New Facts & Trivia from the 89th Oscars
Tuesday, February 28, 2017 at 2:38PM Before we begin, a quick note that we shouldn't have to share but we do because the rest of the universe has conspired against the proper way of doing things. When we refer to an Oscar ceremony year we are talking about the year of the films honored, not the random month of the following year in which the ceremony is held. What we just witnessed was the 2016 Oscars. We don't know who will even be nominated for the 2017 Oscars yet though we'll make some early bird predictions on April 1st as we do.
Anyway... FACTS. TRIVIA. FUN.
• La La Land's loss was shocking but its performance at the Oscars was not completely without precedent. Two other films in Oscar's 89 years have won the rare combo of Best Actress and Best Director without winning Best Picture. That would be Cabaret (1972, also the single film to win the most Oscars without winning Best Picture) and 7th Heaven (1927) in the very first year of the Oscars. That silent film is an unusual case though as Janet Gaynor won Best Actress for three roles including Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Street Angel (Oscar quickly changed the rules so nominations could only be for one picture.)
• Arrival (8 nominations) is the first non-war film Best Picture nominee to win Sound Editing only...
...Sound Editing has only been a regular competitive category since 1982 but every other time its been a Best Picture contender's sole win, that contender was a war film: American Sniper (6 nominations), Zero Dark Thirty (5 nominations) and Letters from Iwo Jima (4 nominations)
• Colleen Atwood's win in costume breaks one of TFE's favorite bits of trivia. It's no longer true that Colleen Atwood (4 wins now) and Sandy Powell (3 wins) only win if they're competing with each other as Powell was not nominated this year. Atwood is now in the top 3 of all time in the category. Which are...
- Edith Head (1897-1981) 8 wins from 35 nominations
- Irene Sharaff (1910-1993) 5 wins from 15 nominations
- Colleen Atwood -4 wins from 12 nominations
- Milena Canonero -4 wins from 9 nominations
Canonero, who is 71, is still working and most recently took the Oscar for Grand Budapest Hotel (2014). Colleen Atwood is 68 years old. Though Sandy Powell is in a multi-person tie for 5th place with 3 wins (from 12 nominations), she's the most likely to upset this list in the future as she is only 56 years old and still the favorite designer of many auteurs including Todd Haynes and Martin Scorsese.
• Warren Beatty has now presented the Best Picture Oscar 3 times joining the very rarified company of Steven Spielberg and Elizabeth Taylor. The only people who've done it more than those three giants are Audrey Hepburn (4 times) and Jack Nicholson (8 times)
• Moonlight is the 9th Best Picture winner to have Supporting Actor as its only acting prize. It happens roughly once a decade, the last time being No Country For Old Men (2007). The most common acting prize to go with Best Picture is of course Best Actor, given the Academy's preference for male-driven films. (The sole acting prize for Best Picture being supporting actress has only happened five times and the sole acting prize being best actress only thrice in 89 years!)
• Kevin O'Connell finally won on his 21st nomination for Sound Mixing of Hacksaw Ridge. So he's no longer the most nominated living person without a win. Now that honor falls to his former business partner Greg P Russell who has 16 nominations (and whose 17th nomination was rescinded right before this ceremony adding extra drama)
Barry Jenkins & Tarell Alvin McCraney winning for Moonlight
• Black men winning Adapted Screenplay is suddenly common. In the past eight years it's happened three times: Precious (2009), Twelve Years a Slave (2013) and Moonlight (2016). Curiously, though, no African-American has won Original Screenplay. The closest anyone came was surely Spike Lee for Do The Right Thing (1989)
• October / November continue to be the best times to release a prospective Best Picture winner, not December contrary to the belief of many distributors and media journalists (the latter group regularly describe release schedule shifts to December in glowingly positive terms as being strategic). After four consecutive years of Best Picture winners in the early Aughts (A Beautiful Mind, 2001 through Million Dollar Baby, 2004), NO Best Picture has been released later than Thanksgiving weekend.
In recent years:
- May 6th, 2005 Crash (wide)
- Oct 6th, 2006 The Departed (wide)
- Nov 9th, 2007 No Country For Old Men (limited)
- Nov 12th, 2008 Slumdog Millionaire (limited)
- June 26th, 2009 The Hurt Locker (limited)
- Nov 26th, 2010 The King's Speech (limited)
- Nov 25th, 2011 The Artist (limited)
- Oct 12th, 2012 Argo (wide)
- Oct 18th, 2013 12 Years a Slave (limited)
- Oct 24th, 2014 Birdman (limited)
- Nov 6th, 2015 Spotlight (limited)
- Oct 21st, 2016 Moonlight (limited)
• Mel Gibson's oldest daughter (of nine children, only two of them girls) is 36 years old. This is not his daughter. (He does have three grandchildren, though.)
