Academy Award
Awarded for	Excellence in cinematic achievements
Presented by	Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Country	United States
First awarded	May 16, 1929 to honor achievements of 1927/1928
Official website

The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS)^[1] to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers. The formal ceremony at which the awards are presented is among the most prominent and most watched film awards ceremonies in the world. The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held on Thursday, May 16, 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood to honor outstanding film achievements of 1927 and 1928. It was hosted by actor Douglas Fairbanks and director William C. DeMille. Most recently, the 79th Academy Awards ceremony was held on Sunday, February 25, 2007 at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood to honor outstanding film achievements of 2006. It was hosted by day-time television talk show host Ellen DeGeneres. The 80th Academy Awards ceremony is scheduled for Sunday, February 24, 2008 and will be hosted by Comedy Central's The Daily Show host, Jon Stewart. AMPAS, a professional honorary organization, maintains a voting membership of 5,830 as of 2007. Actors constitute the largest voting bloc, numbering 1,311 members (22 percent) of the Academy's composition. Votes for Oscars have been tabulated and certified by the auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (and its predecessor Price Waterhouse) for the past 72 annual awards ceremonies.^[2]

The Oscar

The official name of the Oscar statuette is the Academy Award of Merit. Made of gold-plated britannium on a black metal base, it is 13.5 in (34 cm) tall, weighs 8.5 lb (3.85 kg) and depicts a knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a crusader's sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes. The five spokes each represent the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers and Technicians.^[3] MGM’s art director Cedric Gibbons, one of the original Academy members, supervised the design of the award trophy by printing the design on scroll.^[4] In need of a model for his statue Gibbons was introduced by his then wife Dolores del Río to Emilio "El Indio" Fernández. Reluctant at first, Fernández was finally convinced to pose naked to create what today it is known as the "Oscar". Then sculptor George Stanley sculpted Gibbons' design in clay, and Alex Smith cast the statue in tin and copper and then gold-plated it over a composition of 92.5 percent tin and 7.5 percent copper. The only addition to the Oscar since it was created is a minor streamlining of the base. Approximately 40 Oscars are made each year in Chicago, Illinois by the manufacturer, R.S. Owens. If they fail to meet strict quality control standards, the statuettes are cut in half and melted down.^[5]

The root of the name "Oscar" is contested. One biography of Bette Davis claims that she named the Oscar after her first husband, bandleader Harmon Oscar Nelson.^[6] Another claimed origin is that of the Academy’s Executive Secretary, Margaret Herrick, who first saw the award in 1931 and made reference of the statuette reminding her of her Uncle Oscar. Columnist Sidney Skolsky was present during Herrick’s naming and seized the name in his byline, "Employees have affectionately dubbed their famous statuette 'Oscar'" (Levy 2003). Both Oscar and Academy Award are registered trademarks of the Academy, fiercely protected through litigation and threats thereof.

As of the most recent ceremony held in 2007, a total of 2,681 Oscars have been awarded.^[7] 290 different actors have won an acting Oscar (including Honorary awards and Juvenile awards). Of these, 144 are still alive today.

Ownership of Oscar statuettes

Since 1950, the statuettes have been legally encumbered by the requirement that neither winners nor their heirs may sell the statuettes without first offering to sell them back to the Academy for $1. If a winner refuses to agree to this stipulation, then the Academy keeps the statuette. Academy Awards not protected by this agreement have been sold in public auctions and private deals for six-figure sums (Levy 2003).

This rule is highly controversial, since it implies that the winner does not own the award.^[8] The case of Michael Todd's grandson trying to sell Todd's Oscar statuette illustrates that there are many who do not agree with this idea. When Todd's grandson attempted to sell Todd's Oscar statuette to a movie prop collector, the Academy won the legal battle by getting a permanent injunction. Although some Oscar sales transactions have been successful, the buyers have subsequently returned the statuettes to the Academy, which keeps them in its treasury.

Academy membership

All members must be invited to join. Invitation comes from the Board of Governors, on behalf of Academy Branch Executive Committees. Membership eligibility may be achieved by a competitive nomination or a member may submit a name based on other significant contribution to the field of motion pictures. Though winning an Academy Award usually results in an invitation to join, membership is not automatic.

