40th Academy Awards
The 40th Academy Awards were held on April 10, 1968, to honor film achievements of 1967. Originally scheduled for April 8, the awards were postponed to two days later due to the Assassination of [Martin Luther King Jr.|assassination] of civil rights leader Martin [Luther King Jr.] Bob Hope was once again the host of the ceremony.
This year, due to the waning popularity of black-and-white films, Best Cinematography, Art Direction, and Costume Design, previously divided into separate awards for color and monochrome films, were merged into single categories. This was the first Oscars since 1948 to feature clips from the Best Picture nominees.
This year marked the first of two times that three different films were nominated for the "Big Five" Oscars : Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. While all three won major Oscars, Best Picture was awarded to Norman Jewison's thriller/mystery film, In the [Heat of the Night (film)|In the Heat of the Night]. The same thing happened again at the ceremony for films from 1981 where the Best Picture winner was not one of the three films with "Big Five" nominations.
The Graduate became the seventh film to win Best Director and nothing else, and the last until the 94th Academy Awards. For the first time since the introduction of the Academy Award for Best Costume Design in 1948, Edith Head did not receive a nomination, after tallying 30 nominations and 7 wins over the previous 18 years.
Due to an all-out push by Academy President Gregory Peck, 18 of the 20 acting nominees were present at the ceremony. Only Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, who died several months before the ceremony and was nominated posthumously, were missing. Edith Evans was the last performer born in the 1880s to receive an acting nomination.
Winners and nominees
Nominations were announced on February 19, 1968. Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.Honorary Award
- To Arthur Freed for distinguished service to the Academy and the production of six top-rated Awards telecasts.
Multiple nominations and awards
These films had multiple nominations:- 10 nominations: Bonnie and Clyde and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
- 9 nominations: Doctor Dolittle
- 7 nominations: The Graduate, In the Heat [of the Night (film)|In the Heat of the Night] and Thoroughly Modern Millie
- 5 nominations: Camelot
- 4 nominations: Cool Hand Luke, The Dirty Dozen and In [Cold Blood (film)|In Cold Blood]
- 2 nominations: A Place to Stand and The [Taming of the Shrew (1967 film)|The Taming of the Shrew]
- 5 wins: In the Heat of [the Night (film)|In the Heat of the Night]
- 3 wins: Camelot
- 2 wins: Bonnie and Clyde, Doctor Dolittle and ''Guess Who's Coming to Dinner''