Academy Awards facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Academy Awards |
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The Academy Award statuette (the "Oscar")
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| Presented by | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences |
| Country | United States |
| First awarded | May 16, 1929 |
| Television coverage | |
| Network | List of broadcasters |
The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are the best-known movie awards in the United States. The awards ceremony takes place each year in late February or early March in Hollywood, California.
The 1st Academy Awards were held in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The Academy Awards ceremony was first broadcast by radio in 1930 and was televised for the first time in 1953. It is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and is now televised live worldwide. It is also the oldest of the four major annual American entertainment awards; its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music – are modeled after the Academy Awards. A total of 3,140 Oscar statuettes have been awarded since its inception in 1929.
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Oscar statuette
The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. Made of gold-plated bronze on a black metal base, it is 13.5 in (34.3 cm) tall, weighs 8.5 lb (3.856 kg), and depicts a knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes. The five spokes represent the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, and Technicians.
Naming
The Academy officially adopted the name "Oscar" for the trophies in 1939. However, the origin of the nickname is disputed.
One biography of Bette Davis, who was a president of the Academy in 1941, claims she named the award after her first husband, band leader Harmon Oscar Nelson. A frequently mentioned originator is Margaret Herrick, the Academy executive director, who, when she first saw the award in 1931, said the statuette reminded her of "Uncle Oscar", a nickname for her cousin Oscar Pierce.
Awards ceremonies
Telecast
The major awards are presented at a live televised ceremony, commonly in late February or early March following the relevant calendar year, and six weeks after the announcement of the nominees. It is the culmination of the film awards season, which usually begins during November or December of the previous year. This is an elaborate extravaganza, with the invited guests walking up the red carpet in the creations of the most prominent fashion designers of the day. Black tie dress is the most common outfit for men, although fashion may dictate not wearing a bow-tie, and musical performers sometimes do not adhere to this (the artists who recorded the nominees for Best Original Song quite often perform those songs live at the awards ceremony, and the fact that they are performing is often used to promote the television broadcast).
The Academy Awards is the world's longest-running awards show televised live from the U.S. to all time zones in North America and worldwide, and gathers billions of viewers elsewhere throughout the world.
After many years of being held on Mondays at 9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 p.m Pacific, since the 1999 ceremonies, it was moved to Sundays at 8:30 pm ET/5:30 pm PT.
In terms of broadcast length, the ceremony generally averages three and a half hours. The first Oscars, in 1929, lasted 15 minutes.
Categories
Current Awards
- Best Picture – since 1928
- Best Actor – since 1928
- Best Actress –since 1928
- Best Supporting Actor – since 1936
- Best Supporting Actress – since 1936
- Best Animated Feature – since 2001
- Best Art Direction – since 1928(also called Interior or Set Decoration)
- Best Cinematography – since 1928
- Costume Design – since 1948
- Directing since 1928
- Documentary Feature since 1943
- Documentary Short Subject since 1941
- Film Editing – since 1935
- Best Foreign Language Film – since 1947
- Makeup – since 1981
- Original Music Score- since 1934
- Best Song- since 1934
- Animated Short Film – since 1931
- Live Action Short Film since 1931
- Academy Award for Sound Mixing since 1930
- Best Sound Effects Editing – since 1963
- Best Visual Effects – since 1939
- Best Writing Adapted Screenplay – since 1928
- Best Writing Original Screenplay – since 1940
- Academy Award, Scientific or Technical – since 1931presented at three levels
Retired Awards
- Best Assistant Director – 1933 to 1937
- Best Dance Direction – 1935 to 1937
- Comedy Direction – 1928 only
- Engineering Effects – 1928 only
- Academy Award for Best Original Music or Comedy Score - 1995-1999
- Academy Award for Best Original Story – 1928 to 1956
- Academy Award for Best Score- Adaptation or Treatment – 1962 to 1962 and 1973
- Best Short Film - Color – 1936 and 1937
- Best Short Film - Live Action - 2 Reels – 1936 to 1956
- Short Film - Novelty – 1932 to 1935
- Best Title Writing – 1928 only
- Unique and Artistic Production – 1928 only
Records
Gone with the Wind from the year 1939 was the most successful film for a long time with ten Oscars. In 1960 the movie Ben-Hur won eleven Oscars. In 1998 Titanic also won eleven Oscars. Six years later, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King won eleven Oscars.
The five categories best picture, best director, best actor, best actress and best Original Screenplay are the most important categories and they are called the Big Five. There are only three films that won all these categories: It Happened One Night, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and The Silence of the Lambs.
All About Eve and Titanic had 14 nominations. This is the nomination record.
The most successful filmworkers
Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) has the most awards as a performer. She received 4 Oscars in the category best actress.
Meryl Streep has the most nominations as performers with 17 Oscar nomination. Jack Nicholson, Daniel Day-Lewis and Walter Brennan (1894–1974) have three Academy Awards amongst men.
Jack Nicholson also has a nomination record (12 nominations).
The person, who has the most Academy Awards is Walt Disney (1901–1966) with 26, including 4 Honorary Oscars and he has 37 nominations. He also won 4 awards in 1954, he received the most awards in one year.
The woman, who has the most Oscars is the costume designer Edith Head (1897–1981), she has 8 Oscars and 27 nominations. The people who have the most Oscars and are still living are the composer Alan Menken (8 Oscars) and Dennis Muren with 8 Oscars and the cartoon characters Tom and Jerry who have the most awards.
95th Academy Awards
The 95th Academy Awards took place on March 12, 2023, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The awards honor films released in 2022.
The event was televised in the U.S. by ABC and was produced by Ricky Kirshner and Glenn Weiss. Weiss was also the director. Comedian and late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel hosted the show for the third time, after the 89th and 90th editions of the ceremony in 2017 and 2018.
Everything Everywhere All at Once won seven awards, including Best Picture; Everything Everywhere All at Once also had eleven nominations, the most of the ceremony. Other winners included All Quiet on the Western Front with four awards and The Whale with two. Avatar: The Way of Water, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, The Elephant Whisperers, Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, An Irish Goodbye, Navalny, Top Gun: Maverick and Women Talking each won with one.
See also
In Spanish: Premios Óscar para niños
