The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, will honor the best films released between January 2020 and February 2021. It is scheduled to take place at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California on April 25, 2021. Originally scheduled for February 28, 2021, the ceremony was postponed by two months due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema. The eligibility period for feature films was extended accordingly through February 28. It had already been modified to allow non-theatrical films to be eligible for awards if they originally intended to have a theatrical release. It marks only the fourth time that the Academy Awards have been postponed, and the first time since the 6th Academy Awards in which films released in two different calendar years will be eligible for award consideration in the same ceremony.
Ceremony information
During its board of governors meeting on April 28, the Academy voted to consolidate the Best Sound Mixing and Best Sound Editing category into a single Best Sound category. The Sound branch had raised concerns that the two categories had too much overlap in scope. The rules for Best Original Score now require that a film's score include a minimum of 60% original music, and franchise films and sequels must have a minimum of 80% new music. For the first time, preliminary voting for Best International Feature Film will also be open to all voting members of the Academy. As part of environmental initiatives, the distribution of physical/hardcopy items such as screener copies, screenplays, and music CDs will be discontinued after the 93rd Academy Awards. Screeners will be served solely through the members-only "Academy Screening Room" streaming service going forward.
Impact of the COVID–19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on the film industry — including interruptions to film production, and the nationwide closures of cinemas due to restrictions on commerce and public gatherings — is expected to have a major impact on the Academy Awards. In particular, the Academy Awards require films to have received a theatrical release in the previous calendar year, in at least one cinema in Los Angeles County for at least seven days, in order to be eligible. The Golden Globe Awards had changed its criteria for its 2021 edition to allow films originally scheduled to have a "bona fide theatrical release" in Los Angeles between March 15 and April 30 to be eligible if released direct-to-streaming. In regards to the Oscars, the Academy stated that it was "in the process of evaluating all aspects of this uncertain landscape and what changes may need to be made". The AMPAS delayed its board of governors meeting to April 28, where it voted to temporarily allow films first released via password-protected or transactionalvideo on demand to be eligible for nominations at the 93rd Academy Awards, if they were originally scheduled to have a theatrical release, and are uploaded to AMPAS's online screening service within 60 days of their public release. The previous requirement for a seven-day theatrical release will be reinstated once cinemas have sufficiently resumed operations. To allow ease of compliance with the criteria, eligible screenings will also be allowed to occur in other major cities besides LA, such as Atlanta, Chicago, Miami, New York City, and the San Francisco Bay Area. There were talks of postponing or even cancelling the upcoming ceremony. On June 15, 2020, the Academy announced that the ceremony would be delayed by two months from February 28, 2021 to April 25, 2021, and the eligibility periods for feature films would be extended through February 28, 2021. In a joint statement, AMPAS' President and CEO David Rubin and Dawn Hudson explained that "for over a century, movies have played an important role in comforting, inspiring, and entertaining us during the darkest of times. They certainly have this year. Our hope, in extending the eligibility period and our Awards date, is to provide the flexibility filmmakers need to finish and release their films without being penalized for something beyond anyone’s control." The Academy's Governors Awards and Scientific and Technical Awards have also been postponed indefinitely. Following the announcement, the British Academy Film Awards also moved from February to April, and the Golden Globe Awards were moved from early January to February 28.
