Every Academy Award for Best Picture: A Complete History of the Winners

The Academy Award for best picture is considered the highest honor in movies. Winning that marquee Oscar also means cementing a place in the history books–though the anointed films are not exempt from reassessment, and any given winner won’t necessarily be to every viewer’s personal taste. More than anything, every best-picture winner serves as a snapshot of its particular moment, reflecting both the ever-changing film industry and the stories that captured our hearts and minds during various eras. Consider the best-picture Oscar-winning movies to be the films that Hollywood would like to remember itself by—at the time that year’s Academy voted, at least.

Here’s a look back at who won best picture every year.

Oppenheimer – 2024
Released 2023Getty Images

Christopher Nolan’s biopic of the man who fathered the atom bomb finally brought the beloved director the Oscar glory of which he’d long been deprived. Along with fellow best-picture nominee Barbie, Oppenheimer was at the center of the culture’s months-long Barbenheimer fever—from crazed demand for IMAX screenings to Halloween costumes to the Oppenhomies. Oppenheimer’s win was the first time in 20 years that best picture went to a film in its year’s top five US box office earners. But for a moment, its victory at the Oscars seemed questionable: While opening the best-picture envelope, presenter Al Pacino confused viewers by passively announcing, “my eyes see Oppenheimer.”

Everything Everywhere All at Once – 2023
Released 2022Everett Collection

Initially seen as an unlikely contender for the Oscars’ top prize, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s genre mashup Everything Everywhere All at Once gained momentum throughout the season, all steaming ahead toward its eventual seven Oscars. The film was the first best-picture winner to also score three acting wins; Network and A Streetcar Named Desire each managed three acting wins without winning best picture. The Daniels are the third (credited) director pair to direct a best-picture winner, after the duos behind No Country for Old Men and the 1961 West Side Story. “A lot of the time when you’re starting off, you want to create timeless art, but that’s actually a terrible trap,” Kwan told Vanity Fair. “The more you chase it, the less timeless it becomes. Really, what you want to do is speak to the moment and give the people something to chew on and reflect on.”

CODA – 2022
Released 2021This family comedy about the hearing daughter of deaf parents began its awards run at Sundance, where it won both the grand jury prize and the audience award. Picked up by AppleTV+ for a record $25 million, CODA became the first streaming film to win best picture, a feat that Netflix has never achieved despite having earned nine best picture nominations since 2019. CODA was also the most recent best-picture winner to manage a clean sweep of each category for which it was nominated (a feat that has happened only seven times), though CODA only had three nods in total: picture, adapted screenplay, and Troy Kotsur for supporting actor. (CODA was also the least-nominated best-picture winner since the second-ever Oscar ceremony in 1929.) After a decade of voting procedure that resulted in a best-picture lineup that fluctuated between 5 and 10 movies, the Academy that year returned to a guaranteed 10 nominees in the category.

Nomadland – 2021
Released 2020Getty Images

In the year of COVID-induced movie theater closures, Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland allowed viewers to explore a vast American canvas within a deeply intimate story about the gig economy. “At its best,” Vanity Fair critic Richard Lawson wrote, “Nomadland almost seems to hold in its delicate hands the infinite and everyday variation of life: its searching and its hunger, its contentment and its endless scramble to carry on.” The film led the charge of films made available by virtual means through various film festivals that season, including a week-long online streaming run through Film Society of Lincoln Center. Nomadland held its theatrical release—including a brief IMAX run—until the new year, as the Academy extended the Oscars’ eligibility window through February 2021 due to the lack of open theaters. The 2021 Oscar telecast was pushed to late April and moved to Los Angeles’s Union Station in order to give a more cinematic show despite few attendees. But best picture was not presented as the last award of the ceremony; instead, Oscar producers bet on an emotional finish via a posthumous win for best-actor nominee Chadwick Boseman (for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom). Instead, the not-in-attendance Anthony Hopkins closed out the night by winning best actor for The Father.

Parasite – 2020
Released 2019Everett Collection

To date, Parasite is the only non-English language film to ever win best picture—a significance held reverent in Jane Fonda’s brief pause before announcing it as the winner. A satire about two families of opposite financial means, the film was a runaway global success, and became the fourth-highest-grossing non-English language film in America up to that point. When winning the Golden Globe’s foreign-language prize earlier in the season, director Bong Joon Ho spoke of the perceived limitations international films face with American audiences: “Once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” Parasite is the most recent of 12 total films to win best picture without getting any acting nominations, and it’s one of only three best-picture winners that also won the Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival. Vanity Fair critic Richard Lawson not only named it the best film of 2019, but one of the top five films of the decade.

Green Book – 2019
Released 2018In a very competitive season, Peter Farrelly’s upbeat telling of the relationship between pianist Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali, who won his second supporting actor Oscar for the film) and his driver Tony Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) became the frontrunner while generating controversy. While Green Book earned the National Board of Review’s best-film prize and a best-picture Golden Globe, the film received a damning response from the Shirley family and critics alike for its depiction of Shirley and Vallelonga’s relationship as well as its racial politics. Though it ultimately won the top prize, Green Book was also the subject of further controversy throughout the season. It is one of six films to win best picture without earning a best director nomination.

The Shape of Water – 2018
Released 2017Guillermo del Toro’s melancholic creature romance was the first best-picture winner that also won the Venice Film Festival’s top prize, the Golden Lion. (Nomadland would also win both awards three years later.) The violent story of a mute woman falling in love with a fish man made for an unlikely Academy favorite but one that subtly spoke to the moment in Donald Trump’s America. Speaking to Vanity Fair, del Toro said, “We’re living in a time where the 1 percent has created a narrative in which they are not to blame. Who is to blame is ‘them,’ quote unquote, the others, Mexicans, the minorities. What the creation of that other does, it exonerates from responsibility. It directs hatred in a super streamlined way. The [film’s] creature is something to everyone.” Though it pulled a massive 13 nominations, The Shape of Water won just 4 Oscars, tying for the best-picture winner that lost the most of its nominations. Director del Toro shares this record with one of his idols, Alfred Hitchcock, for Rebecca (which won just 2 awards out of 11 nominations).

