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The Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece “The Godfather” (1972) has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Picture winner ever. The results are from a recent Gold Derby ballot cast by 29 of our film experts and editors, who ranked all 96 movie champs.

Ranking in second place is the Michael Curtiz classic “Casablanca” (1943). Following in third place is the powerful Steven Spielberg film “Schindler’s List” (1993). Rounding out the top five are Coppola’s “The Godfather Part II” (1974) in fourth place and Billy Wilder‘s “The Apartment” (196o) in fifth place.

At the bottom of the list of the Best Picture winners is “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952) from Cecil B. DeMille. Just above that film in the rankings are “Cimarron” (1931) from Wesley Ruggles, “The Broadway Melody” (1929) from Harry Beaumont, “Crash” (2005) from Paul Haggis, and “Around the World in 80 Days’ (1956) from Michael Anderson.

Our photo gallery above features the full top 10. See the complete rankings of all 96 films below.

The Francis Ford Coppola masterpiece “The Godfather” (1972) has been voted the greatest Oscar Best Picture winner ever. The results are from a recent Gold Derby ballot cast by 29 of our film experts and editors, who ranked all 96 movie champs.

Ranking in second place is the Michael Curtiz classic “Casablanca” (1943). Following in third place is the powerful Steven Spielberg film “Schindler’s List” (1993). Rounding out the top five are Coppola’s “The Godfather Part II” (1974) in fourth place and Billy Wilder‘s “The Apartment” (196o) in fifth place.

The worst among 96 Best Picture winners is “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952) from Cecil B. DeMille. Just above that film on the bottom of the rankings are “Cimarron” (1931) from Wesley Ruggles, “The Broadway Melody” (1929) from Harry Beaumont, “Crash” (2005) from Paul Haggis, and “Around the World in 80 Days’ (1956) from Michael Anderson.

Our photo gallery below features the full top 10. See the complete rankings of all 96 films below.

The 2024 Oscar race is on, and one film has the potential to accomplish a feat that hasn’t happened in 64 years. “Oppenheimer” leads the nominations with 13, and it’s on track to win several of those categories. If Christopher Nolan‘s epic claims Best Picture, Best Actor (Cillian Murphy) and Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr.), it will be the first time since 1960 that the same film (“Ben-Hur”) has won those three exact categories. And it would be only the fourth time it’s ever happened.

See Cillian Murphy interview: ‘Oppenheimer’

Since the Best Supporting Actor category was introduced in 1937, only three films have walked away with Best Picture as well as both male acting categories. In 1945, the inspirational musical comedy “Going My Way” not only became the highest-grossing film of 1944, but also won seven of its ten Oscar nominations, making it the big winner of the night. Beside the top prize,...

Upon securing a spot in the 2024 Best Supporting Actress Oscar lineup, Jodie Foster (“Nyad”) officially shattered the Academy Awards record for longest span between fourth and fifth acting nominations. Following her two Best Actress wins for “The Accused” (1989) and “The Silence of the Lambs” (1992), she had last been recognized in that category for “Nell” (1995), making for a general nomination gap of 29 years. Coincidentally, she took this particular distinction from fellow “Silence of the Lambs” winner Anthony Hopkins, who waited 22 years between his supporting bids for “Amistad” (1998) and “The Two Popes” (2020).

Previously, the female record for longest wait for a fifth nomination was 12 years, as shared by Julianne Moore and Frances McDormand. Considering gaps between any two consecutive acting nominations, Foster ranks well behind overall record holder Judd Hirsch, whose first and second career notices for “Ordinary People” (1981) and “The Fabelmans” (2023) came 42 years apart. His female counterpart is Helen Hayes (39 years...

From American high school comedies to Oscar winners, plenty of 2023’s biggest and brightest films have skipped the DVD market in the UK.

(Correction: A previous version of this article claimed Nida Manzoor’s Polite Society couldn’t be found on DVD. It actually can. Don’t worry, we have fired the news-goblin responsible for the error.)

As recently as 2021, the idea that the previous year’s Best Picture Oscar winner wouldn’t get a UK physical media release would have been absurd.

In fact, to find a Best Picture winner that isn’t easily available on a UK disc format, you’d have to head all the way back to 1937. Try as we might to watch The Life Of Emile Zola on the secret DVD player at the top of Big Ben (don’t tell anyone), it looks like no one got round to burning it onto a disk...

The New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) announced its 89th annual awardees on November 30. As usual, no one title dominated the final win tally, as three ended up with two prizes apiece. Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” was named Best Picture and achieved its second victory thanks to Lily Gladstone’s lead performance.

The other films that showed up twice on this year’s roster were “May December” and “Oppenheimer”. Lead actor Franz Rogowski (“Passages”) and supporting actress Da’Vine Joy Randolph (“The Holdovers”) took the remaining performance awards.

