Indies rack up Oscar nominations; Preferential Voting Explained

By Sarah Sluis

So The Dark Knight's play for Best Picture may have failed, but the Academy's nominations included

Heath Ledger's performance for Best Supporting Actor amidst all the recognition for independent and specialty films: Fox Searchlight's Slumdog Millionaire garnered 10 nominations, and showed up in the Best Picture category alongside Weinstein Co.'s The Reader and Focus Features' Milk. The Wrestler's Mickey Rourke and The Visitor's Richard Jenkins each received a Best Actor nod, and low-budget Frozen River (starring two women, a rarity) was nominated for Best Actress (Melissa Leo) and Best Original Screenplay. The strong showing of films from specialty divisions came as many studios shut them down. Slumdog Millionaire, for example, was originally supposed to be distributed by Warner Independent Pictures.

Kate Winslet, who won a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress in The Reader, was nominated for the role in the Best Actress category at the Oscars, not for her performance in Revolutionary Road (for which she won the Best Actress award at the Globes). Philip Seymour Hoffman repeated his nomination as Best Supporting Actor in Doubt--although compared to Amy Adams and Viola Davis, both nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for the film, he seemed to have much more screen time.

Since 1936, the Oscars have used a preferential voting system, complete with Academy-specific caveats, to determine the nominations. Intended to diversify nominations and create compromises among runner-ups, it may also be responsible for much of the Academy's eccentricities and cries that certain films and performances were "robbed" of recognition. The way it works is this: the accounting firm will tabulate up every voter's first choice. Selections receiving more than 1/6 of the vote (for five nominees) will automatically be nominated. Now here's where it can get tricky: any films that were not ranked number one by at least one voter will be eliminated. The counters then look at all the second-choice films, but only among those voters whose first choice was not picked.

Where does the Academy's preferential voting fall short?

It doesn't necessarily pick the "top five" films of the year. People must feel passionate enough about the film to vote it as number one. Surely, in its seventy-plus years, a film or person was well-represented at #2 and #3, without anyone picking it as #1.

If there are two similar films, both of high quality, only one will be nominated. Let's say there are two niche films that have exactly the same audience--two epics, two indie dramas, a Milk and a Brokeback, etc.. If voters almost unanimously think one is better than the other, but still think the second is one of the top five films, the second film will not receive a nomination. It fails what's called the "independence of clones criterion" (thanks Wikipedia!). This adds to the "diversity" of films nominated, and has probably helped balance studio and independent films, but, again, it can push a second-best film entirely out of the top five.

According to Variety, which explains preferential voting here, the method is used frequently in Australia. Apparently, voters there are often told to vote in specific blocs and rankings to ensure the best outcome for their party. It's a wonder studios haven't issued such instructions to optimize their own performance at the Oscars.