Moonlight – 2017
Released 2016Getty Images

Barry Jenkins’s intimate and immersive drama about a young Black man’s journey to queer self-acceptance had its triumphant best-picture victory marred by an infamous envelope snafu. In one of the most chaotic moments in Academy Awards history, presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were accidentally handed a backup envelope for best actress, which had just been won by La La Land’s Emma Stone, before taking the stage. Unaware of the mixup, Dunaway announced La La Land as the best-picture winner—leaving that film’s team to realize from the Oscar stage, in real time, that the mistake had been made. Team Moonlight looked doubly stunned when taking the stage; footage of the Hollywood audience’s shocked reactions spawned a flurry of memes. The win not only positioned Jenkins as the most in-demand of the newest wave of maverick filmmakers but helped establish A24 as the industry’s biggest power player for outside-the-box American cinema.

Spotlight – 2016
Released 2015A recounting of the Boston Globe’s exposé on sexual abuse covered up by the Catholic church, Vanity Fair called Spotlight “a serious, reverent look at the mechanics of diligent and thorough long-form journalism that is miraculously never dry or preachy.” But with only two Academy Award wins, Spotlight earned the least Oscars of any best-picture winner in over 60 years. The film bookended the ceremony: Its best original screenplay prize was the first award handed out, with best picture as the obvious closer.

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) – 2015
Released 2014Alejandro González Iñárritu’s satirical Birdman earned its share of divisive reactions—“imperfect art about making imperfect art,” Vanity Fair said—but its showbiz setting certainly helped the Academy relate to its madcap vibe. The film’s trick of appearing to be shot in a single take had a side effect: It was the first best-picture winner in more than 30 years not to earn a nomination for best editing.

12 Years a Slave – 2014
Released 2013“The genius of 12 Years a Slave is its insistence on banal evil, and on terror, that seeped into souls, bound bodies and reaped an enduring, terrible price,” raved the New York Times’ Manohla Dargis of Steve McQueen’s film, an adaptation of Solomon Northup’s memoir of his enslavement. In his best-picture acceptance speech, McQueen alerted audiences that 21 million people are still enslaved around the world. It was a very tight race: 12 Years a Slave and Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity tied for that year’s Producers Guild award for best theatrical motion picture, a first for a prize that remains highly predictive for the Academy.

Argo – 2013
Released 2012Ben Affleck’s festival favorite and early season hit faced an unexpected setback when Affleck did not earn a nomination for best director at the Oscars. Argo became the first film in more than 20 years to win best picture without its director also being nominated, though Affleck did earn a best-picture Oscar as a producer. Via satellite, Michelle Obama announced the win.

The Artist – 2012
Released 2011Everett Collection

The tale of a silent film actor—played by best-actor winner Jean Dujardin—whose career goes belly-up at the advent of talkies, The Artist was the final best-picture winner shepherded to American screens by Harvey Weinstein. The film also took the best-film prize from the New York Film Critics Circle, a group that has not matched its top honors with the Oscars since. The Artist features only brief dialogue and could be considered the first silent nominee since the second Oscars ceremony; it is also the first entirely black-and-white best-picture winner since The Apartment (1960). With the relative unfamiliarity of some of the previous year’s best-picture nominees (including the $6.5 million grossing Winter’s Bone), this was the year the Academy began allowing five to 10 total best-picture nominees, depending on the number of votes received.

The King’s Speech – 2011
Released 2010Alamy

Tom Hooper was not a well-known name to audiences prior to The King’s Speech, which follows King George VI overcoming a stutter as he ascends to the crown. “It’s certainly my most personal film. I have a tendency to talk about emotions through other people rather than make films about myself,” Hooper told Vanity Fair at the time. Much to the chagrin of the internet, the film defeated its main competitor, The Social Network—director David Fincher’s second best-picture nominee after The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008).

The Hurt Locker – 2010
Released 2009Getty Images

Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq War film about bomb defusers was the little engine that could during its season, facing off James Cameron’s global visual effects sensation, Avatar. (The rivalry was all the more piquant because Bigelow and Cameron were married from 1989 to 1991.) A delayed response to the film (which had a muted premiere at the previous year’s Venice Film Festival) made it one of the lowest-grossing contemporary best-picture winners, with a final box office tally of $17 million. Avatar was repeatedly referred to as the Goliath to its David; Titanic became the top-grossing film of all time at the domestic box office until it was unseated first by Cameron’s own Avatar in 2009, and then in 2015 by Star Wars: The Force Awakens. In an email that included several members of the Academy, Hurt producer Nicolas Chartier violated Academy campaign rules by directly soliciting their votes away from Cameron’s blockbuster. The Academy responded by barring Chartier from attending the ceremony. Bigelow nevertheless became the first woman to win the best-director prize.

Slumdog Millionaire – 2009
Released 2008Originally set up at Warner Independent before that company folded, the India-set Slumdog Millionaire was snapped up by Fox Searchlight before entering the fall festival season. With raves from screenings at Telluride and Toronto, the film became a box office smash, earning more than $140 million and eight Oscar wins—more than any single film has won since. Meanwhile, The Dark Knight failed to earn a best-picture nomination that year, spurring confusion and outrage from the critics and moviegoers who had turned Christopher Nolan’s film into a summer sensation. The Academy responded by announcing that its best-picture lineup would expand to 10 nominees, starting with the next ceremony, returning to an old tradition that ended with Casablanca’s best-picture win.

No Country for Old Men – 2008
Released 2007Everett Collection

Joel and Ethan Coen finally got their moment with their Cormac McCarthy adaptation, No Country for Old Men, with critics reflecting as much on the Coens’ career achievements as much as the new film itself. “The breath of cinematic life, though, the sensibility, the energy, belong to Joel and Ethan Coen, and this is their stirring success,” said Entertainment Weekly’s Lisa Schwarzbaum. Roger Ebert compared its achievement to the Coens’ Fargo: “To make one such film is a miracle. Here is another.” The film was nominated alongside another movie that shot simultaneously with No Country in a location that was mere miles away: There Will Be Blood, director Paul Thomas Anderson’s first best-picture nominee.

The Departed – 2007
Released 2006Speaking of overdue narratives! After both The Aviator and Gangs of New York mounted massive yet ultimately unsuccessful campaigns centered on finally getting Martin Scorsese an Oscar, the legend was honored for his Boston crime saga, The Departed, a film not originally positioned as an awards contender. Its best-picture prize was presented by one of its stars, Jack Nicholson, alongside Diane Keaton. The American Film Institute began releasing a yearly list of top 10 American films in 2000; The Departed is the only subsequent best-picture winner not to receive a mention on that list.

