Academy Awards

• 1. Introduction

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  The Academy Awards began on the 16th of May, 1929, as a private dinner for about 270 guests at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The ceremony lasted 15 minutes. Fifteen statuettes were handed out. And in that room, something was set in motion that would eventually draw more than 57 million television viewers in a single night and spark controversies that reshaped how Hollywood thinks about race, art, and money. What makes a gold-plated bronze figure on a black metal base carry such weight? How did a dinner party become the longest-running worldwide entertainment awards ceremony? And why, nearly a century later, are people still arguing about who deserves one?

• 2. The Statuette Itself

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  George Stanley sculpted the Oscar, working from a design by Cedric Gibbons. The figure stands 13.5 inches tall, weighs 8.5 pounds, and shows a knight in the Art Deco style holding a sword atop a reel of film with five spokes. Those spokes are not decorative: they represent the original five branches of the Academy, which were Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, and Technicians. The original mold was cast in 1928 at the C.W. Shumway and Sons Foundry in Batavia, Illinois, the same shop that later contributed molds for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and the Emmy Award statuettes. The statuettes presented at the first ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze, but that changed quickly. Within a few years the Academy switched to Britannia metal, a pewter-like alloy plated in copper, then nickel silver, then 24-karat gold. During World War II, a metal shortage forced a three-year run of painted plaster Oscars; after the war, recipients were invited to exchange their plaster figures for proper metal ones. From 1987 to 2015, around 50 Oscars per year were made in Chicago by R.S. Owens and Company, a process requiring three to four weeks per batch. In 2016, the Academy returned to bronze, handing production to Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry in Walden, New York. The new process begins with a digital scan of an original 1929 Oscar, casts the figure in liquid bronze from 3D-printed ceramic molds, and finishes with 24-karat gold electroplating by Epner Technology in Brooklyn, New York. That batch of 50 statuettes now takes roughly three months to complete.

• 3. What's in a Name

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  The nickname Oscar carries a disputed origin, and at least four people have been credited with inventing it. Margaret Herrick, who served as both librarian and president of the Academy, may have remarked that the statuette resembled her supposed uncle Oscar in 1931; the only surviving corroboration is a 1938 clipping from the Los Angeles Examiner. Bette Davis claimed in her 1962 autobiography that she coined the name in 1936 after her first husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson, but she later withdrew the claim entirely in a 1974 biography, writing, "I relinquish once and for all any claim that I was the one." Columnist Sidney Skolsky wrote in his 1970 memoir that he invented the term in 1934 while rushing against a deadline, inspired by a Vaudeville catchphrase. The Academy credits him with "the first confirmed newspaper reference" to Oscar, a column published on the 16th of March 1934, though the clipping itself suggests the name was already in circulation, not newly coined. In 2021, Brazilian researcher Waldemar Dalenogare Neto found an earlier candidate: a mention in journalist Relman Morin's column in the Los Angeles Evening Record on the 5th of December 1933, referring to "'Oscar', the bronze statuette given for best performances." Former Academy executive director Bruce Davis has argued the name probably belongs to Eleanore Lilleberg, a secretary at the Academy when the award was first introduced. Her brother Einar, in his autobiography, recalled a Norwegian army veteran named Oscar whom they had known in Chicago, a man Einar described as having always "stood straight and tall."

• 4. Rules of Eligibility

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  Emil Jannings, the first Best Actor winner, received his award before the ceremony because he had to return to Europe. That early flexibility has since given way to an elaborate rulebook. Under the current framework, a film must open in Los Angeles County during the previous calendar year and play for seven consecutive days, with at least one daily screening beginning between 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. local time. Films must be a minimum of 40 minutes long and must exist either on 35 mm or 70 mm film print, or in digital cinema format at a minimum projector resolution of 2,048 by 1,080 pixels. The qualifying rules for short film categories run on a different calendar, covering October 1 through September 30 of the year before the ceremony. A film reviewed by a critic from The New York Times, Time Out New York, the Los Angeles Times, or LA Weekly can satisfy one qualifying standard for Best Documentary Feature. The eligibility period itself has shifted repeatedly. For the first five ceremonies it ran from August 1 to July 31. The 6th Academy Awards stretched the window from the 1st of August 1932, to the 31st of December 1933. For the 93rd ceremony, COVID-19 pushed the deadline to the 28th of February 2021. Seven films have had nominations revoked before the ceremony, and one, Young Americans in 1969, was disqualified after winning Best Documentary Feature when it emerged the film had opened theatrically before the eligibility period began. For the 99th Academy Awards in 2027 and thereafter, AMPAS announced on the 1st of May 2026, that actors and scripts generated by artificial intelligence will be excluded from acting and screenwriting categories, though human actors rendered by AI will be reviewed at discretion.

