BIGGER OSCAR DOCS POOL?

Movie academy’s rule changes could expand the number of films eligible for award.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Tuesday new rules for next year’s Oscars (the 91st) — most notably one that could potentially expand the number of documentary features eligible for consideration.

Under the new rules, which were approved by the group’s board of governors at its most recent meeting, documentaries that have won a qualifying award at a competitive film festival will now be eligible for consideration “regardless of any prior exhibition or distribution by nontheatrical means.” The academy will release its list of qualifying festivals later this spring.

While it remains to be seen how great an effect this will have, easing the pressure on certain films to secure theatrical release could potentially enable more international docs to be included in the process and perhaps benefit platforms like HBO, Netflix and PBS that produce and acquire significant numbers of documentaries and sometimes forgo theatrical releases.

Previously, all documentary features needed to complete a seven-day run in at least one theater in both New York and Los Angeles to be eligible for Oscar consideration — a requirement that will still hold for documentaries that don’t win any qualifying awards.

As the academy continues to grapple with the everblurrier line between film and television, the change follows a rule enacted last year in the documentary feature category that bars multi-part or limited series from consideration. That rule, had it been enacted earlier, would have rendered 2017’s documentary feature winner, “O.J.: Made in America,” ineligible.

In an additional tweak, the critic review eligibility requirement has been expanded so that, in addition to the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, a film can be reviewed in Time Out New York, the Village Voice or L.A. Weekly. Such reviews must be written by movie critics, however, not television critics.