Crash – 2006
Released 2005Paul Haggis’s sprawling look at racism in Los Angeles was a polarizing Oscar winner whose stature has only declined in the years since its win; Indiewire even named Crash the worst best-picture winner of the 21st century. Its primary competitor at the time was Ang Lee’s gay cowboy romance, Brokeback Mountain. That film was critically acclaimed but also the victim of industry homophobia, with entertainment legends such as Tony Curtis and Ernest Borgnine publicly refusing to even watch Lee’s film.

Million Dollar Baby – 2005
Released 2004Getty Images

This was the first best-picture winner in more than 20 years to not also win (or tie) the for most trophies at the ceremony: Million Dollar Baby won four Oscars to The Aviator’s five. Naming Baby the best film of the year, Manohla Dargis called it “a film about life, death, and everything that comes between. This latest masterwork from Clint Eastwood has the ease of late John Ford and Howard Hawks, and the deep spirit of late John Coltrane.”

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – 2004
Released 2003Though Titanic, Ben-Hur, and the Middle Earth saga’s finale are the only three movies ever to win 11 Academy Awards—the most in Oscar history—The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King has the distinction of achieving the Oscars’ biggest sweep, by winning in every category it was nominated. (Titanic was nominated for 14 Oscars but lost 3; Ben-Hur was nominated for 12 but lost 1.) Since The Return of the King’s record-tying 11 wins, no film has managed to win more than eight Academy Awards. It and The Godfather Part II are the only sequels ever to win best picture. This film also marks the last time that best picture went to the year’s top domestic box office earner.

Chicago – 2003
Released 2002Everett Collection

Chicago was the first musical to win best picture in more than 30 years—and no musical has won since. Its journey to movie screens was nearly as long, with various names from Goldie Hawn to John Travolta nearly cast through its decades-spanning development. This best-picture lineup is notable for including five films that were all released in December, a first and a gamechanger for late-breaking Oscar races.

A Beautiful Mind – 2002
Released 2001A consecutive third best-picture winner for Dreamworks, Ron Howard’s retelling of the life of mathematician John Nash faced scrutiny for events from Nash’s life that were omitted from the film. But what helped make Mind that season’s frontrunner was the overdue narrative for Howard. His 1995 film Apollo 13 seemed to be its year’s frontrunner; when Howard wasn’t nominated for best director, the snub stopped that trajectory in its tracks.

Gladiator – 2001
Released 2000Nostalgia for sword-and-sandal epics of Hollywood yore proved to have a box office appeal that naturally translated to Academy Awards appeal, with Oscar record-holder Ben-Hur as a clear reference point for voters. After decades of career highs and lows, Gladiator was director Ridley Scott’s first film nominated for best picture, though he lost best director to Steven Soderbergh—the first director to helm two best-picture nominees (Erin Brockovich and Traffic) in the same year since Francis Ford Coppola gave us both The Godfather Part II and The Conversation in 1974. With Gladiator II out now, better luck…this year, Ridley?

American Beauty – 2000
Released 1999Everett Collection

For folks left wondering how a cringe-inducing film such as American Beauty would emerge the best-picture victor in the banger movie year that was 1999, remember that Dreamworks was out for blood. (Why? See the next item on this list.) Sam Mendes’s film about suburban ennui driven to icky extremes shot like a cannon out of its TIFF premiere, earning rave reviews and a zeitgeisty edge. Audiences at the time connected to what Variety’s Todd McCarthy called the film’s “acerbic, darkly comic critique of how social conventions can lead people into false, sterile, and emotionally stunted lives.”

Shakespeare in Love – 1999
Released 1998Alamy

The Miramax film’s surprise defeat over Saving Private Ryan, now reassessed in light of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual assault convictions, has become Oscar legend. Spielberg’s WWII blockbuster was the perceived frontrunner heading into the season. Then Weinstein and co. flung an aggressive offense against camp Dreamworks, including claiming that Ryan’s only value was in its opening D-Day sequence. Shakespeare in Love’s campaign is now seen as an Oscar campaign blueprint, even if the historical romance is remembered as a lesser film than Ryan.

Titanic – 1998
Released 1997Cue the “My Heart Will Go On” pan flute: We have come to James Cameron’s epic romantic tragedy Titanic! Winner of a record-tying 11 Academy Awards, Titanic won not only Oscars, but the hearts of the entire world after months of bad press over its fraught production and colossal budget. Cameron’s film also shares the record for most nominations (14) with All About Eve and La La Land (the most nominated film not to win best picture). Yet even with a nomination haul that suggested universal industry support, the writers branch of the Academy denied Titanic a screenplay nomination. It was the most recent best-picture winner since The Sound of Music to earn that dubious distinction. Though Titanic has relented its all-time top box office spot to other films, its $600-million-dollar original run (it made even more money after multiple rereleases) means it remains the top-grossing best-picture winner of all time.

The English Patient – 1997
Released 1996In a year where only one film among the best-picture nominees was released by a major studio (Jerry Maguire), the Weinsteins’ Miramax finally earned the Oscar glory they’d chased for years with The English Patient. Critics hailed Anthony Minghella’s romantic epic with comparisons to the work of David Lean—including Janet Maslin, who wrote in The New York Times: “The film has so many facets, and combines them in such fascinating and fluid style…that its cumulative effect is much stronger than the sum of its parts.” But let’s not forget the Seinfeld episode where Elaine ripped it to shreds.

Braveheart – 1996
Released 1995Earning just over $75 million in the US and Canada, Braveheart was the lowest-grossing best-picture winner of the 1990s in the domestic box office. Mel Gibson’s war epic was perceived as the beneficiary of the momentum lost by its chief competitor, Apollo 13, when Ron Howard failed to be nominated for best director. Apollo 13 had already won top honors from both the Writers Guild and the Directors Guild, long considered top predictors for the Oscars. In fact, Braveheart is the only Oscar best-picture winner to not receive a nomination for the Producers Guild’s best picture since that prize was first awarded in 1990. Braveheart was also released during the first year of the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and became the first of only four ensuing Oscar best pictures not to be nominated for the SAG’s top prize: outstanding cast.

Forrest Gump – 1995
Released 1994Robert Zemeckis’s Americana fantasy about a southern man who figures into several of the 20th century’s major cultural touchstones was as critically divisive in its day as it is now. Rex Reed claimed that Forrest Gump “may just revive your faith in the human race.” Anthony Lane cringed, “This movie is so insistently heartwarming that it chilled me to the marrow.” The film famously faced off against Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, a movie that was its opposite in nearly every way.