New membership proposals are considered annually. The Academy does not publicly disclose its membership, although as recently as 2007 press releases have announced the names of those who have been invited to join. The 2007 release also stated that it has "just under" 6,000 voting members; though the membership had been growing until 2003, stricter policies have kept its size steady since then.^[9]

Academy membership is divided into 15 Branches, representing different disciplines in motion pictures. Members whose work does not fall within one of the Branches may belong to a group known as "Members At Large."

Nominations

Today, according to Rules 2 and 3 of the official Academy Awards Rules, a film must open in the previous calendar year, from midnight at the start of January 1 to midnight at the end of December 31, in Los Angeles County, California, to qualify.^[10] Rule 2 states that a film must be "feature-length", defined as a minimum of 40 minutes, except for short subject awards and it must exist either on a 35 mm or 70 mm film print or on 24 fps or 48 fps progressive scan digital film print with native resolution not less than 1280x720.

The members of the various branches nominate those in their respective fields while all members may submit nominees for Best Picture. The winners are then determined by a second round of voting in which all members are then allowed to vote in most categories, including Best Picture.^[11]

As of the 79th Annual Academy Awards, 847 members (past and present) of the Screen Actors Guild have been nominated for an Oscar (in all categories).

Awards night

The major awards are given out at a live televised ceremony, most commonly in February or March following the relevant calendar year, and six weeks after the announcement of the nominees. This is an elaborate extravaganza, with the invited guests walking up the red carpet in the creations of the most prominent fashion designers of the day. Black tie dress is the most common outfit for men, although fashion may dictate not wearing a bowtie, and musical performers typically do not adhere to this (the artists who recorded the nominees for Best Original Song quite often perform those songs live at the awards ceremony, and the fact that they are performing is often used to promote the television broadcast). The Academy has for several years claimed that the award show has a billion viewers internationally, but this has so far not been confirmed by any independent sources. Neither has the Academy explained how it has reached this figure.

The Academy Awards is the only awards ceremony televised live across the United States excluding Alaska and Hawaii; the Emmys, Golden Globes, and Grammys are broadcast live in the East Coast, but they are on tape delay in the West Coast.

The Awards show was first televised on NBC in 1953. NBC continued to broadcast the event until 1960 when the ABC Network took over, televising the festivities through 1970, after which NBC reassumed the broadcasts. ABC once again took over broadcast duties in 1976; it has contracted to do so through the year 2014.^[12]

After more than sixty years of being held in late March or early April, the ceremonies were moved up to late February or early March starting in 2004 to help disrupt and shorten the intense lobbying and ad campaigns associated with Oscar season in the film industry. The earlier date is also to advantage of ABC, as it currently usually occurs during the highly profitable and important February sweeps period. The Awards show holds the distinction of having won the most Emmys in history, with 38 wins and 167 nominations.^[13]

On March 30, 1981, the awards ceremony was postponed for one day after the shooting of President Ronald Reagan and others in Washington, D.C. In 2007, the awards event itself was designated a National Special Security Event by the United States Department of Homeland Security.

Movie studios are strictly prohibited from advertising movies during the broadcast.

Since 2002 movie stars have been seen arriving at the Academy Awards in hybrid vehicles;^[14] during the telecast of the 79th Academy Awards in 2007, Leonardo DiCaprio and former vice president Al Gore announced that ecologically intelligent practices had been integrated into the planning and execution of the Oscar presentation and several related events.^[15]

Venues

The 1st Academy Awards were presented at a banquet dinner at the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood. Subsequent banquet ceremonies in the 1930s and early 40s were held in Los Angeles at either The Ambassador Hotel or the Biltmore Hotel.

Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood then hosted the awards from 1944 to 1946, followed by the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles from 1947 to 1948. The 21st Academy Awards in 1949 were held at the "Academy Award Theater" at the Academy's then-headquarters on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.^[16]

From 1950 to 1960, the awards were presented at Hollywood's Pantages Theater. The Oscars then moved to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California in 1961. By 1968, the Academy decided to move the ceremonies back to Los Angeles, this time at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in the Los Angeles Music Center. The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion hosted 20 consecutive Oscar ceremonies until 1988, when the Academy started to alternate between the Music Center and the Shrine Auditorium.

