Inside a Jury Room: How Judges Actually Score a Film

It's tempting to imagine festival judging as a few people simply saying which film they liked best. In a well-run jury process, it's considerably more structured than that. Our Academy scores on a 1–100 scale against specific criteria — not just "did I enjoy this" — and judges are assigned by section and category so a National-section judge isn't scoring an Indigenous-section submission they have no comparative context for.

Multiple judges score independently before scores are compared, specifically so one strong personality in the room doesn't anchor everyone else's opinion. When scores diverge sharply on the same film, that's treated as useful information, not a problem to average away — it often means the film is doing something distinctive that some judges connected with and others didn't.

The result is a process that's slower and more deliberate than "pick a favorite," and one that tends to reward films with real craft behind them over films that simply have the most charismatic pitch.