Schindler’s List – 1994
Released 1993After being denied best-picture and directing wins for nearly two decades worth of nominated films, Steven Spielberg was finally welcomed into the Academy history books for his Holocaust drama, Schindler’s List. “This is the best drink of water after the longest drought in my life,” he joked when accepting the award for best picture, which was presented to him by his Raiders of the Lost Ark star Harrison Ford. The director continued his speech by imploring educators to teach about the Holocaust in schools. Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, released six months prior to List, also swept up three awards that night. To date, Schindler is Spielberg’s only best-picture winner.

Unforgiven – 1993
Released 1992“Unforgiven is both a dark look into a bad man’s soul and a hard reckoning over a growing country’s bloody innards,” hailed The Hollywood Reporter of Clint Eastwood’s return to Westerns. In his best-picture acceptance speech, the ever political Eastwood included a nod to the name that 1992 earned after several women were elected to the US senate that year: “In the Year of the Woman, the greatest woman on the planet is here tonight. That’s my mother, Ruth.”

The Silence of the Lambs – 1992
Released 1991Jonathan Demme’s unlikely awards favorite, The Silence of the Lambs is the most recent film to take all of the Academy’s “big five” prizes: best picture, director, lead actor, lead actress, and screenplay. Released on Valentine’s Day (LOL), no other best-picture winner has hit screens so early in the Oscar eligibility window in the 30 years before or since. The film’s Oscar night was a bittersweet one for distributor Orion Pictures, which had filed for bankruptcy the December prior to that ceremony. That year, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast was nominated alongside Silence of the Lambs as the first animated film to land a best-picture nomination.

Dances With Wolves – 1991
Released 1990The story of a Union soldier who lives with the Lakota people in 19th-century America, Dances With Wolves was a labor of love for Kevin Costner, who forfeited part of his salary to keep the production under budget. It was a surprise hit despite divisive reviews—“magnificently told,” said Roger Ebert; “made by a bland megalomaniac,” said a retiring Pauline Kael—and the first Western in nearly 60 years to win the Academy’s top prize.

Driving Miss Daisy – 1990
Released 1989This film forever holds a special place for Oscar-stat obsessives. Director Bruce Beresford was not nominated himself, despite the film receiving more nominations than any other film that year. That had not happened for a best-picture winner in almost 60 years, and would not happen again until 2012’s Argo. Daisy is also the most recent best-picture winner to be adapted from a Pulitzer Prize winner for drama, and the first such adaptation to win since You Can’t Take It With You. The film has received lingering criticism for its depiction of interracial dynamics, as has the Academy for awarding it while ignoring Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing in the same year.

Rain Man – 1989
Released 1988Everett Collection

“Rain Man is Dustin Hoffman humping one note on a piano for two hours and eleven minutes,” grumbled Pauline Kael. The film was a pet project for Hoffman, passed on by directors such as Spielberg and Sydney Pollack before a then ascendant Barry Levinson signed on and quickly turned it into a hit. It is the only best-picture winner to also win the top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival: the Golden Bear.

The Last Emperor – 1988
Released 1987As The Return of the King would more than 15 years later, Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor won a clean sweep of each of its nominations without earning any in the acting categories. In his acceptance speech, producer Jeremy Thomas said the win was “a real affirmation for me that independent cinema can be both epic and popular.” It is one of 13 best-picture winners to be selected for the Criterion Collection so far.

Platoon – 1987
Released 1986Hollywood provocateur Oliver Stone made his first of several films centered on the Vietnam War with Platoon, which Time magazine called “a time-capsule movie that explodes like a frag bomb in the consciousness of America.” In their second edition ever, the Independent Spirit Awards also honored Stone’s film with their best-feature prize—that award and the best-picture Oscar would not be given to the same film again until 2011’s The Artist.

Out of Africa – 1986
Released 1985Everett Collection

In his decades-spanning career as a director, producer, and actor, Sydney Pollack’s only Oscar wins came for producing and directing the romantic epic Out of Africa. Elsewhere this year, best-picture nominee The Color Purple went home empty-handed despite receiving 11 nominations, tying 1977’s The Turning Point for the most Academy Award nominations without a win.

Amadeus – 1985
Released 1984The opulence of Mozart and his jealous rival Salieri made for a much different best-picture winner for director Miloš Forman, victorious again almost a decade after One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. During his acceptance speech, Amadeus producer Saul Zaentz checked his watch and joked about the long ceremony, saying that he was asked “to speak for 55 minutes to make it a four-hour show, but I only have 32 minutes prepared.”

Terms of Endearment – 1984
Released 1983James L. Brooks was better known for television work prior to his smash hit mother-daughter melodrama Terms of Endearment. After Shirley MacLaine won the best-actress prize, Brooks devoted part of his best-picture acceptance speech to making sure his other leading lady, Debra Winger, also received her due, signaling that Winger gave “as much as a person can give to a picture.” It was the first best-picture winner to feature two nominated lead actresses since All About Eve.

Gandhi – 1983
Released 1982If the seeming endlessness of contemporary awards seasons makes you weary, consider Richard Attenborough’s epic biopic Gandhi. According to Inside Oscar, Gandhi was given four-page ads in the trades, declaring it “a world event” a full year in advance of its opening. Once released, The Hollywood Reporter’s Arthur Knight affirmed the film was “probably the most important film made in the last decade.”

Chariots of Fire – 1982
Released 1981Sports drama Chariots of Fire is remembered by most audiences for its oft-referenced Vangelis score. But it was also the fourth-ever winner of the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, a prize that would later gain notoriety as a major Oscar bellwether. Though Chariots was the first winner of the prize to go on to receive a best-picture Oscar, in the past 14 years of the festival—from 2010 to 2023—the award’s winner has gone on to a best-picture Oscar nomination 13 times. (The most recent winner of the TIFF People’s Choice Award, The Life of Chuck, is set for US release in 2025.)

Ordinary People – 1981
Released 1980Robert Redford’s directorial debut, which tells the story of a family grieving the death of its eldest son, was a critical hit: As Roger Ebert raved in a four-star review, “Each character in this movie is given the dramatic opportunity to look inside himself, to question his own motives as well as the motives of others, and to try to improve his own ways of dealing with a troubled situation.”

