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About This Quiz
The first Academy Awards ceremony was held in the summer of 1929, and it celebrated movies from 1927 and 1928. There were just 12 categories, and the entire ceremony lasted 15 minutes. It wasn't broadcast on TV or radio, and there were two "Best Picture" awards. They were called "Outstanding Picture" and "Unique and Artistic Feature." The movie "Wings" won "Outstanding Picture." "Sunrise" won "Unique and Artistic Feature."
The Academy dropped the "Unique and Artistic Feature" award the next year and experimented with the "Outstanding Picture" award for the next three decades. Hollywood declared that "Wings" was the first movie to win the night's highest honor, and in 1962, the Academy settled on the name "Best Picture." The top award has been labeled as such ever since.
There have been 91 Best Pictures, and not all of them have been good. Some have been horrible and some have been life-changing. Some have dominated the box office and some have flopped. The most recent black and white film to win Best Picture happened in 2016. The first color film won in 1940. No true comedy has ever won, but many Best Picture winners claim to be comedies. Only one horror film has won. Only three films have swept the major categories, and only one film has gone 11 for 11. Can you name these Best Picture winners from just a screenshot?
“Roma”
"Amour"
"Parasite"
In addition to Best Picture, the South Korean hit also took home Oscars for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Film. Director Bong Joon Ho’s twisty black comedy meets thriller explores class divisions, telling the story of the Kim family who cons their way into the lives of the wealthy Park family.
"Babel"
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"Argo"
"Titanic"
"Titanic" was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and took home 11 of them. "All About Eve" is the only film with as many nominations. James Cameron directed and produced the film and won Best Director for his work.
"The Revenant"
"The Departed"
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"The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"
"The Godfather: Part II"
Several sequels have been nominated for Best Picture, but the third "Lord of the Rings" film and the second "Godfather" film are the only ones to win. Robert De Niro portrayed the younger Vito Corleone and won a Best Supporting Actor award for the role.
"Rocky II"
"Superman II"
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"Tom Jones"
"The Best Years of Our Lives"
"A Beautiful Mind"
"Forrest Gump"
Author Winston Groom sold the movie rights to his novel for $350,000 and 3% of the net profit. The film grossed nearly $700 million, but slick accountants reported a $0 net profit, and Winston was paid nothing. Tom Hanks earned a percentage of gross profits and walked away with $40 million.
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"Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)"
"Chicago"
"The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King"
Although this film didn't sweep the five main categories, this is considered a clean sweep. It was nominated for 11 awards and won all of them. Many films have come close to sweeping, and 1987's "The Last Emperor" went nine for nine, which is the second-highest clean sweep.
"The Shape of Water"
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"Casablanca"
This 1942 black-and-white film is known for its iconic lines. It was released to coincide with "Operation Torch," which was a WWII allied invasion of strategic locations in northern Africa, including the city of Casablanca.
"It Happened One Night"
"The Maltese Falcon"
"The Bridge on the River Kwai"
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"The Bridge on the River Kwai"
"West Side Story"
"The Sound of Music"
"Gone With the Wind"
"Gone With the Wind" is one of two novels to win the Pulitzer Prize and then go on to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Hattie McDaniel became the first African-American to win an Oscar for her supporting role in the film.
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"The Silence of the Lambs"
"The Silence of the Lambs" starred Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, and the movie won every major award and the 1992 ceremony. The film is also the only horror film ever to win Best Picture. Only six horror films have ever been nominated for Best Picture.
"Crash"
"Green Book"
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
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"Shakespeare in Love"
"The Godfather: Part II"
"Lawrence of Arabia"
At three hours and 54 minutes, the total run time of "Lawrence of Arabia" is two minutes longer than "Gone With the Wind," which includes a five-minute intermission. The shortest Best Picture winner is 1955's "Marty," which clocks in at 91 minutes.
"Gone With the Wind"
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"All the King's Men"
"The Artist"
"The Best Years of Our Lives"
"Schindler's List"
Some people consider this a black-and-white film, but there are some spots of color throughout. Spielberg wanted the film to resemble a documentary, so he shot it in black and white. The film scored 12 Oscar nominations and seven wins.
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"Driving Miss Daisy"
"No Country for Old Men"
"Terms of Endearment"
"Rain Man"
Dustin Hoffman played an autistic savant in this film, and he won the Best Actor Academy Award for his performance. The film also won Best Director, Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, making it awfully close to sweeping.
