Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible to submit a nomination and vote on the final ballot. The Best Picture category is traditionally the final award of the night and is widely considered the most prestigious honor of the ceremony.
The Grand Staircase columns at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, where the Academy Awards ceremonies have been held since 2002, showcase every film that has won the Best Picture title since the award's inception. There have been 611 films nominated for Best Picture and 97 winners.
History
Category name changes
At the 1st Academy Awards ceremony held in 1929, there were two categories of awards that were each considered the top award of the night: "Outstanding Picture" and "Unique and Artistic Picture", the former being won by the war epic Wings, and the latter by the art film Sunrise. Each award was intended to honor different and equally important aspects of superior filmmaking. In particular, The Jazz Singer was disqualified from both awards, since its use of synchronized sound made the film a sui generis item that would have unfairly competed against either category, and the Academy granted the film an honorary award instead.The following year, the Academy dropped the Unique and Artistic Picture award, deciding retroactively that the award won by Wings was the highest honor that could be awarded, and allowed synchronized sound films to compete for the award. Although the award kept the title Outstanding Picture for the next ceremony, the name underwent several changes over the years, as seen below. Since 1962, the award has been simply called Best Picture.
- 1927/28–1928/29: Academy Award for Outstanding Picture
- 1929/30–1940: Academy Award for Outstanding Production
- 1941–1943: Academy Award for Outstanding Motion Picture
- 1944–1961: Academy Award for Best Motion Picture
- 1962–present: Academy Award for Best Picture
Recipients
, the "Special Rules for the Best Picture of the Year Award" limit recipients to those who meet two main requirements:
- Those with screen credit of "producer" or "produced by", explicitly excluding those with the screen credit "executive producer, co-producer, associate producer, line producer, or produced in association with"
- those three or fewer producers who have performed the major portion of the producing functions
The Academy can make exceptions to the limit, as when Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack were posthumously included among the four producers nominated for The Reader. the Producers Branch Executive Committee determines such exceptions, noting they take place only in "rare and extraordinary circumstance."
Steven Spielberg holds the record for most nominations at fourteen, winning one, while Kathleen Kennedy holds the record for most nominations without a win at eight. Sam Spiegel and Saul Zaentz tie for the most wins with three each. During the time when the Oscar was given to production companies instead, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer received the most, with five wins and 40 nominations.
Best Picture and Best Director
The Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director have been closely linked throughout their history. Of the 97 films that have won Best Picture, 70 have also been awarded Best Director. Only six films have been awarded Best Picture without receiving a Best Director nomination: Wings directed by William A. Wellman, Grand Hotel directed by Edmund Goulding, Driving Miss Daisy directed by Bruce Beresford, Argo directed by Ben Affleck, Green Book directed by Peter Farrelly, and CODA directed by Sian Heder. The only two Best Director winners to win for films that did not receive a Best Picture nomination were during the early years of the awards: Lewis Milestone for Two Arabian Knights, and Frank Lloyd for The Divine Lady.Nomination limit increased
On June 24, 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that the number of films to be nominated in the Best Picture award category would increase from 5 to 10, starting with the 82nd Academy Awards. Although the Academy never officially said so, many commenters noted the expansion was likely in part a response to public criticism of The Dark Knight and WALL-E not being nominated for Best Picture. Officially, the Academy said the rule change was a throwback to the Academy's early years in the 1930s and 1940s, when 8 to 12 films were nominated each year. "Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going to allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize," AMPAS President Sid Ganis said in a press conference. "I can't wait to see what that list of 10 looks like when the nominees are announced in February."At the same time, the voting system was switched from first-past-the-post to instant runoff voting. In 2011, the Academy revised the rule again so that the number of films nominated was between 5 and 10; nominated films must earn either 5% of first-place rankings or 5% after an abbreviated variation of the single transferable vote nominating process. Bruce Davis, the Academy executive director at the time, said, "A Best Picture nomination should be an indication of extraordinary merit. If there are only eight pictures that truly earn that honor in a given year, we shouldn't feel an obligation to round out the number." This system lasted until 2021, when the Academy reverted back to a set number of ten nominees from the 94th Academy Awards onward.
Language and country of origin
Twenty one non-English language films have been nominated in the category: La Grande Illusion ; Z ; The Emigrants ; Cries and Whispers ; The Postman ; Life Is Beautiful ; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ; Letters from Iwo Jima ; Amour ; Roma ; Parasite ; Minari ; Drive My Car, All Quiet on the Western Front, Anatomy of a Fall, Past Lives, The Zone of Interest, Emilia Pérez, I'm Still Here, Sentimental Value and The Secret Agent . Parasite became the first film not in English to win Best Picture.Ten films wholly financed outside the United States have won Best Picture, eight of which were financed, in part or in whole, by the United Kingdom: Hamlet, Tom Jones, A Man for All Seasons, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, The Last Emperor, Slumdog Millionaire, and The King's Speech. The ninth film, The Artist, was financed in France, and the tenth film, Parasite, was financed in South Korea.
Rating
Since 1968, most Best Picture winners have been rated R under the Motion Picture Association's rating system. Oliver! is the only G-rated film and Midnight Cowboy is the only X-rated film, so far, to win Best Picture; they won in back-to-back years, 1968 and 1969. The latter has since been changed to an R rating. Eleven films have won with a PG rating: the first was Patton and the most recent was Driving Miss Daisy. Eleven more films have won with a PG-13 rating : the first was The Last Emperor and the most recent was CODA. For unrated films, A Room with a View is the first film to not be rated by the MPA and be nominated Best Picture, though no unrated films have won Best Picture.Genres and mediums
Three animated films have been nominated for Best Picture: Beauty and the Beast, Up, and Toy Story 3. The latter two were nominated after the Academy expanded the number of nominees, but none have won.No comic book film has won, although three have been nominated: Skippy, Black Panther, and Joker.
Two fantasy films have won: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and The Shape of Water, although more have been nominated.
The Silence of the Lambs is the only horror/thriller film to win Best Picture. Eight others have been nominated: The Exorcist, Jaws, The Sixth Sense, Black Swan, Get Out, The Substance, Frankenstein and Sinners.
Several science-fiction films have been nominated for Best Picture, though Everything Everywhere All at Once was the first one to win.
Titanic is the only disaster film to win Best Picture, though other such films have been nominated, including Airport and The Towering Inferno.
No documentary has been nominated for Best Picture, although Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness was nominated in the Unique and Artistic Picture category at the 1927/28 awards. A Best Documentary Feature category was introduced in 1941.
Several musical adaptations based on material previously filmed in non-musical form have won Best Picture, including Gigi, West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Oliver!, and Chicago.
Several epics or historical epic films have won Best Picture, including the first recipient Wings. Others include Cimarron, Cavalcade, Gone with the Wind, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, Patton, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, Gandhi, The Last Emperor, Dances With Wolves, Schindler's List, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Gladiator, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and Oppenheimer.
Several war films have been nominated for Best Picture, with Wings, All Quiet on the Western Front, From Here to Eternity, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia, Patton, Platoon and The Hurt Locker being some of the many winners.