Academy Awards facts for kids

The Academy Awards, often called the Oscars, are special prizes given to movies and the people who make them. They celebrate amazing artistic and technical work in filmmaking. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States gives out these awards every year. They honor the best movies and performances, chosen by the Academy's members. Many people think the Oscars are the most important awards in the entire film world.

The main awards, called Academy Awards of Merit, are given out at a live TV show in Hollywood. This usually happens in February or March. It's the oldest entertainment awards show in the world! The very first Academy Awards happened way back in 1929. The second show in 1930 was the first to be heard on the radio. Then, in 1953, the ceremony was shown on TV for the first time.

The Oscars are one of four big annual American entertainment awards. The others are the Emmy Awards for TV, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music. These other awards were inspired by the Oscars. The famous Oscar trophy looks like a knight holding a sword, designed in a cool style called Art Deco.

Quick facts for kids Academy Awards
The Oscars logo
Presented by	Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Country	United States

Most recent Academy Award winners

← 2024 Best in films in 2025 2026 →

Award Best Actor Best Actress Winner Michael B. Jordan (Sinners) Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)   Award Best Supporting Actor Best Supporting Actress Winner Sean Penn (One Battle After Another) Amy Madigan (Weapons)   Award Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay Best Original Screenplay Winner Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another) Ryan Coogler (Sinners)

Previous Best Picture Anora Best Picture One Battle After Another

History of the Academy Awards

The very first Academy Awards ceremony happened on May 16, 1929. It was a private dinner party at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with about 270 guests. Tickets for the first ceremony cost just $5, which was a good amount of money back then! Fifteen trophies were given out to actors, directors, and other movie makers for their work in 1927 and 1928. The whole show lasted only 15 minutes!

At first, winners were announced to the news before the show. But in 1940, a newspaper accidentally revealed the winners early! So, since 1941, the Academy has used a secret, sealed envelope to keep the winners a surprise until the very moment they are announced live. The name 'Oscar' is a special brand name owned by AMPAS.

Key Moments in Oscar History

The first Best Actor award went to Emil Jannings. He received his prize early because he had to travel back to Europe. In the early days, actors could win for several movies at once. For example, Janet Gaynor won Best Actress for three films! But after the second ceremony, actors were nominated for one film at a time.

The rules for which movies could be nominated changed over time. Now, movies usually need to have been shown in the calendar year before the awards. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the rules were changed a little for the 93rd Academy Awards.

The award for Best Foreign Language Film, now called Best International Feature Film, started as a special award. It became a regular competition category later on. In 2002, the 74th Academy Awards gave out the first-ever Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. The winner was the popular movie Shrek!

Since 1973, the Best Picture award has almost always been the last one given out. It's also a tradition for the acting winners from one year to present awards at the next year's show. Sometimes, five past winners introduce the nominees for an acting award, which is a special way to celebrate. In 2020, Parasite made history by becoming the first non-English language film to win the top prize, Best Picture, at the 92nd Academy Awards.

The 93rd Academy Awards in 2021 were held later than usual, in April, because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema. For this show, movies released on streaming services were allowed to be nominated, which was a big change. The show was broadcast on ABC from the Dolby Theatre and Union Station in Los Angeles.

The Oscar Statuette

What the Oscar Looks Like

The Oscar trophy, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, is given to each winner. It's made of bronze covered in gold and stands on a black metal base. The statuette is about 13.5 inches (34 cm) tall and weighs 8.5 pounds (3.9 kg). It shows a knight holding a sword, standing on a film reel. The five spokes of the film reel stand for the five original groups in the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, and Technicians.

Cedric Gibbons designed the Oscar, and sculptor George Stanley brought it to life. At first, the trophies were solid bronze covered in gold. Later, they were made from a metal called Britannia metal and then plated with gold. During World War II, when metal was scarce, Oscars were made of plaster! After the war, winners could trade their plaster Oscars for real metal ones.

A plaster Oscar from World War II (1943).