Since 2001, this organization (which presently consists of 43 reviewers) has consistently given out 10 yearly awards that directly correspond to Oscar categories, plus a single writing prize for which original and adapted scripts are both considered. Counting all 11 areas of merit, the NYFCC and the film academy have chosen the same winners 27.3% of the time within the last 22 years and in...

What a thrill it must be as an actor to be in a film that becomes a contender for the Academy Award for Best Picture. A few even develop such an impressive resume that they have seven, eight, nine, or more of these credits to their names. Who are the actors who have starred in the most number of Best Picture nominees?

Many of the performers on this list are not a surprise, with multi-Oscar-winners such as Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Cate Blanchett and Bette Davis making the cut. But there are also some fine character actors who appeared in hundreds of films over careers that spanned decades, including Henry Travers (Clarence the angel from “It’s a Wonderful Life) and Thomas Mitchell (Scarlett O’Hara’s dad from “Gone with the Wind”). Mitchell was such a sought-after actor, he appeared in five of the Best Picture nominees in 1940 and 1941. Two...

What a thrill it must be as an actor to be in a film that becomes a contender for the Academy Award for Best Picture. A few even develop such an impressive resume that they have seven, eight, nine, or more of these credits to their names. Who are the actors who have starred in the most number of Best Picture nominees?

Many of the performers on this list are not a surprise, with multi-Oscar-winners such as Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Cate Blanchett and Bette Davis making the cut. But there are also some fine character actors who appeared in hundreds of films over careers that spanned decades, including Henry Travers (Clarence the angel from “It’s a Wonderful Life) and Thomas Mitchell (Scarlett O’Hara’s dad from “Gone with the Wind”). Mitchell was such a sought-after actor, he appeared in five of the Best Picture nominees in 1940 and 1941. Two...

Turner Classic Movies (TCM) offers a wide assortment of movies from the past that strikes nostalgia. However, there are also plenty of gems that allow audiences to discover other oldies to fill in their cinematic blindspots. Looking for something to watch this weekend between March 24-26? Here’s a look at the upcoming programming.

Friday, March 24 Jean-Pierre Léaud as Antoine Doinel | John Springer Collection/Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

Starting just after midnight Eastern Standard Time, the TCM movies officially kick off the ending of the week in a big way. Ranging from the Oscar-nominated Mutiny on the Bounty from 1962 to the four-time Oscar-winning Network, there’s a little something for all viewers.

The notable standouts here are The 400 Blows, Diner, Dr. Strangelove, and Network.

The 400 Blows (1959) – 12:30 a.m. Est Diner (1982) – 2:30 a.m. Est Metropolitan (1990) – 4:30 a.m. Est The Sea Wolf (1941) – 6:15 a.m.

To win a Best Picture Oscar, a film has to have something about it.

Only 94 films in history have been given this award. They’re not voted on by the eccentric members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who pick the Golden Globes, or by specialist groups of critics, but by the roughly 10,000 members of the Academy. That is to say, the choice is made by distinguished figures from within the industry.

Sometimes, though, they do still make some baffling choices.

By the time the Oscars roll around at the end of the awards process, a herd mentality tends to have set in.

When everybody has already voted at all the other awards shows for, say, The King’s Speech or The Shape of Water, the Academy members follow suit. It’s rare for a Best Picture winner ever to be a complete surprise.

Nonetheless, a few questionable films have stolen glory that rightfully belonged elsewhere.

To win a Best Picture Oscar, a film has to have something about it.

Only 94 films in history have been given this award. They’re not voted on by the eccentric members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who pick the Golden Globes, or by specialist groups of critics, but by the roughly 10,000 members of the Academy. That is to say, the choice is made by distinguished figures from within the industry.

Sometimes, though, they do still make some baffling choices.

By the time the Oscars roll around at the end of the awards process, a herd mentality tends to have set in.

When everybody has already voted at all the other awards shows for, say, The King’s Speech or The Shape of Water, the Academy members follow suit. It’s rare for a Best Picture winner ever to be a complete surprise.

Nonetheless, a few questionable films have stolen glory that rightfully belonged elsewhere.

To win a Best Picture Oscar, a film has to have something about it.

Only 90 films in history have been given this award. They’re not voted on by the eccentric members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who pick the Golden Globes, or by specialist groups of critics, but by the 6,000 members of the Academy. That is to say, the choice is made by distinguished figures from within the industry.

Sometimes, though, they do still make some baffling choices.

By the time the Oscars roll around at the end of the awards process, a herd mentality tends to have set in.

When everybody has already voted at all the other awards shows for, say, The King’s Speech or The Shape of Water, the Academy members follow suit. It’s rare for a Best Picture winner ever to be a complete surprise.

Nonetheless, a few questionable films have stolen glory that rightfully belonged elsewhere.

To win a Best Picture Oscar, a film has to have something about it.