Kramer vs. Kramer – 1980
Released 1979Divorce drama Kramer vs. Kramer was a zeitgeist hit, placing its previously press-averse and Academy Award–skeptic star Dustin Hoffman center stage—though the film is now more remembered for Hoffman’s off-screen behavior than his performance. The film’s cultural dominance made it a sure bet—even against All That Jazz, which had the same number of nominations that year. As Jazz director Bob Fosse said (per Inside Oscar), “I’m such a long shot I think anyone who bets on me should get a toaster, like they give out at banks, for having made the investment.”

The Deer Hunter – 1979
Released 1978Michael Cimino’s Vietnam War epic The Deer Hunter is the foremost example of a successful Oscar-qualifying release: Universal made an event of its exclusive, one-week December release in New York and LA, elevating the film’s prestige before driving up audience demand ahead of a wide release months later. The film’s presentation of the Viet Cong drew criticism, including from Jane Fonda, whose Vietnam War–focused Coming Home was also nominated for best picture that year.

Annie Hall – 1978
Released 1977While Star Wars became one of the most significant cultural touchstones in film history that year, it was overtaken for the big prize by Woody Allen’s intellectual rom-com Annie Hall. The film’s romantic storyline was initially envisioned as a subplot in a much longer conceptual comedy, but the editing process whittled it down to bring Diane Keaton’s eponymous love interest into focus. With five nominations, Annie Hall would be the least-nominated best-picture winner for nearly 30 years.

Rocky – 1977
Released 1976Everett Collection

The quintessential underdog story, Rocky’s best-picture win resulted in Sylvester Stallone reprising the title character in no fewer than seven sequels and spin-offs, to varying degrees of acclaim and box office returns. Rocky saw Stallone become the first person to be nominated for writing and acting in the same film since Orson Welles’s nominations for Citizen Kane in 1942, though Stallone won neither prize.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest – 1976
Released 1975Getty Images

Winning in what has been called the best best picture lineup in history, the asylum-set One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was the second “big five” Oscar winner and the first of Jack Nicholson’s three acting Oscars. The best picture prize went to producer Michael Douglas, who took over the rights to the material from his father, Kirk. Douglas would later win best actor for Wall Street, making him one of the few performers to win for both acting and producing.

The Godfather Part II – 1975
Released 1974Everett Collection

Though it was not nearly as much of a box office phenomenon as its predecessor, The Godfather Part II earned double the Oscar wins of the first film, including the best director win for Francis Ford Coppola that it had previously missed. With The Conversation also in the mix, Coppola became the ninth director ever to have two films nominated for best picture in the same year. Godfather Part II is the most recent Oscar best picture winner to earn five acting nominations; six other winning films have managed that, plus three more that didn’t win best picture.

The Sting – 1974
Released 1973At the end of 1973, The Sting’s Paul Newman and Robert Redford went to battle with the devil—err, The Exorcist, for box office and Oscars. This film is maybe most remembered for repopularizing Scott Joplin’s ragtime standard “The Entertainer.” Marvin Hamlisch reorchestrated it for the film, winning both a Grammy and an adaptation score Oscar; the song even hit the top three on the Billboard 100.

The Godfather – 1973
Released 1972Seen initially as populist pulp, Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of The Godfather was hyped in the press as “the Gone With the Wind of gangster movies”—and then overtook that film’s all-time box office status. “If ever there was a great example of how the best popular movies come out of a merger of commerce and art, The Godfather is it. The movie starts from a trash novel that is generally considered gripping and compulsively readable,” said Pauline Kael.“The Godfather is popular melodrama, but it expresses a new tragic realism.” Led by the resurgent Marlon Brando and the emergent Al Pacino, it remains one of the most beloved films of all time.

The French Connection – 1972
Released 1971A definitional film for car chase sequences, William Friedkin’s The French Connection is most remembered for Gene Hackman’s hot pursuit of an elevated train. “The question I’m most asked in interviews about The French Connection is how the chase was filmed,” Friedkin said. “As I look back on it now, the shooting was easy. The cutting and the mixing were enormously difficult.” Vanity Fair would also call it one of the greatest New York City movies.

Patton – 1971
Released 1970One of the year’s biggest hits, Patton scored a sensation for George C. Scott’s performance as the Army general. But perhaps an even bigger talking point was for Scott’s anti-Oscar stance and his refusal to attend the ceremony. The film proved to have across-the-aisle appeal—Cue magazine described it as a movie in which “superpatriots may find their hero, and antiwar viewers can point to the general as a vain glory seeker.”

Midnight Cowboy – 1970
Released 1969With its gritty material and strong reviews, John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy caught the tide of shifting tastes for more envelope-pushing material in modern movies. Famously, it remains the only film to win the Academy’s biggest prize despite being dealt an X rating; it has since been rerated to the less-severe R. In The New York Times, Vincent Canby described the story of two hustlers as “a moving experience that captures the quality of a time and a place.”

Oliver! – 1969
Released 1968The ’60s was the era of the splashy best picture musical, and that decade came to a close with Oliver! Though some prominent critics dismissed the film, Pauline Kael saw it as of a piece with its song-and-dance brethren: “It proves these multimillion-dollar productions can be beautifully made, if you know how.” After Oliver!, Oscar said goodbye to awarding musicals the top prize for decades.

In the Heat of the Night – 1968
Released 1967Getty Images

Four years after his Oscar win for Lilies of the Field, Sidney Poitier had two best picture nominees for 1967, In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (plus another unnominated hit with To Sir With Love). Though his delivery of “they call me Mr. Tibbs!” is maybe Night’s most famous moment, Poitier’s costar, Rod Steiger, earned the higher critical praise and a best actor Oscar for his role as Poitier’s reluctant partner investigating a murder in Mississippi.

A Man for All Seasons – 1967
Released 1966Perhaps the urtext for Oscar-anointed costume dramas, Paul Scofield led A Man for All Seasons as Sir Thomas More defying King Henry VIII’s request for divorce from Catherine of Aragon. This was the final year that design categories separated black-and-white and color films, which helped boost the black-and-white chamber drama Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? to 13 nominations and five wins.