• Moonlight is only the second film in the post SAG era (1994 onward) to have won Best Picture without winning the top prize at any of the three key guild precursors: PGA, DGA, or SAG. The other one is Braveheart (1995) - trivia via Scott Feinberg
• Moonlight is both the first film with an all black cast and the first LGBT film to win Best Picture. Two historic birds felled with one stone!
• Best Supporting Actress is the single most common category for black artists to win Oscars. Viola Davis is the 7th in this category. The second most common category for black artists to win is Best Original Song (6 wins) and the third Supporting Actor (5 wins with Mahershala Ali the newest)
• Viola Davis is only the second person in history to win the Tony and the Oscar for the same role but in different categories. She won the Lead Actress Tony as "Rose" in Fences on Broadway and the supporting actress Oscar. Previously only Yul Brynner (The King & I) had done this winning the featured actor Tony on Broadway and then the Lead Actor Oscar on film.
• This is the first year since 1997 (nearly 20 years ago) in which all of the winners for acting were playing fictional characters. It's been a long looooong stretch until now of Oscar voters preferring biographical portrayals. This is also the first year since 1997 in which all the acting winners were Americans
• Damien Chazelle is now the youngest Best Director winner of all time. He turned 32 just last month. He's also the first American winner of Best Director this decade.
• Chazelle is also the first American Best Director winner this decade thus far. American directors haven't been winning the Oscar as much as they used to. In the 21st century to date there have only been 7 American winners, so less than 50% of the Oscar years: Steven Soderbergh (Traffic), Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind), Clint Eastwood (Million Dollar Baby), Martin Scorsese (The Departed), Joel Coen & Ethan Coen (No Country For Old Men), Kathryn Bigelow (Hurt Locker), and Damien Chazelle (La La Land)
• Asghar Farhadi just won Iran their 2nd Oscar in Foreign Film. He's not the only two time winner in the category but there aren't many who have accomplished this. Not even Pedro Almodovar has done it (weirdly he's only been nominated in the category twice despite his films showing up in other Oscar categories) The only multiple winners for Foreign Film (though technically speaking its the country that wins)
- Federico Fellini (4 wins for Italy + 2 other nominations in the category)
- Vittorio de Sica (4 wins for Italy + 1 other nomination in the category)
- Ingmar Bergman (3 wins for Sweden)
- Akira Kurosawa (2 wins, 1 for Japan / 1 for Russia + 2 other nominations in the category)
- [TIE] René Clément (2 wins for France) and Asghar Farhadi (2 wins for Iran)
• Oh, one more Viola Davis note. She is not only the most Oscar nominated black woman of all time (with 3 nominations and a win) but she's the only black woman to have ever "Triple-Crowned" (which is the acting win combo of the Tony, Emmy, and Oscar). The only other woman of color to triple crown is Rita Moreno (who is also an EGOT winner). Some people count Whoopi Goldberg but her prizes were not always for acting so while she has those three prizes, it's not the Triple Crown of acting.
• Mahershala Ali is the first Muslim acting winner
• The Costume Design win for Fantastic Beasts marks the very first Oscar win for the Harry Potter franchise (and the first Costume nomination since the original film) which has received 14 Oscar nominations over the course of 9 films and 16 years. In fact, only two of the Potterverse movies have not received any nominations. That would be the second film Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) and the fifth film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) which is curiously the only one of the films that ever deserved an acting nomination (for Imelda Staunton's Dolores Umbridge). The most common nomination is for Art Direction -- Stuart Craig has 5 nominations for his Production Design on this franchise. The second most common nomination is Visual Effects (3 nods)
• This was the sixth longest Oscar ceremony of all time at 3 hours and 49 minutes. The top 5 are as follows
- 2001 A Beautiful Mind 4 hours and 23 minutes... (Halle Berry's historic win wasn't the only thing that took up an unusual amount of time!)
- 1998 American Beauty 4 hours and 9 minutes
- 1998 Shakespeare in Love 4 hours and 2 minutes
- 1939 Gone With the Wind 3 hours and 52 minutes (non-televised obviously)
- 2006 The Departed 3 hours and 51 minutes
P.S. If you can think of an additional piece of trivia that's new via Oscar night, let us know in the comments.
Reader Comments (48)
This is also the first time since 1997 where all of the acting winners were American.
The average age of the acting winners is 40.75. That's close to a record, yes?
