The 'Best Picture' Academy Awards

Facts & Trivia (1)

The First Best Picture Winners:

In the first year of the awards, there were two "Outstanding Picture" winners: Wings (1927/28) for Best Production and Sunrise (1927/28) for Unique and Artistic Picture (a category that was immediately dropped).

[Note: Three awards were given during the Academy's first year that were never given again: Best Unique and Artistic Production, Best Title Writing (for silent films), and Best Comedy Direction.]

Obviously, the first and only silent film to win 'Best Picture' was Wings (1927/28). The Artist (2011) was mostly-silent, although had a soundtrack with sound effects, music, and a few characters speaking dialogue at the end.

At the 1928/29 Academy Awards (held in 1930), no film won more than one statuette (there were seven films honored in seven categories) - something that hasn't been duplicated since.

The Top Best Picture Award Winners and Nominated Films:

Two Best Picture-winning films, Titanic (1997) and All About Eve (1950) , both hold the record for the most nominations (14) earned by a single film.

Five Best Picture-winning films are tied for second place with 13 nominations (see below)

Nine Best Picture-winning films are tied for third place with 12 nominations (see below)

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) , Titanic (1997) , and Ben-Hur (1959) are the three Best Picture-winning films with the most Oscars wins (11).

The closest Best Picture winning runner-up for most Oscar wins was West Side Story (1961) with 10 Oscars (out of 11 nominations).

Titanic's awards included two sound awards and no acting prizes, and its screenplay wasn't even nominated. On the other hand, All About Eve (1950), also with 14 nominations, had one acting Oscar (Best Supporting Actor for George Sanders). And Ben-Hur (1959), with 11 Oscars from 12 nominations, lost only its screenplay nomination, plus it racked up two acting awards (Charlton Heston for Best Actor and Hugh Griffith for Best Supporting Actor) - and there was only one sound category in 1959. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) won Best Adapted Screenplay, but had no acting nominations in its clean-sweep win.

The Big Five: Only three films have won the top five awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay):

Best Picture-Winning Sequels:

Only two sequels have won Best Picture:

Clean Sweeps: Only six Best Picture winners have won every award for which they were nominated (Grand Hotel was a 'clean sweep' at one for one, followed by It Happened One Night (1934) at five for five; the next two were nine for nine, and LOTR was 11 for 11; except for the 1934 film, none of the films were nominated for acting awards). One can count Wings (1927/1928) as the 6th film, although it was tied for the 'Best Picture' win:

The Matrix (1999), not a Best Picture nominee, also won 4 for 4.

Shut Outs: Two films hold the dubious distinction of being nominated eleven times without a single Oscar win. Other films with 8 or more competitive nominations are also included:

Film (Year) Nominations Wins The Turning Point (1977) 11 0 The Color Purple (1985) 11 0 The Irishman (2019) 10 0 True Grit (2010) 10 0 Gangs of New York (2002) 10 0 American Hustle (2013) 10 0 The Little Foxes (1941) 9 0 Peyton Place (1957) 9 0 Quo Vadis? (1951) 8 0 The Nun's Story (1959) 8 0 The Sand Pebbles (1966) 8 0 The Elephant Man (1980) 8 0 Ragtime (1981) 8 0 The Remains of the Day (1993) 8 0

Best Pictures that Failed to Win Any Other Awards: All MGM productions

And Grand Hotel (1931/2) was the only Best Picture winner to receive only one nomination. It was the only film to win Best Picture without receiving any other nominations.

Films That Won Best Picture Without a Single Acting Nomination:

There are only 12 films that have won Best Picture without receiving a single acting nomination:

Conversely, Best Picture-nominated films that have won the most Oscar awards without winning Best Picture include the following films:

Below are the films that received the most Oscar nominations - without a nomination for Best Picture:

Film (Year) Nominations

(But Not Best Picture) They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) 9 The Poseidon Adventure (1972) 8 Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) 8 Ragtime (1981) 8 Dreamgirls (2006) 8 The Dark Knight (2008) 8 Joan of Arc (1948) 7 Come to the Stable (1949) 7 Pepe (1960) 7 Hud (1963) 7 Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) 7 Hawaii (1966) 7 Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) 7 Star! (1968) 7 Victor/Victoria (1982) 7 Aliens (1986) 7 Dick Tracy (1990) 7 Bullets Over Broadway (1994) 7 Cold Mountain (2003) 7

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) holds the record for receiving the most nominations (9) without being nominated for Best Picture. Its sole Oscar win was Best Supporting Actor, for Gig Young. But They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) didn't have the most Oscar nominations in its year of competition. In the same year, Anne of a Thousand Days (1969) had more nominations (10), but it was nominated for Best Picture. Therefore, Dreamgirls (2006) with 8 nominations was the first-time ever in Academy history that the film with the most nominations in its year failed to earn a Best Picture slot.

Crash (2005) marked the first time a film-festival acquisition (after its premiere at the 2004 Toronto Film Festival) won Best Picture.

Animated Films Nominated for Best Picture:

There have only been three animated feature films nominated for Best Picture (number of nominations in parentheses):