A list of academy award-winning movies

This article looks at some of the past winners of the Academy awards, or the Oscars. From its humble beginnings in 1929, the awards ceremony has become big business for the studios.

The Oscars

The Academy awards, or “The Oscars” as they are more commonly known, are an annual award ceremony to recognise the achievements of those individuals working in the motion picture industry. The very first award ceremony was held at Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood way back in 1929, where World War I drama “Wings” won the best picture award. Since those early days, the Oscars ceremony has become a big business, and with audience viewing figures running into the tens of millions, the awards can make or break a film. The record for most Oscar wins is 11, with “Ben Hur” in 1960, “Titanic” in 1998 and “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” in 2004, being the big award winners.

Predictable

Some critics argue that the awards are becoming stale and predictable, with the same “Oscar friendly” films, perhaps being preferred to more worthy films. The 2011 ceremony threw up very few surprises, with pre Oscar favourites “The Fighter,” “The Black Swan” and “The Kings Speech” all winning several awards each, with the latter winning the prestigious Best Picture award.However, the Oscars have thrown up some surprise winners in the past.

Surprise winners

Way back in 1980, Robert Redford directorial début “Ordinary People” astonished everybody, when it beat Martin Scorsese’s much fancied boxing biopic, “Raging Bull”, to the big award. Martin Scorsese, one of the most respected and influential directors in Hollywood, has been nominated numerous times in his 40-year career, but he had to wait until 2007 before finally winning an Oscar for his crime thriller “The Departed.” Lowudgbet's independent drama “Crash” won Best Picture in 2006, a result which nobody could have predicted and in 2010, Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq war drama “The Hurt Locker,” beat James Cameron’s big budget Sci-Fi extravaganza “Avatar” to the Best Picture award. Danny Boyles's low-budget “Slumdog Millionaire,” very nearly didn’t get made due to difficulties with the finances, but went on to win 8 awards from 10 Oscars nominations.