The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually
by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to producers working in the film
industry and is the only category in which every member is eligible to submit a nomination.
Best Picture is considered the most important of the Academy Awards, as it represents all
the directing, acting, music composing, writing, editing and other efforts put forth into a
film.
Consequently, Best Picture is the final award of every Academy Awards ceremony.
The Grand Staircase columns at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, 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.
As of the 86th Academy Awards nominations, there have been 512 films nominated for the
Best Picture award.
History Category name changes
At the 1st Academy Awards ceremony, there were two categories that were seen as equally
the top award of the night: Outstanding Picture and Unique and Artistic Production, the previous
being won by the war epic Wings, and the latter by the art film Sunrise, both the awards were
intended to honor different and equally important aspects of superior filmmaking.
The following year, the Academy dropped the Unique and Artistic Production award, and
decided retroactively that the award won by Wings was the highest honor that could be
awarded.
Though the award kept the title Outstanding Picture for the next ceremony, the name underwent
several changes over the years as seen below, the last being in 1962 when it became Best
Picture. 1927/28 to 1928/29: Academy Award for Outstanding
Picture 1929/30 to 1940: Academy Award for Outstanding
Production 1941 to 1943: Academy Award for Outstanding
Motion Picture 1944 to 1961: Academy Award for Best Motion
Picture 1962 to present: Academy Award for Best Picture
Recipients Originally the production company was presented
the award until 1950 whereupon all credited producers were able to receive the award.
This rule was modified in 1998, when a three-producer limit was applied due to all five producers
of Shakespeare in Love receiving the award.
As of 2014, 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" those three or fewer producers who have performed
the major portion of the producing functions The rules permit "bona fide team[s] of not
more than two people to be considered to be a single 'producer' if the two individuals
have had an established producing partnership for at least the previous five years and as
a producing team have produced a minimum of five theatrically-released feature motion
pictures during that time.
The Academy can make exceptions to the limit, as when Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack
were posthumously among the four producers nominated for The Reader.
As of 2014 it is the Producers Branch Executive Committee that makes such exceptions, only
in "rare and extraordinary circumstance[s]."
Best Picture and Best Director The Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best
Director have been very closely linked throughout their history.
Of the 86 films that have been awarded Best Picture, 62 have also been awarded Best Director.
Only four films have won Best Picture without their directors being nominated: Wings, Grand
Hotel, Driving Miss Daisy, and Argo.
The only two Best Director winners to win for films which did not receive a Best Picture
nomination are distinctly during the early years: Lewis Milestone for Two Arabian Knights,
and Frank Lloyd for The Divine Lady.
Nomination limit increased On June 24, 2009, AMPAS announced that the
number of films nominated in the Best Picture award category would increase from five to
ten, starting with the 82nd Academy Awards.
The expansion was a throwback to the Academy's early years in the 1930s and 1940s, when eight
to twelve films were nominated.
"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.
Two years after this change, 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
used for nominations in other major categories.
Bruce Davis, the Academy executive director at the time, stated, "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."
Controversies The Award is not without controversy.
One point of contention is the lack of consideration of non-English language films for Best Picture.
To date, only nine foreign language films have been nominated in the category: Grand
Illusion; Z; The Emigrants; Cries and Whispers; Il Postino; Life Is Beautiful; Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon; Letters from Iwo Jima; and Amour.
Other points of contention include the lack of animated films being nominated; no science
fiction film has won despite a number of successful nominees; only one fantasy film has won the
award The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003; and only two comedies have
won in the last 30 years.
Also to date, there has yet to be a documentary nominated for Best Picture.
Twelve films exclusively financed outside the United States have won Best Picture, eleven
of which were financed, in part or in whole, by the United Kingdom.
Those films were, in chronological order: Hamlet, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence
of Arabia, Tom Jones, A Man for All Seasons, Oliver!, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, The Last
Emperor, Slumdog Millionaire and The King's Speech.
The twelfth film, The Artist, was financed by France.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll in February 2014, two-thirds of Americans had yet to see
any of the movies nominated for the 2014 best picture Oscar.
Sequel nominations and winners Only a small number of sequels have been nominated
for Best Picture of which two have won; The Godfather Part II and The Lord of the Rings:
The Return of the King.