In 2002, Hollywood's Kodak Theater became the first permanent home of the awards. It is connected to the Hollywood & Highland Center, which contains 640,000 square feet (59,000 m²) of space including retail, restaurants, nightclubs, other establishments and a six-screen cinema. In fact, the Grand Staircase columns at the Kodak Theater showcase every movie that has won the Best Picture title since the first Academy Awards in 1928.

Criticism

Critics have noted that many Best Picture Academy Award winners in the past have not stood the test of time. Several of these films, such as Around the World in 80 Days, Grand Hotel and Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth are often considered to have aged poorly and to have little of the impact they had on their initial release.^[17][18][19] Several films that currently have wide critical approval were not named Best Picture.^[20] The most commonly cited example is Citizen Kane, which received glowing critical reviews and was nominated for nine Oscars but won only one (Best Original Screenplay). This film has since come to be regarded by many as one of the greatest American films of all time.

It has been suggested that actors are at a disadvantage in comedic roles, as few acting awards have been given for performances in films that could be considered primarily comedic. Notable examples of actors who have received Oscars for comedic roles are James Stewart in The Philadelphia Story, Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday, Josephine Hull in Harvey, Jack Lemmon in Mister Roberts, Peter Ustinov in Topkapi, Walter Matthau in The Fortune Cookie, Goldie Hawn in Cactus Flower, George Burns in The Sunshine Boys, Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, Jack Palance in City Slickers, Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets, Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda and Jessica Lange in Tootsie. This was joked upon at the 2007 awards by Jack Black, John C. Reilly, and Will Ferrell.^[21][22] It has also been suggested that Oscar winners occasionally receive awards that are given more in commemoration of an entire career or of past unrecognized achievements than in honor of the specific work for which the recipient is nominated. One example is Judi Dench's brief (eight minutes) screen appearance in Shakespeare in Love, for which she won the 1998 Best Supporting Actress award, one year after she was unsuccessful in the Best Actress category for Mrs. Brown. Another is Martin Scorsese's Best Director award for The Departed (2006), after his unsuccessful nominations for several highly acclaimed films such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and Goodfellas.

Studios also lobby heavily for their films to be considered, leading to the complaint that nominations and awards may be largely a result of this lobbying rather than the quality of the material.^[23]

A point of contention is the lack of consideration of non-English language films for categories other than Best Foreign Language Film: very few foreign films have been nominated for any other categories, regardless of artistic merit. As of 2007, only eight foreign language films have been nominated for Best Picture: Grand Illusion (French, 1938); Z (French, 1969); The Emigrants (Swedish, 1972); Cries and Whispers (Swedish, 1973); Il Postino (Italian/Spanish, 1995); Life Is Beautiful (Italian, 1998); Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Chinese Mandarin, 2000); and Letters from Iwo Jima (Japanese, 2006). None of these won Best Picture, though Z, Life Is Beautiful and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon all won Best Foreign Language Film, and Life is Beautiful also won Best Actor for Roberto Benigni. (As for the others, Grand Illusion predated the Best Foreign Language Film category; Letters from Iwo Jima was ineligible because it was produced in the U.S.; Cries and Whispers and Il Postino were not nominated; The Emigrants was nominated the year before but did not win.) On the other hand, Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico, 2006) won three Oscars even though it wasn't nominated for Best Picture and it lost Best Foreign Language Film; Sophia Loren also won her Best Actress Oscar for a foreign-language performance in Two Women (Italian, 1960). In addition, The Motorcycle Diaries (in Spanish and Quechua, 2004) won for Best Original Song ("Al otro lado del río") despite being an international co-production between seven different countries, none of which were able to submit it for Best Foreign Language Film consideration.