Only 90 films in history have been given this award. They’re not voted on by the eccentric members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who pick the Golden Globes, or by specialist groups of critics, but by the 6,000 members of the Academy. That is to say, the choice is made by distinguished figures from within the industry.

Sometimes, though, they do still make some baffling choices.

By the time the Oscars roll around at the end of the awards process, a herd mentality tends to have set in.

When everybody has already voted at all the other awards shows for, say, The King’s Speech or The Shape of Water, the Academy members follow suit. It’s rare for a Best Picture winner ever to be a complete surprise.

Nonetheless, a few questionable films have stolen glory that rightfully belonged elsewhere.

We trust that you'll let us know if we got anything wrong. Feel free to add things you noticed in the comments

We've reviewed the Oscar ceremony, but we also have to talk records broken or interesting trivia. Coda broke a ton of records (not all of them flattering) by taking Best Picture with just three nominations. But there's a lot more than just that...

list of winners if you haven't seen that

Picture

• Coda is now the lowest grossing film of all time to win the Best Picture prize with a recorded gross of 1 million (globally). It's also, not coincidentally the first film distributed by a streaming service to ever win Best Picture. The previous lowest grossing winners since modern box office tabulations began were The Hurt Locker which had earned 17 million in US domestic release (49.2 globally). Nomadland, which arrived during the pandemic, was something of a hybrid between...

Before the academy expanded the Best Picture race in 2010, the winner of that award almost always picked up the Best Director prize as well. But since then, these two awards have aligned at only seven of the dozen ceremonies. We thought that we’d see another case of double-dipping this year with Jane Campion winning for both directing and producing “The Power of the Dog.” But now it looks like “Coda” will claim the top prize of Best Picture, with Campion consoling herself with being the third woman to win Best Director.

Why the change?

When the decision was made to increase the number of nominees for Best Picture, it was also decided to bring back the preferential ballot that had been used by the academy until the mid 1940s. The rationale was that by ranking the nominees, the winner would be the film that had the broadest level of support.

“Grand Hotel” (1932) holds a special place in Oscar pundits’ hearts. To date, it’s the only film to win Best Picture without receiving any other nominations. Because of that unique stat, “Grand Hotel” is often cited as an example when trying to make the case for a movie winning Best Picture without having a corresponding such-and-such nomination. How is that relevant to this year’s Academy Awards? Let me introduce you to “Coda.”

The Apple TV Plus drama about a predominantly Deaf family of fishing industry workers notably missed out on the two key Oscar bids a film usually needs in order to win the top category: Best Director and Best Film Editing. Put another way, every Best Picture winner since the creation of the film editing category in 1934 has been nominated in either directing or editing (often both). That means “Coda” would break an 87-year Oscars curse if it...

Those who do not know Oscar history are surprised when it repeats. It’s a different take on philosopher George Santayana’s famous quote: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Statistics are an important piece to consider when analyzing an Oscar race. Too often, from the casual awards-watchers on social media, contenders are easily dismissed because of “missing x or y” during its run. However, this new Academy membership, which has diversified immensely in the last few years, has led to various statistics falling in the wake of a new movie being crowned. Jane Campion has been the prom queen of the awards season, with her film “The Power of the Dog” leading the way in the Oscar nomination tally, and despite a recent surge from “Coda,” it remains competitive in many of its races, including best picture.

Read more: Variety’s Awards Circuit Predictions...

Too Awesome to Describe! Too Terrifying to Escape!

The Film Detective will release Kenneth G. Crane’s classic B-movie creature feature Monster From Green Hell (1957) on special-edition Blu-ray and DVD, March 8. Featuring a new 4k transfer, exclusive bonus features and rare, colorized version of the film’s climax.

From the era of giant bugs and atomic testing comes this low-budget howler about mutant wasps. When scientists try to understand the effects of radiation on earth creatures, the result brings them to an area of Africa known as “Green Hell,” where wasps have mutated into monsters!

Jim Davis, who later starred in the TV series Dallas, plays Dr. Quent Brady, the scientist who starts the whole mess. The film also stars Vladimir Sokoloff (The Life of Emile Zola, Mission to Moscow) as the skeptical Dr. Lorentz and Joel Fluellen (Raisin in the Sun) as Arobi, who warns Brady to beware of the African location.

Ever since “The Life of Emile Zola” became the first film to win Oscars for Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor (Joseph Schildkraut) in 1938, occurrences of films receiving nominations in both categories have been rather common. Of the 511 features that have contended for the top honor since the supporting awards were first bestowed 86 years ago, 194 (38%) have had at least one performance by a featured male cast member recognized as well. In that time, the double victory initiated by “The Life of Emile Zola” has been replicated by 16 more films, from “How Green Was My Valley” to “Green Book”.

A fair amount of these nearly 200 performances were considered surprise nominees. Some actors, such as Max von Sydow and Jonah Hill were previously thought of as longshots after missing major precursors, while others, like Lakeith Stanfield, truly came from out of the blue. Since all three of these men appeared in Best Picture contenders,...