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"The Departed"
"The Shining"
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
Ken Kesey's 1962 novel was turned into one of the greatest movies of all time in 1975. The film won awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Actress. The movie was set and filmed in a real mental hospital, the Oregon State Hospital.
"Chinatown"
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"Casino"
"Goodfellas"
"A Bronx Tale"
"The Godfather"
"The Godfather" was just the second R-rated movie to win Best Picture, and it's regularly considered one of the best movies ever. We first hear about Don Corleone making people offers they can't refuse in the first installment of the franchise.
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"Slumdog Millionaire"
"12 Years A Slave"
Steve McQueen became the first black director to win a Best Picture Academy Award in 2013 for this adapted film about Solomon Northup. Northup wrote his memoir in 1853. He was born free in New York City and then kidnapped and sold into slavery.
"Moonlight"
"The Artist"
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"It Happened One Night"
"The Shape of Water"
Guillermo del Toro wrote, directed and produced this 2017 film that scored 13 Academy Award nominations and four wins. It was del Toro's first Oscar after four nominations. Del Toro spent several years working on the story.
"Chicago"
"Million Dollar Baby"
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"Million Dollar Baby"
"Million Dollar Baby" came pretty close to sweeping the major Oscars in 2005. The film won Best Picture. Clint Eastwood won Best Director. Hillary Swank won Best Actress, and Morgan Freeman won Best Supporting Actor. Eastwood was nominated for Best Actor but lost to Jaime Foxx in "Ray."
"No Country for Old Men"
"True Grit"
"A Beautiful Mind"
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"The English Patient"
"Gladiator"
"Braveheart"
Sir William Wallace was a real person who led the Scots in rebellion during the First War of Scottish Independence in 1297. Mel Gibson directed, produced and starred in the film that went on to win five Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Cinematography.
"The Patriot"
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"Amadeus"
"Gandhi"
Someone in Hollywood thought it made sense to have an English actor play England's most famous critic, and it worked. Ben Kingsley was born to Indian parents in England and won an Oscar for his performance in the film.
"Ben-Hur"
"Lawrence of Arabia"
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"Slumdog Millionaire"
"The Hurt Locker"
"The Hurt Locker" was released in 2009 and made history multiple ways. It was the first time a female won for direction, and it's also the lowest-grossing film to go on to win Best Picture. It had grossed less than $15 million when it won. To date, it's grossed almost $50 million.
"The King's Speech"
"Crash"
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"Million Dollar Baby"
"Pride of the Yankees"
"The Hustler"
"Rocky"
"Rocky" beat out "Taxi Driver," "Network" and "All the President's Men" to win Best Picture in 1976. "The Champ" and "Pride of the Yankees" were nominated decades earlier but didn't win the award. "Raging Bull" was nominated four years later but lost to "Ordinary People."
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"Argo"
"Argo" scored seven nominations at the 2013 Academy Awards and won three awards. The film focuses on the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. Ben Affleck played the lead role of Tony Mendez. Mendez was the CIA agent who pretended to film a movie in order to save the hostages.
"Good Will Hunting"
"The Town"
"Spotlight"
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"Cinderella Man"
"A Beautiful Mind"
This 2001 film is based on the real story of mathematician John Nash. Nash won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 but suffered from mental illness much of his adult life. His biography of the same name was written by Sylvia Nasar in 1998.
"Argo"
"The King's Speech"
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"An American in Paris"
"The Apartment"
"All About Eve"
"All About Eve" is full of classic quotes and is considered one of Hollywood's best original screenplays. The film earned a record 14 nominations and is the only film ever to earn four female acting nominations.
"The Greatest Show on Earth"
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"The Champ"
"Braveheart"
"Chariots of Fire"
"Gladiator"
Russel Crowe was nominated for back-to-back Best Actor awards for "Gladiator" and "A Beautiful Mind," but he only won for "Gladiator." Both movies went on to win Best Picture. "Gladiator" is credited with reviving public interest in historical epics.
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"All About Eve"
"The Apartment"
"The Artist"
"The Artist" took home the main award at the 2011 Oscars. Not only was the movie filmed in black and white, but it was also mostly a silent film except for some minor dialogue. The most recent black-and-white film nominated for Best Picture was "Roma" in 2018.
"Schindler's List"
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"The French Connection"
Hollywood movies didn't have ratings until 1968, but movies were really vanilla up until that point. "The French Connection" won Best Picture in 1971, and "The Godfather" won in 1972. The 1970 winner, "Patton," was heavily edited in 1970 because Francis Ford Coppola didn't want an R-rating.