The Oscar's design has stayed mostly the same, except for a small change to its base. Many different companies have made the Oscar trophies over the years. For a long time, R.S. Owens & Company in Chicago made about 50 gold-plated Oscars each year. In 2016, the Academy went back to using bronze for the main part of the statuettes. They are now made by Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry in New York. These new Oscars are made using 3D-printed molds and then covered in 24-karat gold.

Cedric Gibbons designed the original Oscar statuette.

How the Oscar Got its Name

No one is completely sure how the trophy got its famous nickname, "Oscar." Many people have claimed to be the first to call it that!

Margaret Herrick, who was a librarian and later president of the Academy, might have said it reminded her of her Uncle Oscar in 1931. Another story comes from actress Bette Davis. She claimed in 1936 that she named it after her first husband, Harmon Oscar Nelson. However, the name was already being used before then.

Columnist Sidney Skolsky wrote in 1970 that he came up with the name in 1934. He said he was trying to meet a deadline and thought of vaudeville comedians who would say, "Will you have a cigar, Oscar?" The Academy credits Skolsky with the first confirmed newspaper mention of "Oscar" in 1934. But even in his article, he wrote that "these statues are called 'Oscars'," suggesting the name was already known.

More recently, a researcher found an even earlier mention of "Oscar" in a newspaper column from December 1933. This shows the nickname was likely in use by the public even before Skolsky's article. A former Academy executive, Bruce Davis, believes a secretary named Eleanore Lilleberg might have given it the name. She knew a Norwegian army veteran named Oscar who "stood straight and tall," like the statuette.

Engraving the Winners' Names

To keep the winners a secret until the live show, the Oscar statuettes given out at the ceremony have blank bases. After the show, winners can go to a special station at the Governors Ball (the official after-party). There, they can have their names engraved onto a small plate that is then attached to their Oscar. The Academy prepares nameplates for all potential winners beforehand, and the ones for the non-winners are recycled.

Who Owns an Oscar?

Before 1950, if you won an Oscar, it was completely yours. But since then, there's a rule: if a winner wants to sell their statuette, they must first offer to sell it back to the Academy for just $1. If a winner doesn't agree to this rule, the Academy keeps the statuette.

However, some older Oscars (from before 1950) have been sold for large amounts of money at auctions. For example, Orson Welles' Oscar for Citizen Kane was sold for over $860,000 in 2011. Some people who buy these old Oscars later return them to the Academy, where they are kept safe.

Other Academy Awards

Besides the main Oscar awards, the Academy also gives out special honorary awards. These are not competitive and are chosen by special committees.

• Academy Honorary Award: Given for lifetime achievement or outstanding contributions to film.
• Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award: Honors producers for their consistent high-quality work.
• Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: Recognizes people in the film industry who have done great humanitarian work.
• Academy Scientific and Technical Awards: These awards celebrate important inventions and technical improvements in filmmaking.
• The Academy also presents the annual Student Academy Awards to talented student filmmakers.

How Films Get Nominated

Who Votes for the Oscars?

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) is a group of nearly 10,000 film professionals. These members are invited to join by the Academy's leaders. They work in different areas of filmmaking, like acting, directing, writing, and special effects. Actors make up the largest group of voters.

The votes are counted by a company called PricewaterhouseCoopers to make sure everything is fair. Since 2013, members have been able to vote online instead of using paper ballots. The Academy has also worked to make its membership more diverse in recent years.

Rules for Nomination

To be considered for an Oscar, a film usually needs to have been shown in a movie theater in Los Angeles County, California during the previous calendar year (from January 1 to December 31). It must play for at least seven days, with specific showtimes. There are different rules for international films, documentaries, and short films. For example, international films must be officially chosen by their country.

A film must be at least 40 minutes long to be a "feature film," except for short film categories. It also needs to meet certain technical standards for how it was made and shown.

Producers must submit an online form with all the film's credits by a deadline. If they miss it, the film cannot be nominated.