The Sound of Music – 1966
Released 1965Getty Images

This Oscar ceremony split its awards between two of the year’s biggest blockbusters, both helmed by directors who had already won Oscars: Robert Wise’s The Sound of Music and David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago. Both films earned 10 nominations and five wins, but Music’s upbeat wholesomeness gave it the best-picture edge—even if it didn’t climb every Oscar mountain. “If you sit quietly and let it take, it may also restore your faith in humanity,” said the Hollywood Reporter of the film’s uplifting appeal.

My Fair Lady – 1965
Released 1964Bettmann

My Fair Lady was victorious in another head-to-head battle, this time against another musical: Oscar nomination leader Mary Poppins. The films were pitted against each other in the public perception largely because studio head Jack Warner had decided to cast an established movie star as the eponymous Lady, Eliza Doolittle—opting for Audrey Hepburn over Julie Andrews, who had famously originated the role on the stage. Hepburn’s singing was dubbed in the film, while Andrews became an instant movie star with Disney megahit Poppins (where, of course, she did her own singing). “I feel very close to Julie because we’re both being asked the same thing,” said Hepburn at the time, “about getting or not getting the role. I feel as if we’re going through the same thing.”

Tom Jones – 1964
Released 1963British import Tom Jones was a box office success in its stateside release, but it infuriated entertainment columnists for multiple reasons. Hazel Flynn lambasted the film’s sexual bawdiness, saying the New York Film Critics Circle “should be slashed for choosing” it for their best film award. Hedda Hopper targeted it for being a non-American film. Tom Jones was the first film to earn three nominations for best supporting actress, although none of them won.

Lawrence of Arabia – 1963
Released 1962“This is the first extravaganza that is not a circus,” declared Newsweek of David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia, the massive scale widescreen production depicting T.E. Lawrence’s plight during WW I. The filming was difficult, shooting in desert conditions in Morocco, Jordan, and Spain, with a cavalry of hundreds of extras, camels, and horses. Lean also had a limited post-production schedule, rushing the film for its London world premiere—with Queen Elizabeth II in attendance. It endures as one of the definitive big screen experiences, frequently cited by filmmakers such as Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan as inspiration.

West Side Story – 1962
Released 1961Fred Astaire presented the best picture trophy to the revolutionary song and dance movie West Side Story. Its directors, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, were the first credited directing duo to helm a best picture winner and earn best director. Though Robbins was initially hired just to oversee the musical sequences, his portions of filming quickly ran over schedule and he was fired; Wise took over the rest of the movie. Neither director thanked the other in their acceptance speeches.

The Apartment – 1961
Released 1960Billy Wilder’s melancholy romantic comedy The Apartment earned three Academy Awards for Wilder alone—best picture, director, and original screenplay (written in collaboration with I.A.L. Diamond)—making him only the second person in Oscar history to win that many statuettes in a single ceremony. (Walt Disney won four at the 1954 ceremony.) Twelve other people have achieved this feat since, 10 of them fellow directors.

Ben-Hur – 1960
Released 1959Everett Collection

Ben-Hur, a Charlton Heston-led remake of MGM’s original epic, was such a massive endeavor for its struggling studio that the record-setting $15 million production constituted the entire hopes for MGM’s future. The gamble paid off with massive global box office and critical support, including a best picture win from the New York Film Critics Circle. The biblical epic was the final of four best picture winners to be directed by William Wyler, who still holds the record for directing the most best picture winners ever. (Wyler himself won best director three times.) Wyler also directed 12 best picture nominees, a record that Steven Spielberg tied with 2022’s The Fabelmans—though Wyler still has the most directing nominations overall.

Gigi – 1959
Released 1958Though it was tied with The Defiant Ones for most nominations that year, Gigi managed a clean sweep of all nine of its categories. The MGM musical boasted master of color Vicente Minnelli as its director and a score by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, and its release was presented with the exclusivity of a Broadway production—including playing in an actual Broadway theater. Several reviews, including those in Variety and The New York Times, noted the songs’ similarity to Lerner and Loewe’s work on My Fair Lady.

The Bridge on the River Kwai – 1958
Released 1957Everett Collection

David Lean’s war epic set in a Japanese prison camp was a tumultuous production during which the director nearly drowned after being swept away in a river’s current. The film bulldozed two films that earned more Oscar nominations on the road to its seven wins: Sayonara and Peyton Place, which tied The Little Foxes’ then-record for most nominations (nine) without a win.

Around the World in 80 Days – 1957Released 1956Often cited as one of the worst best picture winners ever, Around the World in 80 Days is most famous for its slew of cameos from the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Frank Sinatra, and Buster Keaton. Producer Mike Todd negotiated all of those cameos, and proved to be an eager Oscar campaigner. He ran daily trade ads thanking every person involved in the film, and columnist Hedda Hopper reported that he offered to pay for the entire ceremony. (The Academy did not accept due to another sponsorship.)

Marty – 1956
Released 1955Starring Ernest Borgnine as the eponymous butcher, Marty originated as a teleplay starring future best actor winner Rod Steiger in the title role. Shortly after the film was released, it earned the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival months before it went on to Oscar glory. Its 91-minute running time made Marty the shortest best picture winner at the time.

On the Waterfront – 1955
Released 1954Marlon Brando reunited with director Elia Kazan for On the Waterfront, perhaps his defining role as a longshoreman facing union corruption. Financed independently by producer Sam Spiegel, the film had been turned down by all of the studios. (In the least surprising words ever bellowed by a studio head, Darryl Zanuck told Kazan, “Who the hell gives a shit about labor unions?”) The New York Times called the resulting film “moviemaking of a rare and high order.” Brando was one of the film’s five acting nominees—it got three in the supporting-actor category alone—winning along with best supporting actress Eva Marie Saint, the current oldest living Oscar winner.

From Here to Eternity – 1954
Released 1953A tale of infidelity among military ranks in the days before Pearl Harbor, From Here to Eternity received some negative reaction from the US Army and Navy for its depiction of military life. Its film adaptation removed more controversial material from the source novel, such as venereal disease and homosexuality. Still, the Catholic Legion of Decency gave it a “B” rating as morally objectionable. The film won two of its five acting nominations—for Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed, both in supporting categories—and matched Gone With the Wind’s then record eight wins.

The Greatest Show on Earth – 1953
Released 1952This was the first Oscar ceremony broadcast on national television. Circus spectacle The Greatest Show on Earth was a box office phenomenon, but its only other Oscar win was for best story. The Academy was “[p]erhaps in a sentimental mood,” said Time’s review of the telecast, crediting the cachet of director Cecil B. DeMille with the best picture win. In 2017, Variety named it the worst best picture winner of all time. The Greatest Show on Earth was the last best picture winner (of only six total) to win only one other Academy Award until 2015’s Spotlight.

