Yes, the Academy Awards have seen historic ties in several categories, although it is an extremely rare event
Many movie fans wonder if already had an Oscar tie into main or technical categories. The answer is yes. In its more than 90-year history, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has had to hand out two statuettes for the same award in exact numbers. six occasions.
Although it is statistically unlikely, given the number of voters (currently more than 10 thousand members), numerical coincidence may occur. Below, we explain how the rule works and detail all the cases, including the famous episode between Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn.
How the Oscar tie rule works
For a tie to be officially declared today, the vote count must be exactly the same. There is no “minerva vote” or tiebreaker criteria based on age or box office. If two (or more) nominees receive the same amount of votes, both are declared winners and receive the statuette.
The auditors at PriceWaterhouseCoopers, responsible for the calculation, keep extra statuettes behind the scenes precisely for this eventuality or for cases in which the winners are groups of producers/screenwriters.
The old three-vote rule
At the beginning of the awards, the rule was different. Until the early 1930s, if the difference between first and second place was less than three votes, the Academy considered it a technical tie. This rule was later abolished, requiring absolute equality for the duplicity of the prize.
The most famous draws in history
Among the six times the event took place, two stand out for involving the most prestigious categories of the night: Best Actor and Best Actress.
Barbra Streisand e Katharine Hepburn (1969)
The most famous case occurred at the 1969 ceremony. Legendary actress Ingrid Bergman opened the envelope for the Best Actress category and found an exact tie of 3,030 votes for each.
- Barbra Streisand won for her film debut in Funny Girl: A Garota Genial.
- Katharine Hepburn won by The Lion in Winter.
Hepburn was not present at the ceremony, so Streisand dominated the stage and gave her famous speech, starting with “Hello, gorgeous!” (Hello, handsome!) for the figurine.
Fredric March e Wallace Beery (1932)
This was the first tie in history, occurring in the Best Actor category, but under the old rule.
- Fredric March (The Doctor and the Monster) had one more vote than Wallace Beery (The Champion).
- As the difference was less than three votes, the rule at the time determined that both would win the prize.
Complete list: every time there was a tie at the Oscars
In addition to the cases mentioned above, four other categories had double winners. See the complete chronological list:
- 1932 – Best Actor: Fredric March e Wallace Beery.
- 1950 – Best Short Documentary: A Chance to Live e So Much for So Little.
- 1969 – Best Actress: Katharine Hepburn e Barbra Streisand.
- 1987 – Best Documentary: Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got e Down and Out in America.
- 1995 – Best Live Action Short Film: Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life e Trevor.
- 2013 – Best Sound Editing: Zero Dark Thirty (Paul NJ Ottosson) and 007 – Operation Skyfall (Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers).
The most recent tie-in: Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty
The last record of a tie occurred at the 2013 ceremony. Actor Mark Wahlberg, when presenting the Best Sound Editing category, opened the envelope and looked confused, announcing: “No joke, we have a tie.”
The victory was shared between the James Bond action film, 007 – Operation Skyfall, and the military drama Zero Dark Thirty. This was the first technical tie in a category of this nature in decades, proving that even with the modern system of computerized voting and rigorous auditing, the mathematical probability of equality still exists.
While extremely rare, these moments become part of Hollywood lore, reminding audiences and the industry that every Academy vote truly counts in defining a year’s cinematic legacy.
