Matt Glasby’s monthly column How to… turns a sly, critical eye on how the movie world really works. This month: How to… win an Oscar.
Since the Oscars began in 1929, some 3,000 people have won their very own little gold statue – which means there are around 8 billion of us left on the planet who haven’t. While it’s too late to change that this year*, here are some tips to bear in mind for your 2026 campaign.
*This piece was written after the 2024 nominations but before the winners were announced
Remember: originality is overrated
You might think the highest prize in film would reward inventiveness, but then how do you explain problematic chocolate-box fest Forrest Gump—taken from the best-selling novel by Winston Groom—beating the era-defining Pulp Fiction—taken from Tarantino’s fevered brain—to Best Picture in 1994? Thrift Books calculates that, out of 96 Best Picture winners, 54 were based on books, plays or symphonic poems (hello, 1951’s An American In Paris), two were remakes, and only the remaining 30 were original works. Or, to put it another way: if you want to write an Oscar winner, your best bet is to let someone else do the actual writing.
Don’t make a horror film
Despite a good showing for The Substance this year, horror films have historically been under-represented at the Oscars. Of the genre’s 18 wins, a whopping five are for 1991’s horror-adjacent The Silence of the Lambs. But some would argue—this writer among them—that it’s not actually a horror film, but a thriller with horrific elements. So where does that leave us? More often than not, the genre gets left out of the conversation completely. Toni Collette’s grief-stricken performance in 2018’s Hereditary, one of the most unforgettable pieces of screen acting committed to celluloid, was totally ignored, something that still angers fans to this day. Her response—“It’s really nice people care”—deserves an Oscar of its own.
Ingratiate yourself
A large part of winning an Oscar is playing the game. After being nominated for Best Supporting Actor in 2019’s relatively slight Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Richard E. Grant played a blinder, social media-ing the shit out of his “who-me?” gratitude while managing not to look like a massive kiss arse. Although he lost to Mahershala Ali, it can’t have hurt his chances because the Oscars, lest we forget, is a popularity contest. How else do you explain why lightweight but well-liked actors such as [NAME REDACTED] have won multiple times, when much better, but widely disapproved of, actors such as [NAME REDACTED] had to actually eat [REDACTED] in order to eventually nab one?
Don’t push the envelope
The Oscars are meant to be about excellence, but all too often they reward the sort of safe-playing competence that passes for excellence instead. This is why the likes of Davids Lynch (RIP) and Cronenberg have never won—the latter has never even been nominated—and Scorsese eventually triumphed for the excellent but conventional The Departed. It’s not just directors. Even movie buffs might struggle to remember what film won Al Pacino his solitary Oscar for: The Godfather? The Godfather: Part II? Serpico? Dog Day Afternoon? Glengarry Glen Ross? Nope. In fact, it was 1992’s decent but forgettable Scent of a Woman. Hoo and indeed hah!
Avoid uncomfortable truths
Oscar voters want to be right on, but they often get it wrong, like your parents attempting to understand pronouns. Figures vary, but the majority of Academy members are over 50—some surveys put the figure at over 63—so it’s no surprise their tastes tend to favour pipe-and-slippers choices over anything more challenging. The examples, sadly, are legion: Crash, aka Racism Is Bad: The Movie, winning over Brokeback Mountain in 2004 because the latter was, so the rumour goes, “too gay”. The awful Green Book, aka Racism Is Bad: The Sequel, winning anything at all in 2018. By contrast, this year’s Nickel Boys—a heart-breaking examination of deep-rooted American prejudice, made with Malickian flair by African-American writer/director RaMell Ross—got a measly two nominations, and almost certainly won’t win either.
Be a white man
Still depressingly true. As The Inclusion List tells us, of the 13,445 people nominated for an Oscar before 2025, 83% were men and 94% were white. The first person of colour to win an Oscar was Hattie McDaniel, who was named Best Supporting Actress for Gone with the Wind in 1940, but had to sit at a segregated table during the ceremony. A mere SIXTY-TWO YEARS LATER, Halle Berry was the first woman of colour to win Best Actress, for Monster’s Ball in 2002. While campaigns such as #OscarsSoWhite and Oscar Is A Man have sought to redress the balance, you can still expect a Caucasian sausage party come tuxedo time.