An American in Paris – 1952
Released 1951Is there a greater spectacle than Gershwin songs and Gene Kelly dancing? An American in Paris was the first musical in more than a decade to win best picture, and perhaps the first film one could consider a juggernaut in the craft categories without being nominated for acting. The film won six Oscars in total, plus an honorary award for Kelly for “his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.”

All About Eve – 1951
Released 1950All About Eve was the first film to land 14 nominations—thanks in part to its five acting nominations, though only supporting actor George Sanders won. The delicious drama about a stage actress and the fan who overtakes her was celebrated by critics: As Bosley Crowther whooped in The New York Times, “The movies are letting Broadway have it with claws out and no holds barred.” Crowther’s review was one of many that the studio reprinted in full in a nine-page ad in the trades for the film’s Oscar campaign. After a few years of unsatisfying roles, the film’s star, Bette Davis, told director Joseph L. Mankiewicz, “You resurrected me from the dead.” For his efforts, Mankiewicz won his second consecutive best-director honor, having won the year previous for A Letter to Three Wives.

All the King’s Men – 1950
Released 1949From Robert Penn Warren’s novel about a Southern politician, All the King’s Men was begrudgingly released in Los Angeles just in time to qualify for the Academy Awards at the behest of director Robert Rossen. It is the most recent best-picture winner to be adapted from a novel that won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction; only Gone With the Wind also originated with a Pulitzer fiction winner.

Hamlet – 1949
Released 1948Everett Collection

Nothing was rotten in the state of Denmark for Sir Laurence Olivier, who became the first actor to win Oscars for both acting and best picture with his adaptation of Hamlet. That year, he was also nominated for and lost best director. It was the first and only William Shakespeare adaptation to win best picture (no, the bits of Romeo and Juliet within Shakespeare in Love do not count). Hamlet also won without getting screenplay or editing nominations.

Gentleman’s Agreement – 1948
Released 1947Getty Images

Weeks before Gentleman’s Agreement opened in Los Angeles, producer Darryl Zanuck ran a back-page ad in the trades for the film, declaring, “Tomorrow this page will carry the first in a series of reviews of the most widely acclaimed picture in the history of Screen Achievement.” He spent the next four months running quotes from ecstatic reviews around the country for the then controversial film about antisemitism. The film won three Academy Awards, including Elia Kazan’s first directing Oscar.

The Best Years of Our Lives – 1947
Released 1946After returning from filming the Air Force in World War II, director William Wyler directed this drama centered on three World War II veterans returning home. In addition to The Best Years of Our Lives’ seven competitive Oscar wins, non-actor and veteran amputee Harold Russell was given an honorary award “for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance” in the film (Rusell also won supporting actor). In 1949, the film would receive the first BAFTA award for best film for its release in the UK; in its history, BAFTA has given its top prize to 30 best-picture Oscar winners. Along with fellow best-picture winners Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, and On the Waterfront, this film was part of the inaugural class of films selected to be preserved in the National Film Registry in 1989.

The Lost Weekend – 1946
Released 1945Billy Wilder’s alcoholism odyssey The Lost Weekend was the first best-picture winner to earn the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival, though it got that honor before Cannes’s award was called the Palme d’Or. Though the film initially tested poorly, it earned its buzz by opening internationally before opening in the US. By the time it played stateside and earned raves, Paramount began advertising the film as “The Most Widely Acclaimed Motion Picture in the History of the Industry.”

Going My Way – 1945
Released 1944Going My Way saw Bing Crosby inhabit his most famous character, Father O’Malley, with critics finally crediting Crosby for his acting abilities rather than his singing. The film was a mega-smash, with Paramount boasting that it had broken more than 2,400 house records in theaters across the country. Barry Fitzgerald’s performance earned him both lead and supporting nominations, and he won the latter; the Academy would later establish rules that would prevent such double nominations from happening again. The next year, its sequel, The Bells of St. Mary’s, would also be a nomination leader at the Oscars, though it would only win for sound. For this awards year, the Academy changed the number of best-picture nominees from 10 to five, a ruling that would remain until 2009.

Casablanca – 1944
Released 1943Casablanca was somewhat of an underdog to The Song of Bernadette and its 12 nominations, and some in the press were skeptical that it could defeat that religious film. “That the picture Casablanca won over several more elaborate productions proves Hollywood joins the world in its belief that entertainment is the aim and goal of every picture,” sniffed Photoplay. Tell that to the AFI, who named Casablanca as both the second- and third-greatest film of all time in different polls—and as the greatest love story of all time as well. According to Inside Oscar, during the nominations phase, scam Oscar ballots were spread on college campuses in several cities—but Price Waterhouse was able to remove those false ballots before nominations were announced.

Mrs. Miniver – 1943
Released 1942A British import about a woman activated at the start of World War II, Mrs. Miniver was a blockbuster success. MGM head Louis B. Mayer boasted receiving word from Winston Churchill that the film served as “propaganda worth a hundred battleships,” according to Inside Oscar. Its zeitgeist appeal translated to the Academy Awards, with a dozen nominations, including a record-setting five acting nominations.

How Green Was My Valley – 1942
Released 1941Though this was director John Ford’s only best-picture winner, he still holds the record for most wins for best director with four total. The history books often remember How Green Was My Valley as the film that defeated Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane, the film twice anointed by the AFI as the greatest movie of all time. At the ceremony, columnist Louella Parsons reportedly led cheers for Valley’s wins one minute, and a chorus of boos for Kane’s screenplay win the next.

Rebecca – 1941
Released 1940The Daphne du Maurier adaptation is the only best-picture winner directed by Alfred Hitchcock, who never won a best-director Oscar. Producer David O. Selznick—fresh off of winning the previous year for Gone With the Wind—was the first producer to win best picture consecutively. He had led what could be considered an early awards campaign for the film, launching a second premiere months after its initial release and having the mayor agree to have Hollywood Boulevard temporarily renamed “Rebecca Lane.”

Gone With the Wind – 1940
Released 1939Everett Collection

Along with its record box office and bladder-busting run time (it is still the longest best-picture winner ever), Gone With the Wind set a then record of 13 nominations and was the first completely color film to win the top prize. On the night of the ceremony, the Los Angeles Times evening edition ran the evening’s winners prior to the announcement, and word spread among the attendees; Clark Gable knew he had lost before he even arrived. With her supporting-actress win, Hattie McDaniel became the first Black person to win an Academy Award in any category.