The best picture prize is what every studio and filmmaker covets, whether they publicly admit it or not. But, of course, it would help if you had the star power to make it happen. Oscar winners Leonardo DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett both have proven that they have said star power with the amount of best picture nominees (and winners) they’ve appeared in over their careers. With DiCaprio starring in “Don’t Look Up” alongside Blanchett, who is co-starring in another awards vehicle, “Nightmare Alley,” both stand a solid chance of getting close to — or possibly breaking — a record.

This year, Blanchett’s double feature outings could have her breaking a significant record for female actors. The two-time Oscar-winning actress currently has had a role in seven former Academy nominees: “Elizabeth” (1998), “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, “The Aviator” (2004), “Babel” (2006) and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” (2008). She’s currently tied...

The public considers the Academy Awards as a Hollywood event. True, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is headquartered in Southern California, and most of the best pic contenders are American and/or in the English language. But Oscar history proves they have been an international event from the beginning.

In the first year (1927-28), there were nominations for directors Herbert Brenon (born in Ireland) and Lewis Milestone (born in Moldova), plus a special award to Charlie Chaplin (from the U.K.).

The next five years saw two noms apiece for directors Ernst Lubitsch (Germany) and Josef von Sternberg (Austria). And the second best actress Academy Award was given to Canadian Mary Pickford.

The early years of Oscar featured a slew of non-Americans. Aside from mega-star Chaplin, the list of early Academy Award winners includes Emil Jannings, George Arliss (U.K.), Claudette Colbert (raised in the U.S. but...

The July lineup at The Criterion Channel has been revealed, most notably featuring the new Wong Kar Wai restorations from the recent box set release, including As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love, 2046, and his shorts Hua yang de nian hua and The Hand.

Also among the lineup is a series on neo-noir with Body Double, Manhunter, Thief, The Last Seduction, Cutter’s Way, Brick, Night Moves, The Long Goodbye, Chinatown, and more. The channel will also feature a spotlight on art-house animation with work by Marcell Jankovics, Satoshi Kon, Ari Folman, Don Hertzfeldt, Karel Zeman, and more.

With Jodie Mack’s delightful The Grand Bizarre, the landmark doc Hoop Dreams, Orson Welles’ take on Othello, the recent Oscar entries Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time and You Will Die at Twenty, and much more,...

In three of the last five years, there has been a divide between the winners of Best Picture at the Oscars. Before the academy reintroduced the preferential ballot for Best Picture in 2010, such splits were fairly rare. Since then, they are almost the rule rather than the exception at the Academy Awards having occurred in five of the last 11 years. Why the change? (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2021 Oscars predictions for Best Director.)

The winner of Best Picture is now determined by a weighted ballot while the other 23 races, including Best Director, are decided by a popular vote. While voters simply check one nominee in those other races, when it comes to Best Picture they are asked to rank all the nominees. If one contender garners more than 50% of the first-place votes, it wins. If, however, no nominee crosses that threshold, the film with the fewest first-place votes is eliminated,...

When Oscars are handed out, it’s possible best picture, director, writing and all four acting wins will be for films about real people.

The odds of this sweep seem slim. But this past year has been all about unexpected events, so anything is possible. Certainly, there are a wealth of contenders: This year’s Oscar race is heavy with biopics and fact-based dramas.

“Judas and the Black Messiah,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” “Mank,” “One Night in Miami,” “The Trial of the Chicago 7” and “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” all center on individuals whose 20th century lives were well documented in the media.

“Mank” illuminates the screenwriter behind “Citizen Kane.”

The characters in “Hillbilly Elegy” and “The Mauritanian” didn’t get as much coverage but they’re also based on real people and incidents.

In “Nomadland,” Frances McDormand plays a fictional character but is surrounded by first-time actors playing versions of themselves.

There are many who champion the idea of the Best Supporting Actor Oscar category honoring traditionally secondary roles and lament the fact that it has fallen out of fashion. Still, plenty of performances short on screen time have prevailed in the category’s 84-year history. Here is a look at the 10 shortest of all time, including the record holder:

10. James Coburn (“Affliction”)

17 minutes, 10 seconds (15.03% of the film)

After a prolific acting career, James Coburn was finally rewarded in 1999 with his first Oscar nomination and win. At 70 years old, he was the oldest acting nominee of the year, as well as the only first time nominee in his lineup. His overdue narrative certainly helped him win, but so did the skillful quality of his performance. After four decades of portraying characters with limited screen time, Coburn made abusive father Glen Whitehouse the role of a lifetime.

9. Hugh Griffith (“Ben-Hur”)

16 minutes, 51 seconds...

