Category name changes At the
1st Academy Awards ceremony held in 1929 (for films made in 1927 and 1928), there were two categories of awards that were each considered the top award of the night: "Outstanding Picture" and "Unique and Artistic Picture", the former being won by the war epic
Wings, and the latter by the art film
Sunrise. Each award was intended to honor different and equally important aspects of superior filmmaking. In particular,
The Jazz Singer was disqualified from both awards, since its use of
synchronized sound made the film a
sui generis item that would have unfairly competed against either category, and the Academy granted the film an honorary award instead. The following year, the Academy dropped the
Unique and Artistic Picture award, deciding retroactively that the award won by
Wings was the highest honor that could be awarded, and allowed synchronized sound films to compete for the award. Although the award kept the title
Outstanding Picture for the next ceremony, the name underwent several changes over the years, as seen below. Since 1962, the award has been simply called
Best Picture. , the "Special Rules for the Best Picture of the Year Award" limit recipients to those who meet two main requirements: • Those with
screen credit of "producer" or "produced by", explicitly excluding those with the screen credit "executive producer, co-producer, associate producer, line producer, or produced in association with" • those three or fewer producers who have performed the major portion of the producing functions The rules allow a team of not more than two people to be considered a single "producer" if the two individuals have had an established producing partnership as determined by the
Producers Guild of America Producing Partnership Panel. Final determination of the qualifying producer nominees for each nominated picture will be made by the Producers Branch Executive Committee, including the right to name any additional qualified producer as a nominee. the Producers Branch Executive Committee determines such exceptions, noting they take place only in "rare and extraordinary circumstance[s]."
Nomination limit increased On June 24, 2009, the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced that the number of films to be nominated in the Best Picture award category would increase from 5 to 10, starting with the
82nd Academy Awards (2009). Although the Academy never officially said so, many commenters noted the expansion was likely in part a response to public criticism of
The Dark Knight and
WALL-E (both 2008) (and, in previous years, other blockbusters and popular films) not being nominated for Best Picture. Officially, the Academy said the rule change was a throwback to the Academy's early years in the 1930s and 1940s, when 8 to 12 films were nominated each year. "Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going to allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize," AMPAS President
Sid Ganis said in a press conference. "I can't wait to see what that list of 10 looks like when the nominees are announced in February." In 2011, the Academy revised the rule again so that the number of films nominated was between 5 and 10; nominated films must earn either 5% of first-place rankings or 5% after an abbreviated variation of the
single transferable vote nominating process. Bruce Davis, the Academy executive director at the time, said, "A Best Picture nomination should be an indication of extraordinary merit. If there are only eight pictures that truly earn that honor in a given year, we shouldn't feel an obligation to round out the number." This system lasted until 2021, when the Academy reverted back to a set number of ten nominees from the
94th Academy Awards onward.
Language and country of origin Twenty-one non-
English language films have been nominated in the category:
La Grande Illusion (French, 1938);
Z (French, 1969);
The Emigrants (Swedish, 1972);
Cries and Whispers (Swedish, 1973);
The Postman (Il Postino) (Italian/Spanish, 1995);
Life Is Beautiful (Italian, 1998);
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (
Mandarin Chinese, 2000);
Letters from Iwo Jima (Japanese, 2006, but ineligible for
Best Foreign Language Film because it was an American production);
Amour (French, 2012);
Roma (Spanish/Mixtec, 2018);
Parasite (Korean, 2019);
Minari (Korean, 2020, but ineligible for Best International Feature Film because it was an American production);
Drive My Car (Japanese/Korean/Mandarin Chinese/German/
Korean Sign Language, 2021),
All Quiet on the Western Front (German, 2022),
Anatomy of a Fall (French, 2023),
Past Lives (Korean, 2023, but ineligible for Best International Feature Film because it was an American production),
The Zone of Interest (German/Polish/Yiddish, 2023),
Emilia Pérez (Spanish, 2024), ''
I'm Still Here (Portuguese, 2024), The Secret Agent (Portuguese, 2025), and Sentimental Value (Norwegian, 2025). Parasite'' became the first film not in English to win Best Picture. Ten films wholly financed outside the United States have won Best Picture, eight of which were financed, in part or in whole, by the United Kingdom:
Hamlet (1948),
Tom Jones (1963),
A Man for All Seasons (1966),
Chariots of Fire (1981),
Gandhi (1982),
The Last Emperor (1987),
Slumdog Millionaire (2008), and ''
The King's Speech (2010). The ninth film, The Artist (2011), was financed in France, and the tenth film, Parasite'' (2019), was financed in South Korea.
