The moment Kumail Nanjiani opened the envelope for Best Live Action Short Film on Sunday night, something rare happened. He paused. His expression shifted from anticipation to disbelief. "It's a tie. I'm not joking. It's actually a tie. So everyone calm down. We're gonna get through this. Focus up," he announced, ensuring the audience understood he was serious.
The Singers (Netflix) and Two People Exchanging Saliva (Canal+/The New Yorker) had received exactly the same number of votes. In the theatre, The Singers walked up on stage first, followed separately by the Two People Exchanging Saliva team. What should have been a brief announcement had become history.
This rare occurrence has happened only six times before, with this 2026 ceremony marking the seventh tie in the Academy's 98-year history. The most recent tie was in 2012, when Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty were both recognised for sound editing. Before that, Oscar watchers had to go back to 1995 for another tie in the live-action short category itself.
Sam A. Davis, director of The Singers, described his film as "a simple story about the power of music and art to bring us together in a moment when we live in an increasingly isolated world." The film centres on an impromptu music competition in a bar where strangers make bets on who can sing best.
Two People Exchanging Saliva is set in a dystopian world where kissing is forbidden, and payments are given in slaps. When accepting the award, Natalie Musteata said "Thank you to the Academy for supporting a film that is weird and queer and made by a majority of women." Her co-director Alexandre Singh took a playful jab at recent Hollywood discourse, saying "We believe art can change people's souls. Maybe it takes 10 years' time, but we can change society through art, through creativity, through theater and ballet and also cinema."
The timing of the tie became instantly rich comic material. Nanjiani cracked: "It's ironic that the short film Oscar is going to take twice as long." Later, host Conan O'Brien joked: "I just want to say congratulations to both winners. You just ruined 22 million Oscar pools."
What made this tie particularly remarkable was how improbable it is statistically. With Oscar winners determined by thousands of votes, the odds of an exact tie are extremely small. If two nominees receive the exact same number of ballots in the final round of voting, both are declared winners and given their own statuettes. There is no runoff vote or tiebreaking procedure.
The history of Oscar ties is sparse. The first came at the 5th Academy Awards in 1932, when actors Fredric March and Wallace Beery shared Best Actor. It was not technically a true tie, as March received one more vote than Beery, but rules at the time said if the runner-up came within three votes of the winner, they would both receive the award. The rules have since been changed, and now only exact ties are allowed.
The most famous tie occurred at the 1969 Academy Awards, when Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn were both named Best Actress. Streisand won for her debut in Funny Girl while Hepburn was honoured for The Lion in Winter. The actresses received exactly 3,030 votes each: a statistical coincidence that remains one of the most iconic in Oscars history.
Between backstage interviews, both sets of winners expressed genuine delight at sharing the honour. Alexandre Singh and Natalie Musteata said tying with The Singers was "such a dream." "I mean, we love so many of the films that were nominated, and someone on Reddit asked us if we would be happy to share the award," Musteata said. "We were like, 'Heck, yeah.'" Singh added: "We're also a little bit of Oscar geeks. So we had actually discussed that this could happen but couldn't possibly imagine."
Jack Piatt, producer of The Singers, said backstage: "That was incredible. We've got to know all the other filmmakers in our category, so that was really special."
For viewers accustomed to clear winners and defined outcomes, the tie was a refreshing disruption. In a ceremony where nearly every result is predetermined, analysed, and debated months in advance, the simple fact of mathematical equilibrium proved surprisingly moving. Both teams got to speak. Both teams got the statue. And for one brief moment, the Academy Awards became genuinely unpredictable.