These days, director William Dieterle is best remembered for his dreamy, stylized melodramas of the mid-to-late 1940s, but in his own time his greatest successes were mostly sturdy prestige biopics like The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Life of Emile Zola. A key transitional film was 1941’s The Devil and Daniel Webster, which introduced a supernatural element to Dieterle’s work and paved the way for a return to the German expressionist style in which he had worked as an actor. Before the delirious flights of fancy to come, however, Dieterle made one last return […]

The post Tennessee Johnson, I Spit on Your Grave and Adaptation: Jim Hemphill's Home Video Recommendations first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

These days, director William Dieterle is best remembered for his dreamy, stylized melodramas of the mid-to-late 1940s, but in his own time his greatest successes were mostly sturdy prestige biopics like The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Life of Emile Zola. A key transitional film was 1941’s The Devil and Daniel Webster, which introduced a supernatural element to Dieterle’s work and paved the way for a return to the German expressionist style in which he had worked as an actor. Before the delirious flights of fancy to come, however, Dieterle made one last return […]

The post Tennessee Johnson, I Spit on Your Grave and Adaptation: Jim Hemphill's Home Video Recommendations first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Oscar voters have proven time and again that they love actors who portray historic people. Maybe it’s because they can make easy comparisons. Or maybe it’s because they are often heroic figures. Whatever the reason, it’s been happening since the introduction of supporting categories in the earliest days of the awards ceremony. Tour our photo gallery above of every single man who has won the Best Supporting Actor category at the Academy Awards for playing a true life character.

The very first person to win the illustrious prize for slipping into a real person’s shoes was Joseph Schildkraut, who portrayed the wrongfully imprisoned Captain Alfred Dreyfus in “The Life of Emile Zola” (1937). Since then, actors as diverse as Mark Rylance (“Bridge of Spies” in 2015), Christian Bale (“The Fighter” in 2010), Jim Broadbent (“Iris” in 2001), Martin Landau (“Ed Wood” in 1994) and Mahershala Ali (“Green Book”), have all triumphed...

by Nathaniel R

France's Oscar parallel competition, the Césars, have finally announced their nominations for the film year. Roman Polanski's adaptation of Robert Harris's novel An Officer and a Spy leads the nominations. It's based on the Dreyfus affair and Emile Zola's "J'Accuse!" letter, both of which are also the topic of one of Oscar's earliest Best Picture winners The Life of Emile Zola (1937). The drama leads the Césars with 12 nominations while the Oscar-nominated Les Miserables and the riveting queer romantic drama Portrait of a Lady on Fire were right behind with 10 nominations each. After the jump all the nominations and a few notes...

In the first 72 years of the Academy Awards (1927-99), 14 fact-based movies won the best-picture prize, or 19%. In the 21st century, fact-based films have won 33% of the time.

Last year, three of 2018’s four acting winners were playing real-life characters. And six of the eight best-picture contenders were fact-based, including winner “Green Book.”

For whatever reasons, based-on-reality films are clearly increasing, and are increasingly finding favor from awards-givers. At the same time, there has also been a boost in a sub-category: the autobiographical film. Last year’s “Roma” fit into that category and the auto-truth group has multiplied this year.

In 2019 there have been so many reality-based tales that it’s possible (but unlikely) that every Oscar nominee will be from a fact-based film. In alphabetical order, the list includes “The Aeronauts,” “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” “Bombshell,” “Dark Waters,” “Dolemite Is My Name,” “Ford v Ferrari,” “Harriet,” “A Hidden Life,...

One of the big questions about the 2020 Oscars is whether or not there will be a split between the winners of Best Picture and Best Director, as we’ve seen in three of the last four years. Before the academy reintroduced the preferential ballot for Best Picture in 2010, such divides were fairly rare. Now, they are the rule rather than the exception at the Academy Awards. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2020 Oscars predictions for Best Director.)

Why is this?

Unlike every other Oscar category, which are decided by a popular vote, the winner of the Best Picture award is determined by a weighted ballot. Voters rank their choices from first to last. If one nominee garners more than 50% of the first place vote, it automatically wins. If, however, no nominee can meet that threshold, the film with the fewest first place votes gets eliminated, with its ballot getting reapportioned to the second place choice.

We weren’t surprised that Bradley Cooper‘s remake of “A Star is Born” lost seven of its eight races at the Academy Awards. After all, there is an Oscar curse on this classic tale of Hollywood. The first three versions of “A Star is Born” earned 17 nominations but won just two. The original 1937 film claimed the screenplay award while the 1976 musical remake won Best Original Song (“Evergreen”) for its leading lady, Barbra Streisand. She was the first female composer to win this Oscar; Lady Gaga became the 11th when she won for “Shallow.”

Let’s take a closer look to see how each of the four films fared at the Oscars.

2018 version

Cooper cast Lady Gaga in her first starring role. Reviews for the film were ecstatic praising the first-time helmer and his leading lady. It was the early frontrunner to sweep the Oscars and earned bids from 12 of...

