When thinking about all the films this year that actually qualify to be considered for the Best Picture award at the Oscars this year (over 300 films are in the running), I got to wondering about what actual standards a movie has to meet to be considered.
I came across this interesting little article by Reuters that actually outlines the criteria a movie has to meet in order to be considered for grand Oscar glory. It’s actually a little easier than I thought:
According to Academy rules, a feature-length motion picture must have a running time of more than 40 minutes in order to qualify for consideration and have been exhibited theatrically on 35mm or 70mm film, or a qualifying digital format. A film must open in a commercial theatre for paid admission in Los Angeles County between January 1, 2005, and midnight December 31, 2005, and run for seven days in a row. Films that receive their first public exhibition or distribution in any other media, such as TV or video, are not eligible for any Academy Awards.
Now, as Richard has pointed out earlier, different categories will have some different criteria (animated, foreign, documentary, ect.), but in general this is the standard. Meet this, and you could be walking down the red carpet.
Well, that ended the conversation quite quickly.
Here are the official rules for film nominations; it’s ridiculously long:
http://www.oscars.org/78academyawards/rules/