So Oscar voters must now watch every film? About time

Telegraph

24-04-2025

The art of judging a prize is a strange process. From my experience – judging radio dramas and TV shows – it is quite a lonely process that involves a lot of slog. To the outside world, I am sure that this sounds irritating: that, in the public imagination, judging panels consist of urbane types sitting around stroking their chins and offering recondite thoughts that are of interest to nobody but themselves.
I admit there is a bit of that – a bit of point scoring and old enmities rising to the surface. I know people who are compulsive judgers which often makes me wonder – why are you so desperate for your voice to be heard? Are you on an ego trip, or are you compensating for something that is lacking in your life?
But I would also defend the need for prizes which are judged by experts – they are a necessary part of the cultural ecosystem. These days, so much good art (be that books, films, visual art or theatre) goes unnoticed as the algorithm demands that we all watch or read or listen to the same thing. A prize like the Booker is very valuable in bringing unknown writers to the fore, which is exactly what happened last year when Samantha Harvey won for Orbital, and was deservedly propelled into a different league as sales rocketed.
However, I have caveats about prizes and panels and that is over degrees of scrupulousness. This is in my mind because it has just been announced that Oscars voters must now watch every film in a category in order to cast their vote. Seriously? I had always assumed that that was the case, and certainly Bafta instigated this rule several years ago. To cast your vote on a film that you have not actually seen seems to be both a dereliction of duty and a little bit corrupt.
Mind you, the new stipulations – which were instigated following criticism of those who admitted they had not seen The Brutalist or other nominees and involve the Academy tracking viewership through a members-only streaming platform – veer towards the Orwellian.
I admit that I am a bit of a swot. In the past, I have not only watched or listened to all entries more than once, but I have also made copious notes. This might seem a little extreme, but I think that such things should be taken seriously. Apart from anything else, there is a need to counter the whiff of behind-the-scenes skulduggery that has emerged in the past. Remember the storm when several critics resigned from the Evening Standard Theatre Awards (including our own Charles Spencer) following a dispute over the judging process which was reported to have involved a secret ballot?
Meanwhile the Booker has suffered from all sorts of controversies over the years – most recently when a tie between Margaret Atwood's The Testaments and Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other, was seen as a fudge on the part of the judges.
But there is also the question of whether book prize judges read everything – including that onerous Booker pre-longlist which can consist of over 160 titles. In the past, actor and comedian Robert Webb caused minor outrage when he said that it was impossible to read them all in the allotted seven months. He had a point, but surely you don't take on the challenge unless you are willing to wholeheartedly commit.
Oscars voters, in comparison, have it easy. OK, The Brutalist is over three hours long, but that's nothing compared to Eleanor Catton's 263,000 word doorstopper The Luminaries. Of course, it's about time that the Oscars got their act together. Variety's recent report on anonymous ballots highlighted a hilarious ineptitude – this year, for example, there was a mistaken belief that Ralph Fiennes (star of Conclave) had won before.
Thus, the Academy's doubling down is to be welcomed. In an era where everyone is a critic, where the public are increasingly suspicious of exclusive cliques making decisions, judges and voters need to prove their integrity. After all, the only thing worse than an urbane chinstroker is a lazy urbane chinstroker.