Awards

Academy Awards of Merit

Current Awards

• Best Picture: 1928 to present
• Best Director: 1928 to present
• Best Actor: 1928 to present
• Best Actress: 1928 to present
• Best Supporting Actor: 1936 to present
• Best Supporting Actress: 1936 to present
• Best Original Screenplay: 1940 to present
• Best Adapted Screenplay: 1928 to present
• Best Animated Feature: 2001 to present
• Best Art Direction: 1928 to present (also called Interior, Set Decoration, or Production Design)
• Best Cinematography: 1928 to present
• Best Costume Design: 1948 to present
• Best Documentary Feature: 1943 to present
• Best Documentary Short Subject: 1941 to present
• Best Film Editing: 1935 to present
• Best Foreign Language Film: 1947 to present
• Best Makeup: 1981 to present
• Best Original Song: 1934 to present
• Best Original Score: 1934 to present
• Best Original Musical: 2000 to present
• Best Animated Short Film: 1931 to present
• Best Live Action Short Film: 1931 to present
• Best Sound Mixing: 1930 to present
• Best Sound Editing: 1963 to present
• Best Visual Effects: 1939 to present

Retired Awards

• Best Assistant Director: 1933 to 1937
• Best Dance Direction: 1935 to 1937
• Best Engineering Effects: 1928 only
• Best Score—Adaptation or Treatment
• Best Original Musical or Comedy Score: 1995 to 1999
• Best Short Film—Color: 1936 and 1937
• Best Short Film—Live Action—2 Reels: 1936 to 1956
• Best Short Film—Novelty: 1932 to 1935
• Best Original Story: 1928 to 1956
• Best Unique and Artistic Quality of Production: 1928 only

In the first year of the awards, the Best Director category was split into separate Drama and Comedy categories. At times, the Best Original Score category has been split into separate Drama and Comedy/Musical categories. Today, the Best Original Score category is one category. From the 1930s through the 1960s, the Cinematography, Art Direction, and Costume Design awards were split into separate categories for black and white and color films.

Newest Awards

The newest awards to be added to the list of available awards from the Academy are the awards for:

• Best Animated Feature: added in 2001
• Best Original Musical: added in 2000
• Best Makeup: added in 1981

Proposed Awards

The Board of Governors meets each year and considers other new categories. To date, the following proposed awards have not been approved:

• Best Casting: rejected in 1999
• Best Stunt Coordination: rejected in 1999; rejected in 2005^[24]
• Best Title Design: rejected in 1999

Special Awards

These awards are voted on by special committees, rather than by the Academy membership as a whole, but the actor/actress voted to receive the special award can turn down the offer.

Current Special Awards

• Academy Honorary Award: 1928 to present
• Academy Special Achievement Award
• Academy Award, Scientific or Technical: 1931 to present (at three levels of awards)
• The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award: 1938 to present
• The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award
• Gordon E. Sawyer Award

Retired Special Award

• Academy Juvenile Award: 1934 to 1960

Academy Award records

Film records

• Only three films have won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay, a feat which is known as winning the "" or the Oscar "Grand Slam." These films are: It Happened One Night (1934), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
• The three films which have been awarded 11 Oscars each are Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), and (2003). Of these, only The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won every Oscar for which it was nominated.
• (2003) is the first fantasy or science fiction film to win the Oscar for Best Picture.
• The film which received the most Oscars without winning Best Picture is Cabaret (1972) with 8 awards. Although the film was nominated for Best Picture, it lost to The Godfather (1972).
• The two most nominated films of all time are All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997), both with 14 nominations. All About Eve won 6 awards, and Titanic won 11 awards.
• The two films which share the record for most nominations (11) with no Oscar wins are The Turning Point (1977) and The Color Purple (1985).
• Dreamgirls (2006) has the most nominations, (8), without ones for writing or directing. It is also the first film to have the most nominations in one year (2006) without one for Best Picture.
• The film with the most nominations without a Best Picture nomination is They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) with nine nominations. (That same year, Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) received the highest amount of nominations [at 10], including Best Picture.)
• Grand Hotel (1932) is the only Best Picture winner to receive no other nominations.
• The first (and only) X-rated film to win the Best Picture Oscar is Midnight Cowboy (1969).
• The first (and only) G-rated film to win the Best Picture Oscar is Oliver! (1968).
• The first (and only) animated film ever to be nominated for Best Picture is Beauty and the Beast (1991). This is also the first (and only) animated film to receive a record six Oscar nominations.
• No film to date has ever produced Oscar-winning performances in the four competitive acting categories (Leading Actor, Leading Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress). The two films which came closest to achieving this feat were A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Network (1976), with each film earning three out of the four acting Oscars.
• To date, 13 films have received Oscar nominations in each of the four competitive acting categories: My Man Godfrey (1936); Mrs. Miniver (1942); For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943); Johnny Belinda (1948); Sunset Boulevard (1950); A Streetcar Named Desire (1951); From Here to Eternity (1953); Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966); Bonnie and Clyde (1967); Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967); Network (1976); Coming Home (1978); and Reds (1981).
• The Red Balloon (1956), a film with no dialogue, is the only such film ever to win an Oscar (as even silent films have scripted dialogue). This film won the Best Original Screenplay Award. It is also the only short film to win an Oscar outside of the short film categories.