Rating Since 1968, most Best Picture winners have been rated R under the
Motion Picture Association's
rating system.
Oliver! is the only G-rated film and
Midnight Cowboy is the only X-rated film (what is categorized as an NC-17 film today), so far, to win Best Picture; they won in back-to-back years, 1968 and 1969. The latter has since been changed to an R rating. Eleven films have won with a PG rating: the first was
Patton (1970) and the most recent was
Driving Miss Daisy (1989). Eleven more films have won with a PG-13 rating (which was introduced in 1984): the first was
The Last Emperor (1987) and the most recent was
CODA (2021). For unrated films,
A Room with a View (1985) is the first film to not be rated by the MPA and be nominated for Best Picture, though no unrated films have won Best Picture.
Genres and mediums Three animated films have been nominated for Best Picture:
Beauty and the Beast (1991),
Up (2009), and
Toy Story 3 (2010). The latter two were nominated after the Academy expanded the number of nominees, but none have won. No comic book film has won, although three have been nominated:
Skippy (1931),
Black Panther (2018), and
Joker (2019). Two fantasy films have won:
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and
The Shape of Water (2017), although more have been nominated.
The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is the only horror/thriller film to win Best Picture. Eight others have been nominated:
The Exorcist (1973),
Jaws (1975),
The Sixth Sense (1999),
Black Swan (2010),
Get Out (2017),
The Substance (2024),
Frankenstein (2025), and
Sinners (2025). Several science-fiction films have been nominated for Best Picture, though
Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) was the first one to win.
Titanic (1997) is the only
disaster film to win Best Picture, though other such films have been nominated, including
Airport (1970) and
The Towering Inferno (1974). No documentary has been nominated for Best Picture, although
Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness was nominated in the
Unique and Artistic Picture category at the 1927/28 awards. A
Best Documentary Feature category was introduced in 1941. Several musical adaptations based on material previously filmed in non-musical form have won Best Picture, including
Gigi,
West Side Story,
My Fair Lady,
The Sound of Music,
Oliver!, and
Chicago. Several
epics or historical epic films have won Best Picture, including the first recipient
Wings. Others include
Cimarron,
Cavalcade,
Gone with the Wind,
The Bridge on the River Kwai,
Ben-Hur,
Lawrence of Arabia,
Patton,
The Godfather,
The Godfather Part II,
Gandhi,
The Last Emperor,
Dances With Wolves, ''
Schindler's List, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Gladiator, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and Oppenheimer''. Several
war films have been nominated for Best Picture, with
Wings,
All Quiet on the Western Front,
From Here to Eternity,
The Bridge on the River Kwai,
Lawrence of Arabia,
Patton,
Platoon, and
The Hurt Locker being some of the many winners.
Sequel nominations and winners Ten films that were presented as direct sequels have been nominated for Best Picture: ''
The Bells of St. Mary's (1945; the sequel to the 1944 winner, Going My Way), The Godfather Part II (1974), The Godfather Part III (1990), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), Toy Story 3 (2010), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015),
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), Top Gun: Maverick (2022), and Dune: Part Two'' (2024).
Toy Story 3,
Mad Max: Fury Road, and
Top Gun: Maverick are the only sequels to be nominated without any predecessors being nominated.
The Godfather Part II and
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King are the only sequels to have won the award, and their respective trilogies are the only series to have three films nominated.