How Voting Works

For most categories, members only vote for nominees in their own area. So, directors vote for directors, writers for writers, and actors for actors. However, all voting members can help choose the nominees for Best Picture.

Once the nominees are announced, all Academy members vote to pick the winners in most categories. For Best Picture, a special voting system called "instant-runoff voting" is used.

Movie companies spend a lot of money on advertising to Academy members to get their films noticed. The Academy has rules to prevent too much campaigning and keep the process fair.

The Academy Screening Room

The Academy has a secure online platform called the Academy Screening Room. This allows voting members to watch all eligible films in one place. It was first used for the 2020 Oscars. For the 2022 Oscars, the Academy stopped sending out physical DVDs and holding in-person screenings. This made the Academy Screening Room the main way for members to watch films.

The Awards Ceremonies

Watching the Oscars on TV

The main Oscar awards are presented at a live TV show, usually in late February or early March. This show is the grand finale of the "awards season" for movies, which starts a few months earlier. It's a very fancy event, with invited guests walking a red carpet in beautiful clothes. Many men wear tuxedos.

The artists who sang the nominated songs often perform them live during the ceremony. This adds to the excitement and helps promote the TV broadcast. The Academy Awards show is broadcast live around the world and is watched by millions of people.

The Oscars were first shown on TV in 1953 by NBC. Later, ABC took over broadcasting the event. ABC has a contract to show the Oscars until 2028. After that, starting in 2029, the ceremony will be shown exclusively on YouTube worldwide.

The ceremony used to be held in late March or early April. But in 2004, it was moved to late February to shorten the intense advertising campaigns for films. This earlier date also helps ABC because it falls during an important time for TV advertising. Sometimes, the show is moved to the first Sunday in March to avoid clashing with the Winter Olympic Games.

The show has been postponed a few times in history. In 1968, it was delayed because of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1981, it was postponed after an attempted assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

Since 1993, the ceremony has included an In Memoriam segment. This part of the show honors people who worked in cinema and passed away in the last year.

The Oscar ceremony usually lasts about three and a half hours. The very first show in 1929 was only 15 minutes long! To keep the show from running too long, winners are asked to keep their acceptance speeches to 45 seconds. In 2016, a scrolling ticker was added to the screen to show winners' thank-you messages, helping to keep speeches shorter.

While still very popular, the number of people watching the Academy Awards on TV has changed over the years. Viewership tends to be higher when very popular movies are expected to win Best Picture. For example, over 57 million people watched in 1998 when Titanic won many awards. Shows honoring less popular films often have fewer viewers.

Oscar Ceremony Locations

The Academy Awards have been held in many different places over the years. The first ceremony was at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. For a while, it moved between the Ambassador Hotel and the Biltmore Hotel.

Later, it was held at Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Shrine Auditorium. From 1950 to 1960, the awards were presented at Hollywood's Pantages Theatre. In 1961, the show moved to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Since 2002, the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood has been the main home for the Academy Awards.

The 31st Academy Awards at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 1959.

The 81st Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre, 2009.

The 95th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre, 2023.

Oscar Categories

Current Awards of Merit Categories

The Academy Awards recognize excellence in many different areas of filmmaking. Here are the main categories:

Some categories have changed names over time. For example, "Art Direction" is now "Production Design," and "Foreign Language Film" is now "International Feature Film." In the past, some awards were split into categories for black-and-white films and color films.

Upcoming Categories

The Academy sometimes adds new award categories.

In February 2024, the Academy announced it would introduce an award for Achievement in Casting starting with the 98th ceremony in 2026. In April 2025, it announced that Best Stunt Design would be introduced from the 100th ceremony in 2028.

Discontinued Categories

Some award categories are no longer given out.

Oscar Records

Amazing Milestones

Films with the Most Nominations and Wins

Film Series with Many Nominations and Wins

People with the Most Nominations and Wins

See also

In Spanish: Premios Óscar para niños

• List of film awards
• List of Academy Award-nominated films
• List of actors with Academy Award nominations
• List of superlative Academy Award winners and nominees