Bradley Cooper‘s remake of “A Star is Born” has reaped bids with 12 of the 13 guilds that hand out awards but has yet to win with any of the six heard from so far. Cooper was widely expected to take home the Best First-Time Director prize at the DGA Awards on Feb. 2 but he lost that race to Bo Burnham (“Eighth Grade”). Is this losing streak a sign of things to come at the Academy Awards where it contends in eight categories?

It could well be. There is an Oscar curse on this classic tale of Hollywood. In all, the first three versions of “A Star is Born” earned 17 nominations but won just two. The original 1937 film claimed the screenplay award while the 1976 musical remake won Best Original Song (“Evergreen”) for its leading lady, Barbra Streisand. She was the first female composer to win this Oscar; Lady Gaga would be...

One of the most reliable predictors of the Best Picture winner at the Oscars has been the Best Film Editing category. Only 10 films have taken home the big prize without at least contending for cutting since that category was introduced at the seventh Academy Awards in 1934.

Of this year’s eight Best Picture nominees, “Black Panther,” “Roma” and “A Star is Born” did not make the cut for Best Film Editing at the Oscars. In the hunt for that award are five of their Best Picture rivals: “BlacKkKlansman,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “The Favourite,” “Green Book” and “Vice.”

The most recent film to defy this stat was “Birdman” three years ago; it did contend at the film editors guild awards for its seemingly seamless scenes. While “Black Panther” was snubbed by the guild, both “Roma” and “A Star is Born” number among the five nominees for best edited drama at the Ace Eddie Awards alongside “BlacKkKlansman,...

Bradley Cooper‘s remake of “A Star is Born” underperformed at Sunday’s Golden Globes winning just one of its five races: Lady Gaga shared in the prize for Best Original Song (“Shallow”). Could these shocking losses be a sign of things to come at the Oscars? Is there a curse on this classic tale of Hollywood?

Let’s take a look back at the results of how each of the first three versions of “A Star is Born” fared at the Academy Awards. Between them, they reaped 17 nominations but won just two. The original 1937 edition claimed the screenplay award while the 1976 musical remake won Best Original Song (“Evergreen”) for its star, Barbra Streisand. She was the first female composer to win this Oscar; Lady Gaga would be the 11th.

1937 version

This was a straight drama and was a loose retelling of the 1932 flick “What Price Hollywood.” It starred two...

This article marks Part 2 of the Gold Derby series reflecting on films that contended for the Big Five Oscars – Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Screenplay (Original or Adapted). With “A Star Is Born” this year on the cusp of joining this exclusive group of Oscar favorites, join us as we look back at the 43 extraordinary pictures that earned Academy Awards nominations in each of the Big Five categories, including the following 11 films that scored a single prize among the top races.

More than eight decades prior to Bradley Cooper’s take on the timeless tale, the first “A Star Is Born” (1937), headlined by Fredric March and Janet Gaynor, became the third motion picture, following “Cimarron” (1931) and “It Happened One Night” (1934), to earn nominations in the Big Five Oscar categories.

At the 10th Academy Awards ceremony, however, neither March nor Gaynor emerged triumphant, losing in their...

In 2009 — when the Academy Awards went to 10 Best Picture nominees for the first time since 1943 — the preferential system of voting, which had been used from 1934 to 1945, was reintroduced. The academy did so as it believed this “best allows the collective judgment of all voting members to be most accurately represented.”

We have detailed how the preferential voting system works at the Oscars in the modern era. So, let’s take a look back at those dozen years early in the history of the academy when it first used this complicated counting to determine the Best Picture winner rather than a simple popular vote. (At the bottom of this post, be sure to vote for the film that you think will take the top Oscar this year.)

See Best Picture Gallery: Every winner of the top Academy Award

1934

This seventh ceremony marked the first time that the Oscars eligibility period was the calendar year.

It used to be pretty much an Academy Awards norm that the film that won Best Picture also took home the Oscar for Best Director. In recent years that has changed, largely due to the preferential ballot that has been implemented for Best Picture voting. These two categories have split in four of the past five years, with “Birdman” (2014) and its director Alejandro G. Inarritu being the last time they lined up. Currently “The Shape of Water” is in first place to win both categories on Gold Derby’s Oscar charts, so might things get back on track this year?

See 2018 Oscar nominations: Full list of Academy Awards nominees in all 24 categories

A year ago Damien Chazelle won Best Director for “La La Land” while “Moonlight” took Best Picture, becoming the fourth time this decade that the Oscar split occurred. In 2015 Inarritu won Best Director for “The Revenent” (his second...

The Best Picture Oscar chances for “Get Out and “Lady Bird” took ostensible hits when both failed to get an editing nomination Tuesday. But with so many stats getting broken in recent years, there may still be hope for them yet.

