A crash course in how Oscar-nominated films get nominated

It involves mathematics

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It's almost that time of year again when particular films are lobbied around as being better than tens of other equally as great films all in the name of scooping a prestigious trophy at a ceremony that, after months of build up, is almost always underwhelming.

In other words, Oscar season.

With the 2017 nominations set to be announced in January, you may have wondered exactly how the nominated films get selected.

It turns out it's a lot more complicated than you first thought. Fortunately for us all, Collider has broken down the specifics in a rather informative video.

Here's what we learned:

The Academy is comprised of 70,000 filmmakers and professionals who are all divided up into 17 branches - including actors, directors, editors and more (each respective branch can only nominate five within that branch AKA actors nominate actors, directors nominate directors etc.)

Best Picture is voted for by everyone who must submit a list between five and ten.

Each nomination is ranked in order of preference; if one submission gets enough first place votes, it automatically becomes an official nomination. Following that, the submissions with the fewest votes are then removed and that person's second place choice becomes their first.

This is continued until there are five nominations. Once all are in place, everyone can then vote in every category.

The films being touted as frontrunners ahead of next year's ceremony include La La Land, Moonlight and period drama Fences starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis.

One category that'll be particularly competitive is Animated Feature - this year saw a record-breaking 27 films submitted ranging from Pixar sequel Finding Dory through to raunchy comedy Sausage Party.