Oscars: Academy Announces Date for 94th Oscars and Key Events Leading Up to It

The 94th Oscars ceremony, which was previously scheduled to take place on Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022, has been pushed back to Sunday, March 27, 2022.

The eligibility cutoff for films hoping to qualify for the 94th Oscars, however, has been set for Dec. 31 (the end of the calendar year, per longtime tradition), up from Feb. 28 for the 93rd (the cutoff was extended to try to help more films qualify despite the pandemic). In other words, the eligibility period for the 94th Oscars will run from March 1 through Dec. 31, 2021.

The restoration of a year-end eligibility cutoff was expected, but there had been speculation that the Oscars ceremony would be moved forward, not backward, perhaps to the last Sunday in February or the first Sunday in March, in order to avoid Super Bowl LVI, which will take place in Los Angeles on Sunday, Feb. 13, and the winter Olympics, which will take place in Beijing between Friday, Feb. 4, and Sunday, Feb. 20.

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However, insiders say, this would not have left the general public or Academy members with enough time to see the nominated films before voting, or the producers of the Oscars telecast (yet to be hired) with enough time to put together a show reflective of the nominees, since the announcement of nominees will only come on Feb. 8. And after the lowest-rated Oscars telecast in history, not least because the nominees were little seen prior to the show, this is perhaps a greater consideration.

The pandemic will, in one sense, still shape the 94th Oscars. Given that a portion of the eligibility period was impacted by COVID, just like the eligibility period for the 93rd, with theater closures and the like, the amended eligibility requirements that were put in place for the 93rd — including allowing films to qualify without a theatrical release, as long as one had been announced before being derailed by the pandemic — will remain in place for the 94th.

The Academy intends to announce new eligibility requirements ahead of the 95th.

Lastly, the Academy’s Governors Awards ceremony, at which the organization has presented its special awards — the honorary Oscar, the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award — since 2009 (excepting 2020, when it was canceled due to the pandemic), will be returning this season. It will not, however, take place in the fall, as had been the case prior to the pandemic, but will instead be held on the evening of Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022.

Then, Oscar nomination voting will run from Jan. 27 through Feb. 1, and final voting will run from March 17 through March 22.

Here is a full listing of the key dates for the season leading up to the 94th Oscars.

All dates are subject to change.