Acting records

• Katharine Hepburn holds the record for winning the most Oscar awards for acting (at 4). She won Best Actress Awards for: Morning Glory (1932/33), Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1981).
• Meryl Streep holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for an actress and overall for acting (at 14). From these 14 nominations, Streep won two Oscars: Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Best Actress for Sophie's Choice (1982).
• Jack Nicholson holds the record for the most Oscar nominations for an actor (at 12). He has won three times. Twice as Best Actor in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and As Good as It Gets (1997) and once as Best Supporting Actor in Terms of Endearment (1983).
• Bette Davis and Greer Garson are the most consecutively nominated leading actress' (with five nominations from each in a row - Davis 1938 - 1942. Garson 1941 - 1945), while Marlon Brando is the most consecutively nominated leading actor (with four nominations from 1951-1954).
• Emma Thompson is the only actress to win an Oscar for Best Actress (Howards End, 1992) and an Oscar for Best Screenplay (Sense and Sensibility, 1995).
• Katharine Hepburn holds the record for the longest time span between first and last Oscar nominations (48 years from 1932/33 to 1981).
• Peter O'Toole holds the record for having the most Oscar nominations (8 for Best Actor) without ever winning a competitive acting award. He was given an honorary Oscar in 2003.
• Richard Burton (1925-1984) received the highest amount of acting nominations (7) with two distinctions combined. Without winning and without ever being given any kind of honorary award.
• The oldest winner of an acting Oscar is Jessica Tandy, who was 80 years old when she won the Best Actress Award for Driving Miss Daisy (1989).
• The oldest nominee of an acting Oscar is Gloria Stuart, who was 87 years old when she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Award for Titanic (1997).
• Born on January 12, 1910, Luise Rainer is the oldest living Oscar nominee and winner in an acting category.
• The youngest winner of an acting Oscar is Tatum O’Neal, who was 10 years old when she won the Best Supporting Actress Award for Paper Moon (1973).
• The youngest nominee of an acting Oscar is Justin Henry, who was 8 years old when he was nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Award for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979).
• May Robson has the earliest birth date of all actors ever nominated for an Oscar. Born on April 19, 1858, Robson was nominated for the Best Actress Award at the age of 75 for Lady for a Day (1932/33).
• At the age of 22, Kate Winslet became the youngest person ever to receive two Oscar nominations (for Sense and Sensibility and Titanic), and each of her subsequent nominations has broken a further record: the youngest person to receive three, four, and five nominations.
• James Dean is the only actor to receive two posthumous acting nominations. Although Dean was killed in an automobile accident in 1955, he was nominated for the Best Actor Award in 1956 for East of Eden (1955) and again in 1957 for Giant (1956).
• The shortest performance ever to win an acting Oscar is Beatrice Straight's performance, which lasted 5 minutes and 40 seconds, in Network (1976). Straight won the Best Supporting Actress Award for her role.
• The shortest performance ever to win a lead acting Oscar is Anthony Hopkins' performance as Hannibal Lecter, with about 16-17 minutes of screen time, in The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Hopkins won the Best Actor Award for his role.
• Only two actors have received Oscar nominations for roles in which they did not speak a word. Holly Hunter was nominated for (and won) Best Actress in The Piano, while Rinko Kikuchi was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in Babel.
• Only two actors have ever declined to accept their Oscars. George C. Scott refused to accept the Best Actor Award for Patton (1970); he claimed that acting should not be competitive. Marlon Brando refused to accept the Best Actor Award for The Godfather (1972); he sent Sacheen Littlefeather to accept it in his behalf to protest America's treatment of indigenous peoples.
• Only five people have won acting Oscars in consecutive years. Luise Rainer won Best Actress for The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). Spencer Tracy won Best Actor for Captains Courageous (1937) and Boys Town (1938). Katharine Hepburn won Best Actress for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) and The Lion in Winter (1968). Jason Robards won Best Supporting Actor for All the President's Men (1976) and Julia (1977). Tom Hanks won Best Actor for Philadelphia (1993) and Forrest Gump (1994).
• Only 16 actors have won Oscars for their screen debut performances http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/AdvancedSearchInput.jsp - Best Actor: none; Best Actress: Shirley Booth, Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, and Marlee Matlin; Best Supporting Actor: Haing S. Ngor and Harold Russell; Best Supporting Actress: Gale Sondergaard, Katina Paxinou, Mercedes McCambridge, Eva Marie Saint, Jo Van Fleet, Tatum O'Neal, Anna Paquin, and Jennifer Hudson; and Juvenile Award: Claude Jarman Jr. and Vincent Winter. To date, Hudson is the only African American to do so.
• Sophia Loren is the only actress to win an Oscar for Best Actress for performance in foreign language film.
• Laurence Olivier and Roberto Benigni are the only people to have directed themselves to an acting Oscar. Olivier's win was for Hamlet (1948), and Benigni won for Life Is Beautiful (1998). Neither of them won the award for Best Director.