Since the editing category’s inception at the seventh Academy Awards, there has been a strong correlation between Best Editing and Best Picture. Only 10 films have won the top award without an editing nomination. “Birdman” broke the 34-year streak three years ago, though its snub is somewhat explainable since the movie was supposed to look like one long take. The 10 films are:

1. “It Happened One Night” (1934)

2. “The Life of Emile Zola” (1937)

3. “Hamlet” (1948)

4. “Marty” (1955)

5. “Tom Jones” (1963)

6. “A Man for All Seasons” (1966)

7. “The Godfather Part II” (1974)

8. “Annie Hall” (1977)

9. “Ordinary People” (1980)

10. “Birdman” (2014)

See 2018 Oscar nominations: Full list of Academy Awards nominees in all 24 categories

“Get Out” and “Lady Bird” missed the Best...

‘La La Land’ and ‘Moonlight’ (Courtesy: Dale Robinette; David Bornfriend/A24)

By: Carson Blackwelder

Managing Editor

Nothing is certain at the Oscars, and that absolutely applies to the best picture and best director categories. While it is common for films to win both of these trophies in a given year, sometimes they can go to two different works. There’s a chance that La La Land and Moonlight could split these categories at the upcoming ceremony — but how often does that happen?

Both of these films are considered frontrunners in both the best picture and best director category at the upcoming Oscars. This site’s namesake, The Hollywood Reporter’s Scott Feinberg, lists La La Land — written and directed by Damien Chazelle — and Moonlight — written and directed by Barry Jenkins — as the top two contenders in both categories in his latest check-in on the race. The two films have been...

Child actor Dickie Moore: 'Our Gang' member. Former child actor Dickie Moore dead at 89: Film career ranged from 'Our Gang' shorts to features opposite Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper 1930s child actor Dickie Moore, whose 100+ movie career ranged from Our Gang shorts to playing opposite the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Barbara Stanwyck, and Gary Cooper, died in Connecticut on Sept. 7, '15 – five days before his 90th birthday. So far, news reports haven't specified the cause of death. According to a 2013 Boston Phoenix article about Moore's wife, MGM musical star Jane Powell, he had been “suffering from arthritis and bouts of dementia.” Dickie Moore movies At the behest of a persistent family friend, combined with the fact that his father was out of a job, Dickie Moore (born on Sept. 12, 1925, in Los Angeles) made his film debut as an infant in Alan Crosland's 1927 costume drama The Beloved Rogue,...

Glenda Jackson: Actress and former Labour MP. Two-time Oscar winner and former Labour MP Glenda Jackson returns to acting Two-time Best Actress Academy Award winner Glenda Jackson set aside her acting career after becoming a Labour Party MP in 1992. Four years ago, Jackson, who represented the Greater London constituency of Hampstead and Highgate, announced that she would stand down the 2015 general election – which, somewhat controversially, was won by right-wing prime minister David Cameron's Conservative party.[1] The silver lining: following a two-decade-plus break, Glenda Jackson is returning to acting. Now, Jackson isn't – for the time being – returning to acting in front of the camera. The 79-year-old is to be featured in the Radio 4 series Emile Zola: Blood, Sex and Money, described on their website as a “mash-up” adaptation of 20 Emile Zola novels collectively known as "Les Rougon-Macquart."[2] Part 1 of the three-part Radio 4 series will be broadcast daily during an...

'The Fixer' movie with Alan Bates, Dirk Bogarde and Ian Holm (background) 'The Fixer' movie review: 1968 anti-Semitism drama wrecked by cast, direction, and writing In 1969, director John Frankenheimer declared that he felt "better about The Fixer than anything I've ever done in my life." Considering Frankenheimer's previous output – Seven Days in May, the much admired The Manchurian Candidate – it is hard to believe that the director was being anything but a good P.R. man for his latest release. Adapted from Bernard Malamud's National Book Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning novel (itself based on the real story of Jewish brick-factory worker Menahem Mendel Beilis), The Fixer is an overlong, overblown, and overwrought contrivance that, albeit well meaning, carelessly misuses most of the talent involved while sadistically abusing the patience – and at times the intelligence – of its viewers. John Frankenheimer overindulges in 1960s kitsch John Frankenheimer...

This week marks the 10th anniversary of the release of "Crash" (on May 6, 2005), an all-star movie whose controversy came not from its provocative treatment of racial issues but from its Best Picture Oscar victory a few months later, against what many critics felt was a much more deserving movie, "Brokeback Mountain."

The "Crash" vs. "Brokeback" battle is one of those lingering disputes that makes the Academy Awards so fascinating, year after year. Moviegoers and critics who revisit older movies are constantly judging the Academy's judgment. Even decades of hindsight may not always be enough to tell whether the Oscar voters of a particular year got it right or wrong. Whether it's "Birdman" vs. "Boyhood," "The King's Speech" vs. "The Social Network," "Saving Private Ryan" vs. "Shakespeare in Love" or even "An American in Paris" vs. "A Streetcar Named Desire," we're still confirming the Academy's taste or dismissing it as hopelessly off-base years later.

