a) Films: All films which had their initial U.S. release in the calendar year of January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2001, excepting festival appearences, are eligible for all film categories, that is, all categories except Best Trailer and Best DVD. All acting performances in these films are eligible for the performance categories. A special eligibility exception is Best Overlooked Picture, which requires a box office gross of under $20 million as of January 27, 2002.

b) Trailers: All promotional trailers for theatrical motion pictures which debuted in the calendar year of January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2001 are eligible for Best Trailer. The trailer may have premiered in front of a theatrical release, on a DVD or videocassette, on television or on the internet. Multiple trailers for a given film are eligible for this award.

c) DVD: All DVDs released in the calendar year January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2001 are eligible for Best DVD. Boxed sets are eligible as a single unit, or as separate discs. Television series releases are also eligible.

2. Voting

All voters may vote in all categories, listed as follows:

Best Motion Picture
Best Director of a Motion Picture
Best Performance by a Lead Actor
Best Performance by a Lead Actress
Best Performance by a Supporting Actor
Best Performance by a Supporting Actress
Best Screenplay for a Motion Picture
Best Scene in a Motion Picture (*)
Best Cast of a Motion Picture
Best Use of Music in a Motion Picture (**)
Worst Picture
Best Trailer
Best DVD
Best Overlooked Picture

(*) A scene is defined as any portion in any eligible picture which can be defined and recognized as a scene.

(**) Music in this definition is for any combination of original score, adapted score, original songs, pre-existing songs or incidental music use in the course of the picture for any purpose. The award is designated for the entire picture.

Each voter may vote for up to ten films, performances, trailers or DVDs in the appropriate category. Votes are ranked within each category and points are awarded as follows:

1st: 25
2nd: 18
3rd: 14
4th: 12
5th: 10
6th: 8
7th: 6
8th: 4
9th: 2
10th: 1

Ties are allowed between positions. In case of this, points are evenly distributed among the designated votes. It is not possible have more than 10 votes in a category due to ties. If a ballot does not contain the full compliment of 10 votes for a category, the relevant points are not awarded. Ballots that do not fill a category do not have to be continuous, that is, they may skip a position if they do not wish to award the next available position to a film and wish to place it in a lower spot.

If an actor or actress recieves votes for the same performance in both Lead and Supporting categories, then the points are reawarded to the category which initially recieves the most points for the performance. No reranking of the original ballots occurs. If the points in both Lead and Supporting categories are equal for a given performance, the placement of the votes will be decided by the flip of a coin.