Academy Award for Best Picture

At the 1st Academy Awards ceremony (for 1927 and 1928), 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.

The following year, the Academy dropped the Unique and Artistic Picture award, and decided retroactively that the award won by Wings was the highest honor that could be awarded.[7] 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.[6]

• 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

Until 1950, this award was presented to a representative of the production company. That year the protocol was changed so that the award was presented to all credited producers. This rule was modified in 1999 to apply a maximum limit of three producers receiving the award, after the five producers of Shakespeare in Love had received the award.[8][9][10]

As of 2020, the "Special Rules for the Best Picture of the Year Award" limit recipients to those who meet two main requirements:[11]

• 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 rules allow bona fide team of not more than two people shall be considered to be a single “producer” if the two individuals have had an established producing partnership as determined by the Producers Guild of America Producing Partnership Panel. Final determination of the qualifying producer nominees for each nominated picture will be made by the Producers Branch Executive Committee, including the right to name any additional qualified producer as a nominee.[11]

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.[12] As of 2014 the Producers Branch Executive Committee determines such exceptions, noting they take place only in "rare and extraordinary circumstance[s]."[11]

Steven Spielberg currently holds the record for most nominations at eleven, 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. As for the time when the Oscar was given to production companies instead, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer holds the record with five wins and 40 nominations.

The Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director have been closely linked throughout their history. Of the 94 films that have won Best Picture, 67 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 (1927/28), Grand Hotel directed by Edmund Goulding (1931/32), Driving Miss Daisy directed by Bruce Beresford (1989), Argo directed by Ben Affleck (2012), Green Book directed by Peter Farrelly (2018), and CODA (2021) 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 (1927/28), and Frank Lloyd for The Divine Lady (1928/29).[13]

On June 24, 2009, AMPAS announced that the number of films to be nominated in the Best Picture award category would increase from five to ten, starting with the 82nd Academy Awards (2009).[14] 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 (2008) (and, in previous years, other blockbusters and popular films) not being nominated for Best Picture.[15][16][17] Officially, the Academy said the rule change was a throwback to the Academy's early years in the 1930s and 1940s, when eight 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."[14]

At the same time, the voting system was switched from first-past-the-post to instant runoff voting (also known as preferential voting).[18] In 2011, the Academy revised the rule again so that the number of films nominated was between five and ten; nominated films must earn either 5% of first-place rankings or 5% after an abbreviated variation of the single transferable vote nominating process.[19] 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."[20] This system lasted until 2021, when the Academy reverted back to a set number of ten nominees from the 94th Academy Awards onward.[21]

Only thirteen non-English language films have been nominated in the category: La Grande Illusion (French, 1938); Z (French, 1969); The Emigrants (Swedish, 1972); Cries and Whispers (Swedish, 1973); The Postman (Il Postino) (Italian/Spanish, 1995); Life Is Beautiful (Italian, 1998); Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Mandarin Chinese, 2000); Letters from Iwo Jima (Japanese, 2006, but ineligible for Best Foreign Language Film, as it was an American production); Amour (French, 2012); Roma (Spanish/Mixtec, 2018); Parasite (Korean, 2019); Minari (Korean, 2020, but ineligible for Best International Feature Film, as it was an American production),[22] and Drive My Car (Japanese, 2021). Parasite became the first film not in English to win Best Picture.[23][24]

Only 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 (1948), Tom Jones (1963), A Man for All Seasons (1966), Chariots of Fire (1981), Gandhi (1982), The Last Emperor (1987), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), and The King's Speech (2010). The ninth film, The Artist (2011), was financed in France and the tenth film, Parasite (2019), was financed in South Korea.[25]

Since 1968, most Best Picture winners have been R-rated. Oliver! is the only G-rated film and Midnight Cowboy is the only X-rated (now NC-17) film, so far, to win Best Picture. The latter has since been downgraded to an R rating. Only eleven films have won with a PG rating, the first was Patton and the last was Driving Miss Daisy. Only nine films have won with a PG-13 rating, the first was The Last Emperor and the last was CODA.

