2026 Will See an Oscar for Best Casting; Will Voice Actors and Stunt Performers Follow?

Awards Circuit Column: The industry will only improve if the Academy welcomes greater recognition for artists across a variety of professions.

Casting has its own category in the Oscars, and it’s much anticipated.

The news of the new category, which will be introduced in 2026 for films released in 2025, has been well-received by awards enthusiasts on social media.

Many believe that it is long overdue, particularly considering that the Casting Directors Branch was founded in 2013, more than ten years ago.

This begs the question of whether, when, and how future categories will be included in an awards presentation that seeks to last no longer than three hours.

It’s significant to remember that the Academy has not yet promised to provide the finest achievement in casting award at the presentation on television. Complete criteria for the 98th Academy Awards as well as information on voting and eligibility for the inaugural award will be released in April 2025.

The Academy’s administrative leadership and Board of Governors will decide on the presentation style later.

It would be a major error to leave casting directors off of the show, especially in light of the criticism the Academy received in 2022 for leaving out eight categories.

Often the unsung heroes of the film industry, casting directors are never acknowledged by the general public. From 2019 until 2022, David Rubin, a well-known casting director best recognised for his work on the best picture winner “The English Patient,” presided over AMPAS.

I’m thrilled about the prospect that customers will get to know Carmen Cuba, Victoria Thomas, Sarah Finn, and Ellen Lewis.

Throughout the Academy’s 96-year history, several possible categories have been suggested, such as a stunt category, which the SAG Awards have long had. There seems to be some movement in the right direction to give stunt performers the recognition they merit at the Oscars.

From its first presentation, which consisted of just 15 minutes and had 12 categories with winners revealed months in advance, the Academy Awards have seen significant changes.

Additionally, even as the show’s producers have battled to maintain a strict duration, there have been ongoing calls to increase the number of artisans and artists honoured in the presentation.

Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped people from proposing Oscars for best voice acting (despite Eddie Murphy’s excellent work in “Shrek”), motion capture (where Andy Serkis from “The Lord of the Rings” should have been honoured), title design (any Alfred Hitchcock film would have been a strong contender), and music supervision (where Quentin Tarantino has excelled most).

Talk has even turned to creating two distinct categories for makeup and hair (and should we split the sound categories once more after merging them in 2020?).

It’s difficult to combine everything into one presentation, especially with 24 categories and five original song performances by celebrities like Rihanna and Billie Eilish. The ceremony should, in theory, only last as long as is required to keep viewers interested. The goal is to make the show so captivating that viewers won’t want to turn to another channel or go to bed. That won’t happen, though, due to network and financial limitations.

For instance, the Tony prizes feature 26 categories split between plays and musicals, and a pre-show ceremony is used to distribute technical prizes. In a similar vein, the Grammys and the Primetime Emmys hold pre-show ceremonies for a number of categories and release highlights for general public consumption.

Some are concerned that the winner of best casting will coincide with the best picture winner. Why wouldn’t the best ensemble film of the year also have the best picture? However, the BAFTAs and the SAG Awards demonstrate that’s not always the case.

The history of the BAFTA casting awards demonstrates that nominations and winners are not always selected from the group of Oscar front-runners.

History of BAFTA casting winners:

2019: Shayna Markowitz’s “Joker” is nominated for best picture.

2020: Lucy Pardee’s “Rocks” received no Oscar nominations.

2021: Cindy Tolan’s “West Side Story” is a nominated for best film.

2022: Best Picture nomination “Elvis,” starring Nikki Barrett and Denise Chamain

The following actors are nominated for Best Supporting Actor at the BAFTA this year: Kathleen Crawford in ‘All of Us Strangers’, Cynthia Arra in ‘Anatomy of a Fall’, Susan Shopmaker in ‘The Holdovers’, Isabella Odoffin in ‘How to Have Sex’ and Ellen Lewis and Rene Haynes in ‘Killers of The list acknowledges how difficult it can be to find a rising star like Dominic Sessa (“The Holdovers”),

to find a child performer like Milo Machado-Graner who can hold his own with acting heavyweights (“Anatomy of a Fall”), or to complete a cast of Indigenous stars (“Killers of the Flower Moon”).

The Oscars’ introduction of a casting category is a step in the right direction towards recognising that no one person can make a great film. A village is needed.

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