Other nominees include The Bells of St. Mary's, The Godfather Part III, The Lord of the Rings:
The Two Towers and Toy Story 3.
Another nominee, Broadway Melody of 1936, was a follow-up of sorts to previous winner
The Broadway Melody, although, beyond the title and some music, there is no story connection
with the earlier film.
In addition, The Silence of the Lambs was adapted from the sequel novel to Red Dragon,
which had previously been adapted for the screen as Manhunter by a different studio.
Furthermore, another Best Picture nominee, The Lion in Winter, features Peter O'Toole
as King Henry II, a role he had played previously in the film Becket.
Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima was a companion piece to his film Flags of Our
Fathers, released earlier the same year, which depicts the same battle from different viewpoints;
the two films were shot back-to-back.
Notably, the only remake to win is The Departed, though a few other winners, such as Mutiny
on the Bounty and Ben-Hur, were heavily inspired and influenced by previous films of the same
name, they were nevertheless primarily considered different adaptations of the same novel.
Silent film winners The Artist was the first silent film since
Wings to win Best Picture.
The film was also the first silent nominee since The Patriot, as well as the first Best
Picture winner shot entirely in black-and-white since 1960's The Apartment.
Version availability No Best Picture winner has been lost, though
a few such as All Quiet on the Western Front and Lawrence of Arabia exist only in a form
altered from their original, award-winning release form, usually due to editing for reissue
while other winners and nominees such as Tom Jones and Star Wars are widely available only
in subsequently altered versions.
The Broadway Melody originally had some sequences photographed in two-color Technicolor.
This footage survives only in black and white.
The 1928 film The Patriot is the only Best Picture nominee that is lost.
The Racket, also from 1928, was believed lost for many years until a print was found in
Howard Hughes' archives.
It has since been restored and shown on Turner Classic Movies.
Also, the only surviving complete prints of 1931's East Lynne and 1934's The White Parade
exist within the UCLA film archive.
Winners and nominees In the list below, winners are listed first
in the colored row, followed by the other nominees.
Except for the early years, the year shown is the one in which the film first premiered
in Los Angeles County, California; normally this is also the year of first release, but
it may be the year after first release.
This is also the year before the ceremony at which the award is given; for example,
a film exhibited theatrically during 2005 was eligible for consideration for the 2005
Best Picture Oscar, awarded in 2006.
The number of the ceremony appears in parentheses after the awards year, linked to the article
on that ceremony.
Each individual entry shows the title followed by the production company, and the producer.
Until 1950, the Best Picture award was given to the production company; from 1951 on, it
has gone to the producer or producers.
The Academy used the producer credits of the Producers Guild of America until 1998, when
all five producers of Shakespeare in Love made speeches after its win.
A three-producer limit has applied since.
There was controversy over the exclusion of some PGA-credited producers of Crash and Little
Miss Sunshine.
The Academy can make exceptions to the limit, as when Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack
were posthumously among the four nominated for The Reader.
For the first ceremony, three films were nominated for the award.
For the following three years, five films were nominated for the award.
This was expanded to eight in 1933, to ten in 1934, and to twelve in 1935, before being
dropped back to ten in 1937.
In 1945 it was further reduced to five.
This number remained until 2009, when the limit was raised to ten and later adjusted
in 2011, to vary between five and ten.
For the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years.
For example, the 2nd Academy Awards presented on April 3, 1930, recognized films that were
released between August 1, 1928, and July 31, 1929.
Starting with the 7th Academy Awards, held in 1935, the period of eligibility became
the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31.
1920s 1930s
1940s 1950s
1960s 1970s
1980s 1990s
2000s 2010s
Notes
See also
BAFTA Award for Best Film Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for
Best Film Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture
– Drama Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture
– Musical or Comedy Producers Guild of America Award for Best
Theatrical Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding
Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Lists of films
List of Best Picture milestones List of films considered the best
List of film production companies List of Academy Award-winning films
List of presenters of Best Picture Academy Award
List of Big Five Academy Award winners and nominees
Academy Award for Best Unique and Artistic Production
List of superlative Academy Award winners and nominees
List of actors who have appeared in multiple Best Picture Academy Award winners
Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Picture References
External links Oscars.org
Oscar.com The Academy Awards Database