Some genres of film (or mediums in the case of an animation) have received few or no nominations or awards. Only three animated films have been nominated — Beauty and the Beast (1991), Up (2009) and Toy Story 3 (2010). The latter two were nominated after the Academy expanded the number of nominees, but none have won. No comic book or superhero film has won, and only three have ever been nominated — Skippy (1931), Black Panther (2018), and Joker (2019). Only two fantasy films have won — The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and The Shape of Water (2017), although more have been nominated. The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is the only horror film to win Best Picture, and only five others have been nominated for Best Picture: The Exorcist (1973), Jaws (1975), The Sixth Sense (1999), Black Swan (2010), and Get Out (2017). No science fiction film has won the award, although several films have been nominated, including A Clockwork Orange, Star Wars, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Avatar, District 9, Inception, Gravity, Her, The Martian, Arrival, Mad Max: Fury Road, Don't Look Up and Dune.

No documentary feature has yet been nominated for Best Picture, although Chang was nominated in the "Unique and Artistic Production" category at the 1927/28 awards.

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, The Last Emperor, Dances with Wolves, Schindler’s List, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Gladiator, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Few sequels have been nominated for Best Picture and just two have won: The Godfather Part II (the film before that, The Godfather, also won the award; the third film in the installment The Godfather Part III, was nominated as well but did not win the award) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (the films before that, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers were both nominated for the award but did not win). Other nominees include The Bells of St. Mary's (the sequel to the 1944 winner, Going My Way), The Queen (sequel to the 2003 television film, The Deal), Toy Story 3, and Mad Max: Fury Road.[22]

Another nominee, Broadway Melody of 1936, was a follow-up of sorts to previous winner The Broadway Melody. But, beyond the title and some music, there is no story connection to the earlier film. The Silence of the Lambs was adapted from the sequel novel to Red Dragon. The latter had been adapted for film as Manhunter by a different studio. The Lion in Winter features Peter O'Toole as King Henry II, a role he had played previously in the film Becket, but Winter is not a sequel to Becket. Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima was a companion piece to his film Flags of Our Fathers that was released earlier the same year. These two films depict the same battle from the different viewpoints of Japanese and United States military forces; the two films were shot back-to-back. In addition, Black Panther is a continuation of the events that occurred in Captain America: Civil War and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Along similar lines to sequels, there have been few winners that are either remakes or adaptations of the same source materials or subjects. 1959's Ben-Hur is a remake of the 1925 silent film with a similar title and both were adapted from Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ. 2006's The Departed is a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs and was the first remake of a non-English language or international film to win. Other nominees include 1963's Cleopatra about the title last queen of Egypt following the 1934 version, 2018's A Star is Born following the 1937 film of the same name, and 2019's Little Women following the 1933 film of the same name with both being adaptations of the 1868 novel.[26] 2010's True Grit was the second adaptation of Charles Portis's 1968 novel following the 1969 film of the same name. Four of the nominees for the 94th ceremony were based on source material previously made into films: CODA, Dune, Nightmare Alley, and West Side Story. 2021's West Side Story became the second adaptation of the same source material for a previous Best Picture winner to be nominated for the same award after 1962's Mutiny on the Bounty.[27] For that same ceremony, CODA became the second remake of a non-English language or international film to win.

At the 1st Academy Awards, the Best Picture award – then named "Academy Award for Outstanding Picture" – was presented to the 1927 silent film Wings.

The Artist (2011) was the first essentially silent (with the exception of a single scene of dialogue, and a dream sequence with sound effects) film since Wings to win Best Picture. It was the first silent nominee since 1928's The Patriot. It was the first Best Picture winner to be produced entirely in black-and-white since 1960's The Apartment. (Schindler's List, the 1993 winner, was predominantly black-and-white but it did contain some color sequences).[25]

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. This has usually been due to editing for reissue (and subsequently partly restored by archivists). Other winners and nominees, such as Tom Jones (prior to its 2018 reissues by The Criterion Collection and the British Film Institute) 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.[28]

The 1928 film The Patriot is the only Best Picture nominee that is lost (about one-third is extant).[29] 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.[30] The only surviving complete prints of 1931's East Lynne and 1934's The White Parade exist within the UCLA film archive.[31]

In 2017, at the 89th Academy Awards, presenter Faye Dunaway read La La Land as the winner of the award. However, she and Warren Beatty had mistakenly been given the duplicate envelope for the "Best Actress in a Leading Role" award, which Emma Stone had won for her role in La La Land moments prior. In the resulting chaos, it was La La Land producer Jordan Horowitz who finally announced—two minutes and twenty-seven seconds later—that Moonlight was the real winner.[32]