You Can’t Take It With You – 1939
Released 1938Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take It With You won while Capra was serving as the Academy president, which was a first. But there was nothing suspicious about the beloved film’s ascent. (The Associated Press glowed, “You’ll leave the movie house thinking it’s pretty nice they have such things as movies.”) It was the second film in Academy Awards history to win just best picture and best director without any other wins, a stat that hasn’t happened since. Elsewhere, the French film Grand Illusion was the first non-English-language best-picture nominee.

The Life of Emile Zola – 1938
Released 1937Everett Collection

The best-picture win for The Life of Emile Zola isn’t particularly surprising when you consider its nomination record: This was the first film to achieve 10 nominations. In the third year of doling out awards, the New York Film Critics Circle made this the first film that predicted the best-picture Oscar. Jack Warner accepted the award and his acceptance speech was printed in the trades the next day, according to Inside Oscar.

The Great Ziegfeld – 1937
Released 1936Call it the first Hollywood attempt at authenticity in artifice: In order to recount the life of Broadway forefather Florenz Ziegfeld, The Great Ziegfeld hired the theatrical titan’s dance director and set designer to recreate what once appeared on his stages. Its best-picture win was met with disdain in the press, with the Hollywood Citizen-News calling the victory “atrocious,” adding that “a truer demonstration of the stupidity and rank barbarism of these times had never been more ably given.”

Mutiny on the Bounty – 1936
Released 1935Though Mutiny on the Bounty led the nominations with eight, it became the third-ever film to win only best picture—and the last, so far at least. This Oscar ceremony was beset by industry turmoil: According to Inside Oscar, the Academy’s labor-negotiation functions had begun to be replaced by unions, and guild members were leaving the Academy. The newly appointed Academy board of directors—among them Mutiny director Frank Lloyd and star Clark Gable—paid for the ceremony and statuettes themselves, according to Inside Oscar. It was the first year that future Oscar staple accounting firm Price Waterhouse handled the vote counting, in order to assure fairness to a fraught industry.

It Happened One Night – 1935
Released 1934It Happened One Night was the first film to ever take the “big five” Academy Awards—perhaps a bigger feat considering there were fewer categories at the time—and the first romantic comedy to win best picture. After picture and director nominations the previous year for Lady for a Day, it also marked Frank Capra’s first Oscar success. Due largely to a furor in the press over Bette Davis not being nominated for her performance in Of Human Bondage, the Academy permitted write-in mentions for the prizes, but all of the ceremony’s winners came from the selected nominees.

Cavalcade – 1934
Released 1933Based on the Noël Coward play about British high society in the early 20th century, Cavalcade flustered the Hays Office for its flagrant use of such language as “hell” and “damn”—years before Rhett Butler frankly didn’t give one. According to Inside Oscar, at the time, vote tallies were released at the ceremony, and the film outpaced second-placer A Farewell to Arms by 50%.

Grand Hotel – 1933
Released 1932This star-studded spectacle is the only film ever to win best picture without being nominated for a single other Oscar. Grand Hotel was filled with MGM talent: Greta Garbo, Wallace Beery, Joan Crawford, and not one but two Barrymores, Lionel and John. While the star wattage no doubt helped its Oscar chances, its merit came into question after the win, with the Los Angeles Times offering side-eye: “Grand Hotel filled, it appeared, the requirements for bigness.”

Cimarron – 1932
Released 1931Oscar’s very first beloved Western was Cimarron, the story of a married couple settling in Oklahoma at the turn of the century. It starred nine-year-old Jackie Cooper, who would become the youngest ever best-actor nominee for the film (a record for which he’s still reigning). Call it the first Oscar sweep: This was the first film to win more than two Oscars. The film also won for adaptation and art direction. Sorry, little Jackie.

All Quiet on the Western Front – 1931
Released 1930An anti-war film about trench warfare in World War I, All Quiet on the Western Front was the second war film to take best-picture honors in the early days of the Academy Awards. Its studio, Universal, hadn’t received any Oscar nominations up until that point. The film was remade in 2022 for Netflix, winning four Oscars and becoming the most recent best-picture-nominated film to be remade from a best-picture winner.

The Broadway Melody – 1930
Released 1929Everett Collection

As talkies took full dominance over the industry, naturally the Academy responded by honoring the first best-picture musical. The Broadway Melody was the first all-talking film for MGM, the first musical to use prerecorded music, according to Inside Oscar, and featured an entire sequence in primitive Technicolor. At the time, its box office receipts of $4 million set a record. Vulture has since ranked it as the worst best-picture winner of all time. Soon, you may consider this to be the most available Academy Award best-picture winner: It enters the public domain in 2025.

Wings – 1929
Released 1927For its very first best picture, the Academy opted for a film that represented the state of the art as silent film gave way to talkies: the war story Wings. The film followed a romance amid World War I combat pilots, and featured innovative aerial photography. Airplane sound effects were played offstage at select early showings in big cities before the film was equipped for full sound. The film was also bestowed the Academy Award for best engineering effects, the earliest version of the visual-effects Oscar.

How much is a real Oscar worth?The Oscar statuette reportedly costs an estimated $400 to produce. It’s made of liquid bronze before being plated in 24-karat gold. The Academy forbids the sale of an Oscar statuette without the owner first offering to sell it back to the Academy’s archives for $1.

Who keeps the best-picture Oscar?Best picture is given to the credited producers of a film, though no more than three producers of a given film can receive the actual award.

What is the longest best-picture winner?Gone With the Wind is the longest best-picture Oscar winner at three hours and 58 minutes. Even if you exclude that film’s overture, intermission, and exit music, it is still the longest, at three hours and 41 minutes.

What is the lowest-rated best-picture winner?Rotten Tomatoes currently lists The Broadway Melody as the lowest of all Oscar best-picture winners at 42% on the Tomatometer.

What is the most expensive best-picture winner?James Cameron’s Titanic has the highest budget of all best-picture Academy Award winners, with a reported budget of $200 million ($390 million if adjusted for inflation).

Cormac McCarthy’s Secret Muse Breaks Her Silence After Half a Century

Nicole Kidman on Babygirl, Losing Her Mother, and More