Voting for the Academy Awards officially ended this week, and an anonymous voter recently revealed that they haven’t seen one of the Best Picture contenders, despite new rules in place mandating voters watch.
In a recent report from THR profiling an anonymous female member of the Academy’s 719-documentary branch who is voting on the awards, the member revealed some of their votes for the upcoming award show, which takes place on March 15, 2026.
In surprisingly honest fashion, the voter revealed that they had placed Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein last in Best Picture voting, specifically because they hadn’t seen it.
“I put Frankenstein at number 10 because I haven’t seen it, which is unfair, but I ran out of time and decided to check the box indicating that I had so that I could support other films,” said the voter.
The remark is notable, as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) made it a rule last year that Academy members had to watch all nominated films in each category in order to be able to vote in the final round of voting for the awards.
The voter also revealed that F1, another nominee for Best Picture, was something they barely watched as well. “F1 was not for me — I watched about 45 minutes of it, and I didn’t need to watch more,” the voter said. In the end, the voter ranked Sentimental Value as their top choice for Best Picture, while also voting for Sinner‘s Ryan Coogler as Best Director.
While it’s unlikely the AMPAS will ever be able to properly vet each and every voter, it still is noteworthy to see voters already not sticking to the rules. This year’s show is set to feature some very close races as well, which will undoubtedly make for even more controversy should more voters acknowledge they didn’t watch many of the movies.
(Source: The Hollywood Reporter)