Miscellaneous records

• George Bernard Shaw is the only person to have been awarded both an Oscar (Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Pygmalion in 1938) and a Nobel Prize (the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1925). Al Gore is arguably the second person to have been awarded both a Nobel Prize (the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 shared with Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and an Oscar (presented by Davis Guggenheim, director of the Academy Award winning An Inconvenient Truth, in 2007) (Nobel laureate John Steinbeck was nominated for his screenplay for Lifeboat (1944), and Nobel laureate Harold Pinter was nominated for his screenplays for both The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) and Betrayal (1983)).
• Walt Disney holds the record for receiving as well as being nominated for the most Academy Awards. He won 22 competitive awards and received four honorary awards. He was also nominated for 59 Academy Awards during his lifetime.
• With 45 Oscar nominations, film composer John Williams is currently the most-nominated person alive.
• Sound re-recording mixer Kevin O'Connell currently holds the record for most Oscar nominations without a win at 19. His most recent nomination was for Apocalypto (2006).
• For the Best Director Award, John Ford holds the record for the most awards (four awards resulting from five nominations), while William Wyler holds the record for the most nominations (12 nominations resulting in three awards).
• Only seven directors have won Oscars for their screen debuts http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/AdvancedSearchInput.jsp: Delbert Mann, Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins, Robert Redford, James L. Brooks, Kevin Costner, and Sam Mendes.
• The youngest person ever to be awarded an Oscar is Shirley Temple Black (age 6), who was awarded the inaugural (now retired) non-competitive Academy Juvenile Award in 1934.
• The youngest person ever to be nominated for Best Director is John Singleton, who was 24 years old when he was nominated for Boyz N the Hood (1991). He is also the first (and only) African American ever to be nominated for Best Director.
• The longest standing ovation during an awards ceremony was given to Charlie Chaplin in 1972 after receiving his Oscar. This standing ovation lasted for a full five minutes.
• Dudley Nichols was the first artist ever to decline an Oscar. He refused to accept the Best Writing (Screenplay) Award for The Informer (1935); he boycotted against the Academy for its support of company unions instead of the newly formed independent actors guilds and unions.
• (2003), Braveheart (1995), The Last Emperor (1987), Gigi (1958), Around the World in Eighty Days (1956), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), An American in Paris (1951), Grand Hotel (1932), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), and Wings (1927) are all films that won Best Picture without receiving a single acting nomination.
• Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935), The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), The Lion in Winter (1968), The Godfather, Part II (1974), The Godfather, Part III (1990), (2002), (2003), and Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) are all sequels that were nominated for Best Picture. Of these nominees, only The Godfather, Part II and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King ended up winning the Oscar.

