The Academy Awards is an annual ceremony that celebrates the highest achievements in film. Nearly two dozen awards are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. In a crowded field of movie industry honors, the Oscar is considered the most prestigious award among them.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science was established by Louis B. Mayer, the film producer and co-founder of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). His idea was to create awards that would honor the five main areas of filmmaking: directors, actors, writers, producers, and technicians. The Academy Awards held their first ceremony on May 16, 1929, and unlike the spectacle it is today, that inaugural event was a private dinner attended by around 270 people.

Awards were given for 12 categories at the first Oscars, with Wings winning the first Best Picture (then Outstanding Picture). Two Best Director awards were given with Lewis Milestone (Two Arabian Knights) winning for comedy and Frank Borzage (7th Heaven) winning for drama. The acting awards went to Emil Jannings and Janet Gaynor (both were nominated for multiple films), and writing Oscars went to Ben Hecht (Underworld) for original story and Benjamin Glazer (7th Heaven) for adaptation.

Many impressive records have been set over the years at the Academy Awards. The most nominations for a single film is a three way tie between All About Eve, Titanic, and La La Land with 14 Oscar nods. There are 12 movies with 13 nominations, including Gone with the Wind, Mary Poppins, Forrest Gump, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Chicago, and 2025 nominee Emilia Pérez.

Ben-Hur, Titanic, and Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King are all tied for the most wins for a single film with 11 Oscars. West Side Story is the only movie with 10 wins; Gigi, The Last Emperor, and The English Patient all won nine; and eight movies have eight wins, including Gone with the Wind, My Fair Lady, Cabaret, and Slumdog Millionaire. Return of the King has had the biggest Oscar sweep, winning all 11 awards for which it was nominated.

Only three movies have ever one the Big Five Academy Awards (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay). Those three movies are It Happened One Night, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and The Silence of the Lambs.

The most nominations per franchise is led by Star Wars with 38 total nominations, followed by The Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit with 37, Batman with 29, The Godfather with 28, and the MCU with 27. Within that top five most nominated franchises, The Godfather’s 28 Oscar nods were for just three films, while the others have nominations for at least six movies and up to 15 films.

Lord of the Rings has the most franchise wins at 17, Star Wars has ten wins, and The Godfather has nine wins. The Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and Indiana Jones all have seven wins.

The most nominations for an individual person go to Walt Disney with 59 Oscar nods. Composer John Williams has the second most nominations at 54, then composer Alfred Newman has 45, production designer Cedric Gibbons has 39, and costume designer Edith Head has 35.

Disney also has the most wins for an individual person at 26, followed by Gibbons at 11, special effects artist Farciot Edouart has 10, special effects artist Dennis Muren has 9, and Newman has 9. Additionally, Disney has both the most nominations in one year at six and most wins in a single year at four.

William Wyler has the most nominations for a director with 12, Martin Scorsese has ten, Steven Spielberg has nine, Billy Wilder has eight, and Woody Allen, David Lean, and Fred Zinnemann all have seven. John Ford has the most wins for a director at four, Frank Capra and Wyler have three, and many directors have two wins. The youngest director to win was Damien Chazelle at 32 years old (La La Land) and the oldest winner was Clint Eastwood at 74 (Million Dollar Baby).

Meryl Streep has the most acting nominations at 21, then Katharine Hepburn has 12, Jack Nicholson has 12, Bette Davis has 11, and Laurence Olivier has ten. Hepburn has the most acting wins at 4, while Streep, Nicholson, Ingrid Bergman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Frances McDormand, and Walter Brennan all have three wins. The youngest acting Oscar winner was Tatum O’Neal at 10 years old (Paper Moon) and the oldest was Anthony Hopkins at 83 years old (The Father).

The most wins for a writer is a five-way tie between Woody Allen, Charles Brackett, Paddy Chayefsky, Francis Ford Coppola, and Billy Wilder who all have three wins.

The record for most music composition and songwriting Oscars goes to Alfred Newman with nine wins for Best Original Score. Within the music categories, Alan Menken has eight wins, John Williams has five wins, and Sammy Cahn, Johnny Mercer, and Jimmy Van Heusen all have four wins.

The first person of color to win an Academy Award in an acting category was Hattie McDaniel for Gone with the Wind in 1940. The first woman to win Best Director was Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker in 2009. Parasite became the first foreign language movie to win Best Picture in 2020.

There are many, many other notable Academy Award statistics out there, with more record wins and nominations ever year.