"Patton"
"The Godfather"
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
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"Tom Jones"
"Hamlet"
"Hamlet" was released in 1948 and it was Britain's first film to win Best Picture. Only eight other films have been financed outside of Hollywood and went on to win Best Picture. "The Artist" was the most recent. It was financed in France.
"Chariots of Fire"
"The Last Emperor"
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"Raging Bull"
"Casino"
"Goodfellas"
"The Departed"
After "Goodfellas," "Casino," "Raging Bull," and the plethora of classic movies directed by Martin Scorsese, it took until 2006 for him to nab the Best Picture and Best Director Academy Awards. "The Departed" is a remake of a 2002 Hong Kong crime thriller.
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"The Departed"
"Spotlight"
This biographical film follows the real investigative unit inside "The Boston Globe" known as the "Spotlight" team. The team won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for its exposes on widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.
"Green Book"
"Moonlight"
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"Slumdog Millionaire"
"Spotlight"
"Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)"
Alejandro Inarritu decided to make this film look like a single shot because, as he said, "We live our lives with no editing." Almost everybody told him it wouldn't work, but he did it anyway. The film scored nine nominations and four wins at the Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Cinematography.
"The Revenant"
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"Unforgiven"
"Rain Man"
"No Country for Old Men"
Josh Brolin finds himself running for his life in this neo-western thriller originally written by Cormac McCarthy. The Coen brothers adapted the novel into a screenplay two years after it was published, and the film won four Academy Awards, including Best Adapted Screenplay.
"Slumdog Millionaire"
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"Million Dollar Baby"
"Shakespeare in Love"
"American Beauty"
"American Beauty" was released in 1999 and came very close to sweeping the five major Oscars. The film won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Original Screenplay. Annette Bening was nominated for Best Actress but lost to Hillary Swank in "Boys Don't Cry."
"Spotlight"
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"Citizen Kane"
"It Happened One Night"
This Frank Capra romantic comedy was released in 1934, which was just the seventh year Hollywood held the Academy Awards. Claudette Colbert hitchhikes by flashing her knee on the side of the road in what was considered a risque scene at the time.
"The Silence of the Lambs"
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
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"Apocalypse Now"
"The Godfather"
"On the Waterfront"
This 1954 film about union corruption in New Jersey was nominated for 12 Academy Awards and won eight of them. The film was inspired by a series of Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper articles published in 1948.
"A Streetcar Named Desire"
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"From Here to Eternity"
"All the King's Men"
Many novels have been turned into a film and found success in Hollywood. "The Godfather" and "Forrest Gump" are prime examples, but those books weren't shortlisted for a Pulitzer. "Gone With the Wind" is the other Pulitzer Prize Best Picture.
"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
"Gone With the Wind"
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"Platoon"
"The Deer Hunter"
The most nominated actor in history, Meryl Streep, scored her first Oscar nomination for her role in this 1978 film. She didn't win, but the film went on to win five categories after nine nominations.
"Ordinary People"
"Raging Bull"
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"Crash"
This isn't your typical Christmas movie but it has all the Christmas themes of family and caring. Several strangers in LA learn how to deal with different types of people as they butt heads during the holiday season.
"Spotlight"
"Moonlight"
"A Beautiful Mind"
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"The Best Years of Our Lives"
The timing of this movie's release led to its massive commercial success. It was released just as Americans were returning from the war, and a war reporter wrote the screenplay. The film went on to win seven Academy Awards and four of the five major categories.
"Pride of the Yankees"
"Gentlemen's Agreement"
"The Lost Weekend"
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"Rebecca"
Alfred Hitchcock is known as the master of suspense. He might be known for "Psycho," "Rear Window" and "North by Northwest," but this black-and-white thriller from 1940 is his only Best Picture win. He was nominated for five Best Director Oscars but never won, which ties for the record.
"North by Northwest"
"Psycho"
"Rear Window"
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"Crimes and Misdemeanors"
"Midnight in Paris"
"Manhattan"
"Annie Hall"
"Annie Hall" was released in 1977. Today, it's considered a comedy, but in 1977 it was considered a step in a serious direction for Woody Allen. No straight-up comedy has ever been nominated for Best Picture. This is as close as it gets.
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"The Shape of Water"
"Green Book"
"La La Land"
"Moonlight"
Not to be outdone by Steve Harvey's mix-up at Miss Universe 2015, the Best Picture presenters at the 2016 ceremony, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, incorrectly announced "La La Land" the 2016 Best Picture. They quickly fixed the mistake and correctly awarded the honor to "Moonlight."
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You Got:
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