The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will require its voting members to watch every nominated film before casting ballots in the 2025 Oscars, per a published report. The rule change converts a long-standing soft expectation into a hard procedural requirement.

The mandate, surfaced via Indulge Express, applies across the nominated categories. Voting members who intend to submit ranked ballots must complete viewing of every film in their participating categories.

What does the new rule require?

Voters must view the full nominated slate in any category they intend to rank. The surfaced coverage does not detail whether completion is self-certified, audited by the Academy's membership office, or tracked through the Academy's streaming platform. The instruction is procedural: ballots cast without confirmed viewing face scrutiny, and abstention becomes the only compliant alternative to full viewing.

The change formalizes what was previously encouragement. Members have long been advised in category guidelines to "watch all the nominees" before voting. The 2025 rule converts that advice into a binding requirement with stated consequences.

Why does it matter now?

Three forces shape the timing. The Academy's voting body has expanded significantly in recent years, diluting the share of members who treat the Oscars as professional homework. The streaming-era nominee mix stretches voters across theatrical, limited-release, and direct-to-platform titles, each with distinct distribution pipelines. And the trade-press question recurs every cycle: did the voting body actually watch the films?

The mandate targets that question directly. By raising the procedural bar, the Academy aims to anchor outcomes in direct film-to-film comparison rather than buzz, prestige signaling, or pattern recognition from prior awards shows.

What changes in the race?

Campaign tactics shift immediately. Studios and distributors now hold a stronger argument for scheduling advance screenings, FYC events, and platform availability windows aimed at voters. The viewing requirement raises the cost of skipping a nominee in deep slates, when many contenders compete in marquee categories.

Smaller campaigns benefit asymmetrically. Films without frontrunner status, name-recognition, or trade-press consensus gain a structural boost: every voter who intends to participate must now watch their film. That generates mandatory exposure that buzz alone cannot compel, and it reshapes the calculus for craft categories where studio resources typically dominate access.

Voter behavior in branch-specific categories changes too. Animation, Documentary, International Feature, and the three Shorts races have always carried heavier viewing loads than the marquee categories. A uniform mandate flattens that asymmetry, rewarding outreach depth over branch-driven loyalty.

What remains unclear

The surfaced reporting does not specify several mechanics:

• Whether the rule covers all categories uniformly
• How membership staff will track completion
• Whether exceptions exist for emeritus or branch-based alternatives
• Whether the Academy will publish a detailed enforcement memo

The full Academy rules bulletin has not been reproduced in the available coverage, and the Academy has not, per the surfaced item, published a detailed enforcement memo alongside the headline announcement.

The mandate will be tested first in the 2025 nominations cycle, with preliminary voting, nominations voting, and final voting all operating under the new requirement. Its effect on outcomes — versus its effect on campaign spending and FYC scheduling — will not be measurable until final ballots are tallied and the major races are read out.