See also

• List of Academy Award winning films
• List of Academy Awards ceremonies
• List of actors who have appeared in multiple Best Picture Academy Award winners
• List of Asian Academy Award winners and nominees
• List of Black Academy Award winners and nominees
• List of films receiving six or more Academy Awards
• List of films receiving the Academy Award "Big Five"
• List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees
• List of people who have won multiple Academy Awards in a single year
• List of presenters of Best Picture Academy Award
• List of Puerto Rican Academy Award winners and nominees
• List of superlative Academy Award winners and nominees

References

• Cotte, Olivier (2007) Secrets of Oscar-winning animation: Behind the scenes of 13 classic short animations. Focal Press. ISBN 978-0240520704
• Gail, K. & Piazza, J. (2002) The Academy Awards the Complete History of Oscar. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, Inc. ISBN 157912240X
• Levy, Emanuel (2003) All About Oscar: The History and Politics of the Academy Awards. Continuum, New York. ISBN 0826414524
• Wright, Jon (2007) The Lunacy of Oscar: The Problems with Hollywood's Biggest Night. Thomas Publishing, Inc.

References

External links

• Oscars.org (official Academy site)
• Oscar.com (official ceremony promotional site)
• The Academy Awards Database (official site)
• Oscars Photos (Moviefone)
• Academy Award at the Internet Movie Database
• Academy Awards - Feature from Daily Telegraph
• Complete Downloadable List of Academy Award Nominees

•  • [ e] Academy Awards
Academy Award of Merit: Current Awards	Best Picture • Best Leading Actor • Best Leading Actress • Best Supporting Actor • Best Supporting Actress • Best Animated Feature • Best Art Direction • Best Cinematography • Best Costume Design • Best Director • Best Documentary Feature • Best Documentary Short Subject • Best Film Editing • Best Foreign Language Film • Best Makeup • Best Original Score • Best Original Song • Best Animated Short Film • Best Live Action Short Film • Best Sound Mixing • Best Sound Editing • Best Visual Effects • Best Adapted Screenplay • Best Original Screenplay
Academy Award of Merit: Retired Awards	Best Assistant Director • Best Dance Direction • Best Director of a Comedy Picture • Best Short Film - Live Action - 2 Reels • Best Short Film - Novelty • Best Original Story • Best Title Writing • Best Unique and Artistic Quality of Production
Special Awards: Current Awards	Academy Honorary Award • Academy Special Achievement Award • Academy Award, Scientific or Technical • The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award • The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award • Gordon E. Sawyer Award
Special Awards: Retired Awards	Academy Juvenile Award
Ceremonies	1927/28 • 1928/29 • 1929/30 • 1930/31 • 1931/32 • 1932/33 • 1934 • 1935 • 1936 • 1937 • 1938 • 1939 • 1940 • 1941 • 1942 • 1943 • 1944 • 1945 • 1946 • 1947 • 1948 • 1949 • 1950 • 1951 • 1952 • 1953 • 1954 • 1955 • 1956 • 1957 • 1958 • 1959 • 1960 • 1961 • 1962 • 1963 • 1964 • 1965 • 1966 • 1967 • 1968 • 1969 • 1970 • 1971 • 1972 • 1973 • 1974 • 1975 • 1976 • 1977 • 1978 • 1979 • 1980 • 1981 • 1982 • 1983 • 1984 • 1985 • 1986 • 1987 • 1988 • 1989 • 1990 • 1991 • 1992 • 1993 • 1994 • 1995 • 1996 • 1997 • 1998 • 1999 • 2000 • 2001 • 2002 • 2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2007 (Note: The years are listed as per Academy convention, usually the year of film release; the ceremonies are usually held the next year.)

•  • [ e] Cinema of the United States
	Box office              Golden Globes