Academy Mandatory Viewing Rule 2026: How "The Brutalist Rule" Changes Oscar Predictions

Brady Corbet's The Brutalist runs 215 minutes. When it picked up 10 Oscar nominations for the 97th Academy Awards, a quiet complaint became very loud: not enough voters were actually watching the films they voted on.

On April 21, 2025, the Academy's Board of Governors voted to fix that. Starting with the 98th Oscars (March 2026), every voting member must confirm they've watched all nominated films in a category before casting a ballot. The press called it “The Brutalist Rule.” The Academy called it a long-overdue correction.

For prediction markets, it's something else entirely: the first structural rule change in decades that could weaken the guild-to-Oscar correlations we've all been relying on.

What the Rule Actually Says

All 24 competitive categories now require voters to confirm they've watched every nominee before they can vote. Previously, this applied to only a handful of categories: International Feature Film, Animated Short, Documentary Short, and Live Action Short. Everything else was on the honor system, with no confirmation required at all.

The mechanics work like this. The Academy Screening Room app tracks viewing data for films streamed through its platform. For theatrical viewings, voters fill out a self-declaration form. If you don't check the boxes, you don't get a ballot for that category.

There's an important caveat: this is still largely an honor system. The Academy has no way to confirm a voter actually watched a film in a theater. And the Screening Room app can confirm a film was played, but not that someone sat in front of the screen for the full runtime. No penalties exist for false declarations.

Why They Call It “The Brutalist Rule”

The timing made it obvious. Reports had circulated for years that many Academy members weren't watching all the nominees, particularly longer films and international entries. When The Brutalist landed its 10 nominations at 215 minutes, those whispers became industry conversation.

BAFTA has required confirmed viewing for years. The Academy was the outlier among major awards bodies. As longtime awards writer Bruce Vilanch put it, the whole thing was “kind of hysterical” because everyone assumed voters were already watching everything.

They weren't. And that mattered more than most people realized.

The Loopholes Are Already Obvious

Let's be honest about what this rule can and can't do.

A voter can press play on the Academy Screening Room and leave the room. They can watch at 1.5x speed (the app supports playback speed controls). They can check the self-declaration box for a theatrical viewing they didn't attend. There's no verification, no penalty for dishonesty, and no compliance audit.

I think the rule changes behavior at the margins, not the center. The voters who were already watching everything continue as before. The voters who never watched anything and just voted on buzz might lose their ballots in some categories, since the confirmation step adds friction. But the voters in between, the ones who watched three of five nominees and voted anyway, those are the ones most likely to change their behavior. And that's enough to matter.

Other 2026 Rule Changes

The mandatory viewing rule wasn't the only change. The 98th Oscars introduced several other structural shifts:

The casting category alone is historic. It's the first expansion of the competitive slate in 24 years.

What This Means for Prediction Markets

Here's where it gets interesting for anyone using guild awards to predict Oscar outcomes.

The guild correlations that prediction models rely on, DGA at 88%, PGA at 80% since 2009, SAG at 95% for Best Actress, were built on an Academy where a meaningful number of voters weren't watching all nominees. Guild winners benefited from name recognition and momentum among voters who hadn't done the homework.

If the mandatory viewing rule actually works, even partially, two things could happen.

Guild correlations could soften. The DGA's 88% match rate reflects decades of voting behavior that included uninformed ballots following guild momentum. Remove some of that herd effect and the correlations don't disappear, but they might dip. An 88% might become an 82%. That's still predictive. It's just less dominant.

International and smaller films get a structural advantage. The Academy has added over 4,000 international members since 2016. These members often don't belong to American guilds. When they're required to watch everything, they may favor different films than the guild consensus. Historical precedents exist: Drive My Car (2021) earned four Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Director with zero guild support. All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) received nine nominations despite missing DGA, PGA, SAG, and WGA entirely. These cases could become more common.

The counterargument is straightforward: correlations have survived every past rule change. The Academy has tweaked voting procedures many times, expanded Best Picture to 10 nominees, shifted to preferential balloting, and the guilds kept predicting winners. It's possible this change is no different.

In my view, this one is different because it's the first change that directly targets the mechanism behind guild correlations: voters who defaulted to guild winners because they hadn't watched the alternatives. But I could be wrong. We won't know until the 98th Oscars play out.

How to Factor This Into Your Picks

Don't abandon guild data. It's still the best predictive tool available. An 88% correlation doesn't become useless even if it drops a few points. But consider making these adjustments:

Explore the historical guild data on our Precursors Tracker to see how tight these correlations have been, and use the Payout Simulator to model what happens if you bet on guild-independent picks.

For more on how guild awards have historically predicted Oscar winners, see our complete guild correlation guide. And for analysis of specific 2026 races, check the Best Director 2026 breakdown and Sinners Best Picture analysis.