Has there ever been a tie at the Oscars? Rules explained after prestigious award has TWO winners
OSCARS viewers were left stunned when two winners were announced for one category – a rare occurrence in the awards show’s history.
Fans at home shared their confusion when two nominees nabbed the win for Live Action Short Film at the 98th annual ceremony.
Comedian and actor Kumail Nanjiani presented the award on Sunday at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, where he announced the unexpected outcome.
Before revealing the winner in the prestigious category, the actor warned that two names would be called, and that it indeed wasn’t a mistake.
He explained that both recipients would come onstage separately to accept their awards and give their speeches.
The Singers was the first announced, followed by Two People Exchanging Saliva, which experienced an awkward blunder when the spotlight went dark, cutting off the winners’ mid-speech.
After a few moments of silence and a perplexed reaction from host Conan O’Brien, the spotlight turned back on, and they resumed their speech.
Social media erupted with confusion among fans over whether it was normal to have two winners in one category.
“Today I learned that a tie at the Oscars is actually possible. I didn’t know that was a thing. Who knew?!” one viewer wrote on X.
“So far this #Oscars, we’ve got endless roasts about opera and ballet, an unusual amount of AI comments, and even an award that resulted in a tie… which I didn’t know was a thing (it’s only happened seven times in 98 years),” another said.
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“A tie in 2026 is crazy,” a third reacted.
“We just had a tie in the #Oscars for best short film. I never knew that was a thing!” a fourth added.
There have only been six other times when a tie has occurred at the Academy Awards.
The first tie occurred at the 5th annual ceremony in 1932 when Fredric March (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) and Wallace Beery (The Champ) both won the Best Actor award.
Technically, Fredric won by one vote over Wallace, but at the time, the rules stated that anyone within three votes of the winner would receive the award.
Today, ties only happen when two nominees receive the exact same number of votes.
A tie happened again in 1950 in the Best Documentary Short category, in which So Much for So Little and A Chance to Live both were awarded the trophy.
Who won on Hollywood’s biggest night?
One Battle After Another ran away with the night with six Oscars, while Sinners, which was nominated for a record-breaking 16 awards, came away with four. See the full winners list below:
Best Picture: One Battle After Another
Best Actress: Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Best Actor: Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
Supporting Actress: Amy Madigan, Weapons
Supporting Actor: Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
Directing: One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson
Adapted Screenplay: One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson
Original Screenplay: Sinners, Ryan Coogler
Documentary Feature: Mr. Nobody Against Putin
Documentary Short: All the Empty Rooms
Animated Feature: KPop Demon Hunters
Animated Short: The Girl Who Cried Pearls
Cinematography: Sinners, Autumn Durald Arkapaw
Costume Design: Frankenstein, Kate Hawley
Film Editing: One Battle After Another, Andy Jurgensen
International Feature: Sentimental Value – Norway
Life Action Short:
The Singers (TIED)
Two People Exchanging Saliva (TIED)
Makeup and Hairstyling: Frankenstein, Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel and Cliona Furey
Original Score: Sinners, Ludwig Goransson
Original Song: Golden, KPop Demon Hunters
Production Design: Frankenstein, Tamara Deverell and Shane Vieau
Sound: F1, Gareth John, Al Nelson, Gwendolyn Yates Whittle, Gary A. Rizzo and Juan Peralta
Visual Effects: Avatar: Fire and Ash, Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon and Daniel Barrett
Casting: One Battle After Another, Cassandra Kulukundis
This was the case in 1969 when Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter) and Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl) both received the Best Actress honor.
The fourth tie occurred in 1987 when the award for Best Documentary (Feature) went to Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got and Down and Out in America.
It wasn’t until 1995 that another tie was called in the Best Live-Action Short Film category, with the statue going to Trevor and Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life.
The last instance was in 2013 when the Sound Editing category had two Oscar winners: Zero Dark Thirty (Paul N. J. Ottosson) and Skyfall (Per Hallberg and Karen Baker Landers).