Academy Award Fun Facts Flashcards
Only silent film to win Best Picture
Wings (1927/1928) [While The Artist was mostly silent, it had a soundtrack with some sound effects, and several characters with brief dialogue at the end of the film]
First “sound” film to win Best Picture
The Broadway Melody (1928-29)
First color film to win Best Picture
Gone with the Wind (1939)
The last entirely black-and-white film to win Best Picture
The Artist (2011) [Prior to 2011, The Apartment (1960) held this distinction; Schindler’s List (1993) had some color elements]
The only sequels to win Best Picture
The Godfather Part II (1974); Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
The only X-rated film to win Best Picture
Midnight Cowboy (1969) [The film was subsequently edited and given an R rating in 1971]
The first foreign-language film to be nominated for Best Picture
Grand Illusion (1938) - French [To date, no foreign-language film has won Best Picture]
The first non-Hollywood film to win an Academy Award
The Private Life of Henry VIII (1932/33) [Charles Laughton won Best Actor]
The first non-Hollywood film to win Best Picture
Hamlet (1948) [Financed and filmed in England]
The only films to win three academy awards for acting
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951); Network (1976) [To date, no film has won all four of the Academy Awards for acting]
The first foreign-language performance to win an Academy Award
Sophia Loren, named 1961’s Best Actress for her work in the Italian film Two Women
The only performers to win consecutive Academy Awards (5)
Luise Rainer (1936,1937); Spencer Tracy (1937,1938); Katharine Hepburn (1967,1968); Jason Robards (1976,1977); Tom Hanks (1993,1994).
The only person to win an Oscar for playing a member of the opposite sex
Linda Hunt, 1983, Best Supporting Actress for The Year of Living Dangerously
The only performer nominated twice for the same performance
Barry Fitzgerald, 1944, nominated both as Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor for Going My Way. [Such a feat is not possible under current Academy rules]
The only performer to win two Oscars for the same performance
Harold Russell, 1946, voted Best Supporting Actor for The Best Years of Our Lives, and voted an Honorary Oscar that year for his performance
Most honored individuals at a single ceremony
(male) Walt Disney (1953), in the categories of Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, Cartoon Short Subject, and Two-rell Short Subject; (female) Fran Walsh (2003), in the categories of Original Song, Best Picture, and Adapted Screenplay
The first posthumous Oscar winner
Sidney Howard, 1939, winner for writing the screenplay of Gone with the Wind
The two posthumous Acting Oscar winners
Peter Finch, 1976, Best Actor winner for The Network; Heath Ledger, 2008, Best Supporting Actor for The Dark Knight;
The only years two Oscars were given for Best Director (co-winners)
1961: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins, codirectors of West Side Story; 2007: Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, codirectors of No Country for Old Men
The first person to win Oscars for Directing and Writing
Leo McCarey, 1944, for Going My Way
The first person to win Oscars for Directing, Writing, and Best Picture
Billy Wilder, 1960, for The Apartment. [This feat was not possible prior to 1951, when the Best Picture award went to the studio rather than individual producers]
The only 3-generation Oscar-winning families
The Hustons: Walter Huston won Best Supportin Actor in 1948; son John Huston won Best Director and Best Screenplay in 1948; and granddaughter Anjelica Huston won Best Supporting Actress in 1985.
The Coppolas: Carmine Coppola won for Original Dramatic Score in 1974; son Francis Ford Coppola’s first win was for Original Screenplay in 1970; and granddaughter Sofia Coppola won for Original Screenplay in 2003.
The only brother and sister to win Acting Oscars
Lionel (1930/31) and Ethel (1944) Barrymore
The only sisters to win Acting Oscars
Joan Fontaine (1941) and Olivia de Havilland (1946 & 1949)
