continued its slow decline, losing another 36 members as it dropped to 1,258 members. It’s still the Academy largest branch by a significant amount, but the gap between it and the 758-member Executives Branch is narrowing every year.

Before we get into the category-by-category breakdown, a reminder: When we say it takes 9o1 votes for a Best Picture nomination, we’re talking about first-place votes. Under the Oscars’ preferential or ranked-choice system, a voter typically lists his or her top five choices in order of preference. (In the Best Picture category, they’re allowed to list up to 10 choices.) After the first-place votes are added up, the lowest-ranking films are eliminated from contention, and their ballots are redistributed to the film ranked second on each ballot.

(If the second choice has also been eliminated, or if it’s already hit the magic number and secured a nomination, the vote goes to the next highest contender on the ballot.)

The redistribution continues until the field is narrowed to the final five nominees, or the final 10 for Best Picture.

To figure out the magic number for each category, you take the number of potential voters in that category and divide by the number of nominees, plus one. (In every case except Best Picture, that means you divide by 5+1, i.e. 6.) You round the result up to the next highest number, and that gives you a “magic number” that ensures a film or achievement will be in the Top 5 in that category.

Here’s the breakdown of what it’ll take to land a nomination in each category when voting begins on Jan. 8. Note: as the count goes on, the magic number can decrease. 

Best Picture

If all 9,905 eligible voters cast ballots in this category, it would take 901 No. 1 votes to guarantee a nomination. But while it’s unrealistic to expect many films to have that many first-place votes in the initial count, contenders will probably have many rounds to pick up additional votes as other films are eliminated. 

Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress

The size of the Actors Branch fell from 1,294 to 1,258 members this year, which means that the magic number fell as well, from 217 to 210. If every one of the voters in the Academy’s largest branch casts a ballot, that’s how many votes it’ll take to land a nomination in each of the Oscars’ four acting categories.  

Best Animated Feature

The Short Films and Feature Animation Branch was split this year, with 677 voters in the new Animation Branch and another 202 in the Short Films Branch. Normally, the 677 members that would mean that 113 votes would secure a nomination – but voting in this category is open not only to all members of the branch, but to all Academy members outside the branch who volunteer to take part in the voting.

Prospective voters were divided into four groups, and each group was required to see an assigned group of seven or eight films out of the 31 that qualified. The number required to land a nomination depends entirely on how many members participated in that process.

Best Cinematography

The branch has 292 current voting members, one less than last year. That means 49 first-place votes still lands a nomination, the number unchanged for the last three years.

Best Costume Design

With 181 members, costume designers make up the smallest Academy branch that votes for its own award. (The Casting Directors Branch is smaller, but the casting award won’t be introduced for another year.) The size of the branch increased by nine members since last year, and the magic number went up by two: A costume-design nomination can be secured with 31 votes, fewer than any other category

Best Director

There are now 589 voters in the Directors Branch, two more than last year, which means that 99 votes will guarantee a nomination if they all vote.

Best Documentary Feature

After a first round of voting narrows the field of 169 qualifying films to a 15-film shortlist, the 693 members of the Documentary Branch will pick their five favorites. If they all cast ballots, it’ll take 116 votes to be nominated, two more than last year.  

Best Documentary Short

The same 693 members of the doc branch will be eligible to vote once the doc-short contenders have been narrowed to a 15-film shortlist. It’s highly unlikely that everyone in the branch will watch the eligible shorts and vote — but if they were to do that, this magic number would also be 116.

Best Film Editing

With 392 members of the Film Editors Branch, 15 more than last year, you’ll need 66 votes to secure a nod.

Best International Feature Film

This category is also open to volunteer members from all branches of the Academy, but AMPAS never reveals how many participate. After the field of 85 contenders is narrowed to a 15-film shortlist, voting will be open to any member who sees all 15 of those films, which are available on the Academy’s members website. The magic number will depend entirely on how many members see all the films and vote.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

The branch has 236 voting members, six fewer than last year. Voting is restricted to members who viewed a special presentation of clips, or members who have seen all 10 shortlisted films. If every member of the branch participates in one of those ways, it would take 40 votes to secure a nomination, one less than last year.

Best Original Score, Best Original Song

The Music Branch contains 402 voting members. The 147 eligible scores and 89 eligible songs go through an initial round of voting that narrows the contenders to a song shortlist of 15 and a score shortlist that has been expanded to 20 this year. In the nomination round of voting, the magic number for Diane Warren to receive her 16th nomination will be 67, assuming she’s shortlisted and everybody votes.

Best Production Design

The branch has 421 members, so 71 votes will be enough for a nomination.

Best Sound

With 551 members in the Sound Branch, a drop of five since last year, the nomination threshold goes down one to 92 votes.

Best Visual Effects

There are 644 members of the branch, which would mean a magic number of 108 if the VFX branch calculated nominations the way most of the other branches do. But it doesn’t.

Clips from the shortlisted films are screened virtually for members of the branch, followed by brief discussions with the VFX artists responsible for the work. Members then cast ballots to select the five nominees – but instead of the ranked-choice system, the branch uses reweighted range voting, which divides each individual score by the total score given to all candidates on that ballot. The idea is to identify the films that score strongest against the rest of the field. At no point in the count does a magic number come into play.

Best Original Screenplay, Best Adapted Screenplay

The Writers Branch has 523 voting members, one more than last year, meaning it requires 88 votes to guarantee a writing nomination.

Best Animated Short, Best Live Action Short

Now that it’s been separated from the Animation Branch, the Short Films Branch has 202 voting members. But that’s essentially irrelevant in these two categories, because all members of both branches are eligible to vote in the shortlist and nomination rounds of voting for Best Animated Short, and all members of the Academy are eligible to vote for Best Live Action Short.

If every member of both branches participates in voting in the animated short category, the magic number would be 147; and if the entire Academy participated in live-action voting, the number would be the same as for Best Picture, 901.  But in reality, it’s far lower. 

Of the branches that only vote for Best Picture or for the categories that take volunteers from across the Academy, the Artists Representatives Branch increased in size by 28 members, to 222; the Executives Branch increased by 18, to 758; the Marketing and Public Relations Branch increased by 14, to 646; the Producers Branch remained exactly the same at 652; the Production and Technology Branch increased by 18, to 396; and the nonvoting group of Associate Members fell by three, to 40. Emeritus members, who also do not vote. increased by 17, to 949.

Nomination voting will begin on Wednesday, Jan. 8 and close on Sunday, Jan. 12.  Nominations will be announced on Friday, Jan. 17.