Echoes: Are the Oscars Changing Faster Than Hollywood?

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has historically faced intense criticisms regarding a lack of diversity, declining viewership, elitist voting habits, and chaotic campaign tactics.

To combat these issues, the Academy implemented several significant changes for the 2025-2026 awards cycle, aiming to implement transparency, improve viewer engagement, and address modern industry shifts.

Hollywood has changed massively over the past few years, but the last year alone has redefined the Academy with a 180-degree turn. For example, the addition of 10,000 plus members in the Oscar voting body with diverse demographics, a mandatory prerequisite for the voting members to watch the film first, the introduction of a new category named "Best Casting," and the formation of separate branches for animated features and short films, which were previously combined as two controversial formats.

Apart from that, modern generations exhibit a renewed interest in the cinema as they demand authentic and emotionally vulnerable characters. The evident shift towards fast-paced and interactive content, as proven by the Best Picture winner of 2026, One Battle After Another, presents a politically charged and fast-moving narrative filled with ideological conflict and layered characters. The moral conflict and personal identity themes resonate strongly with younger audiences who favor character-driven, stylistically bold storytelling, now recognized by the Academy.

Sinners, which made history by earning 16 nominations, the highest number of nominations ever secured by any film in the Academy's history, shed a spotlight on the awards body that is now looking forward to preserving this legacy of 'transforming tastes' and the new traditions that are now set based on what people love and expect from the Oscars.

Hollywood might have appeared slower to diversify content or experimentation with fast-moving plots, but the Oscars are already rewarding these films. Broader studio system releases signal a greater responsiveness to new viewing habits, which is an indication that the Academy's reforms are proactive rather than reactive. The multi-pronged strategy connotes its efforts towards modernizing the awards and ensuring fair competition in a slower and risk-averse Hollywood.

This underscores a broader reality that the Oscars are changing faster than ever, as the way audiences are watching things is also changing. Various studies are scattered online that clearly state Gen Zs are changing the way they see movies, as compared to previous generations. They have little patience for long runtimes and recycled plots.

Most of the content preference comes from anime and video-game adaptations, which have led to the popularity of A Minecraft Movie (2025) and Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle (2025). This also challenges the earlier assumptions that younger audiences prefer streaming over theatrical experiences. It is evident from the mere earnings of A Minecraft Movie that bagged over $313 million globally in its opening weekend, despite receiving mixed-to lukewarm critical reviews. It was the biggest debut of the year in terms of video game adaptations.

The biggest award show in cinema ultimately depends on the tastes of its audience. Public preferences shape the branding of the Oscars, which has gradually reimagined the way cinema is celebrated today. Most of the cinema-going population is now dominated by Gen Z and Gen Alphas, who account for 39 percent of North American moviegoers, according to Puck, whereas Millennials made up approximately 32 percent of the said audience in 2025. This is a decrease from 37 percent in 2022-2023, as Gen Z is the preeminent cohort stepping forward in this respect.

This does not mean Millennials have stopped watching movies, but they are more inclined towards streaming. They have demonstrated their preferred method of viewing, though not to the complete exclusion of cinemas. Gen Alphas and Gen Z treat the moviegoing experience as a social event, as they are not in the theatres to consume content but due to their preferences to be with larger groups.

Reports state that Gen Z is drawn to the "immersive and high-quality experience of large-format screens," and this "experience" factor reflects their changing tastes of cinemas. This is a driving force behind the way Hollywood movies are now made, which, in turn, affects the Academy's rapid change.

These audiences are more open to global stories, even if they belong to Korean, Irish, Thai, French, or Asian regions. The Academy is positioning itself for the next 100 years and is thinking more holistically, as confirmed by the Academy's CEO Bill Kramer, in a conversation with Vanity Fair.

"When I think about our future, obviously the Oscars are a huge part of it, but we're really planning for our next 100 years and thinking about a much more holistic way of thinking about the Academy."

The Academy wants to centre its work across a plethora of disciplines, genres, eras, and areas that could echo a global film community. Much of this shift was triggered by the historic win of Bong Joon-ho's Parasite (2019), which evinced the Academy's embrace of stories from beyond Hollywood's traditional borders.

Communication across borders has become a norm, which is one of the benefits of the post-pandemic era. The blurred line between international, classic, documentaries, and animation is explicitly evident as people were used to watching content from any region of the world confined to their homes. This has given the Academy an edge in becoming richer and more recognized in terms of international content.

The transition is a bit late, but better late than never. Probably the Academy was taking its time to notice a certain shift in audience preferences and overlooked the younger generations' changing habits, such as reading subtitles of a Persian-language film like It Was Just an Accident (2025).

If COVID was considered over in 2023, then by 2025, the Academy still didn't take too long to change its rules while staying alert to the shifting preferences of audiences. In fact, it was a timely move, arguably even faster than the pace at which modern viewers' tastes were changing.

Today's generations have shorter attention spans and get bored with one thing quickly, so the Academy's simultaneous introduction of multiple reforms was a smart step. It addressed long-standing criticisms that had previously clogged its thinking, showing a willingness to adapt and stay relevant in a fast-moving cinematic world.

Echoes is an opinion column on film and television from the perspective of a writer based in Pakistan.