The Godfather series is the only film series with multiple Best Picture winners, with the
first film winning the award for 1972 and the
second film winning the award for 1974. Conversely, 2024's
Wicked uses iconography and characters who appeared in 1939's
The Wizard of Oz and other
Oz films, but is not a direct prequel to any film.
The Lion in Winter features
Peter O'Toole as
King Henry II, a role he had played previously in the film
Becket, but
The Lion in Winter is not a sequel to
Becket. Similarly,
The Queen features
Michael Sheen as
Tony Blair, a role he had played previously in the television film
The Deal.
Christine Langan, producer of both productions, described
The Queen as not being a direct sequel, only that it reunited the same creative team.
Clint Eastwood's
Letters from Iwo Jima was a companion piece to his film
Flags of Our Fathers that was released earlier the same year. These two films depict the same battle from the different viewpoints of Japanese and United States military forces; the two films were shot back-to-back. In addition,
Black Panther is a continuation of the events that occurred in
Captain America: Civil War and the
Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Remake nominations and winners Along similar lines to sequels, there have been few nominees and winners that are either remakes or adaptations of the same source materials or subjects.
Ben-Hur, which won Best Picture of 1959, is a remake of the
1925 silent film with a similar title and both were adapted from
Lew Wallace's 1880 novel
Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ.
The Departed, which won Best Picture of 2006, is a remake of the 2002
Hong Kong film
Infernal Affairs and is the first remake of a non-English language or international film to win. Other nominees include 1963's
Cleopatra about the
titular last queen of Egypt following the
1934 version, 2018's
A Star is Born following the
1937 film of the same name, and 2019's
Little Women following the
1933 film of the same name with both being adaptations of the
1868 novel.
True Grit, which was nominated for Best Picture at the
83rd Academy Awards, is the second adaptation of
Charles Portis's
1968 novel following the
1969 film of the same name. Four of the nominees for the
94th ceremony were based on source material previously made into films:
CODA,
Dune,
Nightmare Alley, and
West Side Story. The 2021 version of
West Side Story became the second adaptation of the same source material for a previous Best Picture winner to be nominated for the same award after 1962's
Mutiny on the Bounty. For that same ceremony,
CODA became the second remake of a non-English-language or international film to win. The 2022 German-language
All Quiet on the Western Front is the second adaptation of the
1929 novel after the
1930 English-language film, and the third adaptation of the same source material of a previous Best Picture winner.
Silent film winners At the
1st Academy Awards, the Best Picture award (then named "Academy Award for Outstanding Picture") was presented to the 1927
silent film Wings.
The Artist (2011) was the first essentially silent (with the exception of a single scene of dialogue, and a dream sequence with sound effects) film since
Wings to win Best Picture. It was the first silent nominee since 1928's
The Patriot and the first Best Picture winner to be produced entirely in
black-and-white since 1960's
The Apartment. (''
Schindler's List'', the 1993 winner, was predominantly black-and-white but contains some color sequences.) The 1928 film
The Patriot is the only Best Picture nominee that is lost (about one-third is extant).
The Racket, also from 1928, was believed lost for many years until a print was found in
Howard Hughes' archives. It has since been restored and shown on
Turner Classic Movies. The only surviving complete prints of 1931's
East Lynne and 1934's
The White Parade exist within the
UCLA film archive.
Diversity standards The Academy has established a set of "representation and inclusion standards", called Academy Aperture 2025, which a film is now required to satisfy in order to compete in the Best Picture category, starting with the
96th Academy Awards for films released in 2023. There are four general standards, of which a film must satisfy two to be considered for Best Picture: (a) on-screen representation, themes and narratives; (b) creative leadership and project team; (c) industry access and opportunities; and (d) audience development. The standards are intended to provide greater opportunities for employment, in cast, crew, studio apprenticeships and internships, and development, marketing, publicity, and distribution executives, among underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, women, LGBTQ+ people, and persons with
cognitive or
physical disabilities, or who are
deaf or hard of hearing. These standards only apply to the Best Picture category and do not affect a film's eligibility in other Oscar categories. == Criticisms and controversies ==