• 5. Who Votes

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  Votes for the Academy Awards have been certified by PricewaterhouseCoopers, and its predecessor Price Waterhouse, since the 7th Academy Awards in 1935. The voting body stood at 9,905 members as of 2024. Actors make up the largest single bloc, numbering 1,258, or 12.7 percent of the total. A 2012 study commissioned by the Los Angeles Times examined roughly 88 percent of active voters and found that 94 percent were white, 77 percent were male, and 54 percent were over 60. Thirty-three percent of voting members were former nominees or winners. In 2016, the Academy launched an initiative to expand membership and increase diversity. The 88th ceremony drew a social media boycott under the hashtag OscarsSoWhite after its acting nominees were all white; in response, the Academy pledged major membership changes by 2020. The historical record on nominees is specific: only 6.4 percent of Academy Award nominees since 1929 have been non-white. It was not until 2023 that an Asian woman won Best Actress, when Michelle Yeoh received the award for Everything Everywhere All at Once. In 2025, a newly announced procedure required Academy members to view all nominated films within a category before casting a final-round vote, with verification done through the Academy's members-only streaming platform or by submitting a form for films seen at in-person events.

• 6. Broadcast and Viewership

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  The 1st Academy Awards were held in 1929. The 2nd ceremony, in 1930, was the first to be broadcast by radio. The 1953 ceremony was the first to be televised, on NBC, which carried the show until 1960, when ABC took over and aired the first color broadcast in 1966. NBC regained the rights for five years from 1971 to 1975, and ABC has broadcast the ceremony ever since, with its current contract running through 2028. On the 17th of December 2025, the Academy announced that YouTube had acquired the rights beginning with the 101st ceremony in 2029 under a contract lasting through 2033. The peak viewership recorded by Nielsen was the 42nd Academy Awards on the 7th of April 1970, which drew a 43.4 percent household rating. The ceremony for the 70th Academy Awards in 1998, the year of Titanic, pulled in more than 57.25 million viewers. By contrast, the 93rd ceremony in 2021 drew only 10.4 million viewers, the lowest total since Nielsen began tracking audience totals in 1974. The telecast production has received 54 Emmy wins and 280 nominations overall as of 2020. Since the 1999 ceremony, the show has aired on Sundays at 5:30 p.m. Pacific; in 2024, that start time moved even earlier, to 4:00 p.m. Pacific, to put the conclusion within primetime hours on the East Coast. The 40th ceremony in 1968 was postponed two days because of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. The 53rd ceremony in 1981 was postponed one day after the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan.

• 7. Controversies on and off Stage

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  In 1940, the Los Angeles Times announced the Oscar winners before the ceremony had even begun. The Academy responded the following year by introducing sealed envelopes, a practice that remains today. Controversy has followed the ceremony ever since, though rarely on logistical grounds. Screenwriter Dudley Nichols became the first person to refuse an Oscar when he boycotted the 8th Academy Awards in 1935, citing conflicts between the Academy and the Writers' Guild; he eventually accepted the award three years later. George C. Scott refused his Best Actor award for Patton at the 43rd ceremony in 1970, calling the proceedings a "meat parade." Marlon Brando refused his Best Actor award for The Godfather at the 45th ceremony, sending actress and civil rights activist Sacheen Littlefeather to read a 15-page speech about the film industry's treatment of Native Americans, which drew both booing and cheering. During the 94th Academy Awards on the 27th of March 2022, Will Smith walked onstage and slapped presenter Chris Rock after Rock made a joke about Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head. Smith later accepted the Best Actor award for King Richard and apologized to the Academy but not to Rock. On the 8th of April 2022, Academy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson announced a ten-year ban prohibiting Smith from attending the Oscars. That same ceremony saw ongoing debate over the treatment of animated films as children's entertainment, after three presenters framed the Best Animated Feature category around childhood nostalgia. Alberto Mielgo, director of the winning short The Windshield Wiper, used his acceptance speech to push back: "Animation is an art that includes every single art that you can imagine. Animation for adults is a fact. It's happening. Let's call it cinema."

• 8. Records and Milestones

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  Walt Disney holds the record for most Academy Awards won by a single person, with 26 awards resulting from 59 nominations, as of 1969. John Williams holds the record for most nominations in a single category by any person: 48 nominations for Best Original Score as of 2024, resulting in 5 wins. Diane Warren holds the record for most nominations without a competitive win, with 17 nominations as of 2026, though she received the Academy Honorary Award in 2023. Ben-Hur, Titanic, and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King each won 11 awards, making them the most-awarded films in Academy history. The Return of the King swept every category for which it was nominated. The Lord of the Rings franchise across its three films earned 17 awards total from 37 nominations, with the Middle-Earth series accumulating the most franchise nominations overall. On the 20th of February, 2020, Parasite became the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture, at the 92nd Academy Awards. The Best Animated Feature category was introduced at the 74th Academy Awards in 2002 and was first won by Shrek. The film Sinners received 16 nominations for the 2026 ceremony, the most ever for a single film. As of 2026, the Oscars are moving toward a new home: Peacock Theater, under a ten-year deal announced in March 2026, beginning with the 2029 ceremony, the same year the broadcast shifts from ABC to YouTube.