The Oscars have given out a Film Editing award for 81 of its 87 years. "Birdman" just became the 10th film to win Best Picture without at least reaping a bid in that race, which went to "Whiplash." Indeed, when nominations were announced last month, many pundits viewed the snub of "Birdman" in this category as a very bad omen for the film's chances in Best Picture. Indeed, the last Best Picture without a corresponding nomination for Film Editing was "Ordinary People" back in 1980. The cutting prize that year went to "Raging Bull."  Below,  the eight other years where the Best Picture winner was not even in the running for Best Editing.  -Break- 1934: "It Happened One Night" (Film Editing winner: "Eskimo") 1937: "The Life of Emile Zola" (Film Editing winner: "Lost Horizon") 1948: "Hamlet" (Film Editing winner: "The Naked City") ...'...

By Anjelica Oswald

Managing Editor

Bradley Cooper’s portrayal of Navy Seal Chris Kyle in Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper has been garnering Oscar buzz since the film premiered at AFI Fest. With The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy saying, “nothing the actor has done before suggests the dramatic assuredness he brings to his way of detailing Kyle’s self-control, confidence, coolness, genuine concern for his comrades-in-arms, compulsion to serve his country and ultimate realization that enough is enough, even of the thing he loves most, which is war,” Cooper may earn his third consecutive Oscar nomination this year. This would follow behind his best actor nomination last year for Silver Linings Playbook (2012) and this year’s nomination for his supporting role in American Hustle (2013).

The last male actor to accomplish this feat was Russell Crowe, who scored three nominations from 2000 to 2002. He won in 2001 for his lead role in Gladiator.

The 85-year history of the Academy Awards is rife with statistical oddities, and one that has the potential to play out this Sunday is among the most intriguing: a split between the films that win Best Picture and Best Director.

Though conventional wisdom has long held that only one film will walk away with both prizes on Oscar night, many pundits are predicting that the awards will instead go to two different movies this year, with "Gravity" director Alfonso Cuaron expected to snag the Best Director statuette, while "12 Years a Slave" (or "American Hustle," depending on where your loyalties lie) is the favorite to win Best Picture.

While such a split has occurred just 22 times since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences started handing out trophies in 1929, four of the first five ceremonies produced a divide between the Best Director and Best Picture prizes. "Wings," dubbed the original...

Last year, "Argo" became the 13th Best Picture Oscar winner that told a true story. The first dozen to do so were: "The Great Ziegfeld" (1936), "The Life of Emile Zola" (1937), "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962); "A Man for All Seasons" (1966); "Patton" (1970); "Chariots of Fire" (1981); "Gandhi" (1982), "Amadeus" (1984); "Out of Africa" (1985); "The Last Emperor" (1987); "A Beautiful Mind" (2001); and "The King's Speech" (2010). At the bottom of this post, take a tour through our photo gallery of 15 films featuring real-life events that could contend at this year's Oscars. The roster includes works by: Lee Daniels ("The Butler"), David O. Russell ("American Hustle"), Steve McQueen ("12 Years a Slave"), Martin Scorsese ("The Wolf of Wall Stree...

In anticipation of the upcoming 85th Academy Awards, Sasha Stone, put together this wonderful montage, which features footage from all 84 past Best Picture winners. It’s a fine reminder that the best films never win as evidenced by the appearance of such movies as Crash and Shakespeare in Love.

The Oscars will be held on Sunday, February 24th on ABC at 8:30 Et.

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Here is the list of winners:

2011 - The Artist 2010 - The King’s Speech 2009 - The Hurt Locker 2008 - Slumdog Millionaire 2007 - No Country for Old Men 2006 - The Departed 2005 - Crash 2004 - Million Dollar Baby 2003 - The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King 2002 - Chicago 2001 - A Beautiful Mind 2000 - Gladiator 1999 - American Beauty 1998 - Shakespeare in Love 1997 - Titanic 1996 - The English Patient 1995 - Braveheart 1994 - Forrest Gump 1993 - Schindler’s List 1992 - Unforgiven 1991 - The Silence of the Lambs 1990 - Dances With Wolves...

Vimeo user Nelson Carvajal created the following 4:09 minute video, which features a brief snippet from every single Best Picture Oscar winner from Wings to The Artists and everything in-between. He even added clips from this year's nominees -- Argo, Silver Linings Playbook, Lincoln, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Zero Dark Thirty, Amour, Django Unchained and Beasts of the Southern Wild -- at the end in prep for this Sunday's, 2013 Oscar ceremony. I am busy putting together my final predictions for this year's ceremony and at this point I'm not sure there's anything I'd change. I will be posting an article with all my predictions soon enough, but if you'd like to check them out, you can do so right here. I've included a list of all the Best Picture winners directly below the video. 2011 - The Artist 2010 - The King's Speech 2009 - The Hurt Locker 2008 - Slumdog Millionaire 2007 -...