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Until today, Animated Feature was the youngest category. SHREK was its first winner .
Though some people say the Oscars already have too many categories, the Academy disagrees. Today, AMPAS announced a new awards category meant to honor casting directors. It won't be an Honorary or Special Achievement Oscar like it happened in the early days of such races as International Film and Visual Effects, but a regular competitive category. We'll see the first nominees for this new prize in two years' time, during the season of the 98th Academy Awards, honoring 2025 releases. One assumes the Board of Governors will use that time to establish specific rules and eligibility requirements…
In their official statement, Academy CEO Bill Kramer and President Janet Yang said: "Casting directors play an essential role in filmmaking, and as the Academy evolves, we are proud to add casting to the disciplines that we recognize and celebrate." Such a statement could reveal an opening to even more categories in the future, rewarding facets of filmmaking still unrecognized in the annals of Oscar history. But of course, one should remember that the first step tends to be creating an Academy branch, bringing voters and advocates for hypothetical prizes in the future. Casting directors have had a branch since July 2013, with 160 current members.
Sadly, that's bad news to those clamoring for a stunt Oscar. At the moment, the Academy has eighteen branches, most of which vote on categories specific to them in the nomination phase. Until today, Casting Directors were one of the rare exceptions. The Production and Technology branch, which has the Scientific and Technical Awards, separate from the Oscars but still under the AMPAS umbrella. Considering that Executives may be covered in Best Picture, that leaves the Marketing and Public Relations branch as the one better placed to advocate for their own prize. Perhaps we'll see Stunts as a nineteenth branch in the near future, however. Fingers crossed.
The last time the Academy added a category to the Oscars was in 2001 when Best Animated Feature made its debut after years of resistance from the Academy Governors. Before that, Makeup in 1981, International Film in 1956, though it existed in Special Award form since 1947, and Costume Design in 1948. I could go on, but the staggering gaps show how rare it is for this organization to change its systems. Now, one can only wait and see if the Best Casting Oscar will manage to shape an identity for itself or if it'll become an automatic extension of the Best Picture race.
Keeping the nominations contained within the branch will hopefully prevent the latter fate. Maybe it'll be like with Costume Design in the 40s and 50s, when well-established industry legends dominated the first years of the race, as if making up for lost time. For Oscar obsessives, it'll be interesting to look back and consider how the awards history might have been affected if the category had existed sooner. Would there be a lot of lone Casting nods? Which unrewarded favorites could have secured a win despite it all? Since casting is distinct from ensemble acting and casting directors don't vote for SAG, would that guild's biggest prize be considered an indicator for the Oscar or entirely unrelated? So many questions and conjectures.
For this year, one presumes Oppenheimer's John Papsidera, Barbie's Lucy Bevan and Allison Jones, and Killers of the Flower Moon's Ellen Lewis would be locked for nominations, frontrunners for the victory. The rest of the category could be a treasure trove of surprises. Nina Gold is fairly respected and well-known, so she might have been able to nab Wonka one solitary nod. She was nominated for the Artio Awards from the Casting Society of America. Or Susan Shopmaker for The Holdovers, Lindsay Graham and Mary Vernieu from Air, Avy Kaufman for Rustin, Ellen Chenoweth for Past Lives, Jennifer Euston for American Fiction, Douglas Aibel for Asteroid City, etc. The possibilities are endless.
What do you think of this news, dear reader? And what do you think this year's Best Casting Oscar lineup would have looked like?