Directing Actors to Oscars count:
Chazelle: 2
Lonergan: 1
Washington: 1
Jenkins: 1
I was thinking that was the lowest in a while, but 2014 had all first timers.
The Kevin O'Connell win was an extra surprise, since he hadn't gotten a nomination since Transformers in 2007, easily the longest in his career. Greg P. Russell had gotten four noms during that time (not including the rescinded one.)
Anyways, Piper was only the fourth Pixar film to win in the Best Animated Short category. They have won once in each decade since the 1980s (Tin Toy in 1988, Geri's Game in 1997, For the Birds in 2001 and Piper in 2016). Pear Cider and Cigarettes is the first animated short longer than 30 minutes to lose the Oscar (since The Man Who Planted Trees, A Close Shave and Peter & the Wolf all won.)
Halle Berry has now presented an Oscar to the youngest Actor in a Leading Role (Adrien Brody) AND the youngest Director winner (Damien Chazelle).
Viola Davis is the only black actor, male or female, to complete the acting triple crown thus far.
La La Land is the only film to both win and lose Best Picture.
^Ouch.
Well, it didn't actually win, brookesboy...
The Afflecks are the 16th pair of Oscar-winning siblings.
Isn't "Moonlight" the first film directed by an African American to win Best Picture?
I'm sure it's not a record, but two playwrights won writing Oscars.
@Guestguestguest
12 Years a Slave was directed by Steve McQueen, who is African American
The Dolby Theater agrees, as they have all the Best Picture winners listed on the pillars inside and each one is under the year of its release rather than the ceremony.
Steve McQueen is not African American
Steve McQueen is not American. He is black and he is English.
First year since 1979 ("All That Jazz") that a contemporary film won Best Production Design. Both musicals, too!
Steve McQueen is British, I believe. So, I think Jenkins would be the first "African American" director to win Best Picture.
@Denny Very true. He is English. My mistake. So, he is the first African American director of a Best Picture winner, but no the first black director.
Steve McQueen came into my workplace (a theatre in London) a couple of days after 12 Years a Slave won the Oscar and he graciously shook every person's hand who congratulated him. A really nice chap.
I showed my small daughter the Moana performance today, and after it was over I noticed Justin Timberlake in the wide shot of the crowd. He alone stood up to cheer for Auli'i Cravalho, and I thought how nice that was. I'm sure he knows how intimidating it is for a 16-year-old to get on stage and sing for a worldwide audience. It was a small, touching bit of humanity buried in the spectacle. It's no record, but I wanted it known.
Nathaniel: For your opening paragraph, all I can say is THANK YOU! This issue has really been bothering me lately.
Brevity: Good spot!
A few other bits of trivia:
- Damien Chazelle is the first American man to win Best Directing since Joel and Ethan Coen nine years ago.
- The Jungle Book is the first film to win Best Visual Effects with no other nominations since Death Becomes Her (1992).
- This is the first time we’ve had four Picture/Director splits in five years since 1948-1952.
- None of the films that won Directing winners in the split years this decade - Life of Pi, Gravity, The Revenant and La La Land - won a Screenplay award (indeed, Gravity and The Revenant weren't even nominated), whereas in the previous decade, the three films that won Directing in split years - Traffic, The Pianist and Brokeback Mountain - all won a Screenplay award too. Prior to that, the last Directing winner in a split year to win a Screenplay award as well was A Place in the Sun in 1951.
- This decade (seven winners so far) has seen by far the lowest average number of Oscars won by Best Pictures since the 1930s. Here’s how it breaks down by decade:
1920s: 1.5
1930s: 3.1
1940s: 4.4
1950s: 6.6
1960s: 5.8
1970s: 5
1980s: 5.7
1990s: 6.6
2000s: 5.5
2010s: 3.4
- Conversely, this is also the first decade in Oscar history where none of the three biggest winners of the decade have won Best Picture – Gravity (7), Mad Max: Fury Road (6) and La La Land (6).
Another Viola note - Surely she joins a very small group of acting winners who won while currently staring in a network TV show? Off hand I can think of Helen Hunt (Mad About You) and Cloris Leachman (Mary Tyler Moore), and Goldie Hawn (Laugh In) - any others?
@Edward L - In the past, when Picture/Director was split, Director often went to the artsier film and Picture to the more populist epic.
Now it seems to be the reverse: Directors get kudos for managing a big spectacle while the 'smaller' films attract the stronger passion vote needed to win Best Picture.
How is that Gibson bit trivia about the Academy Awards?
That costume designer trivia would have been great if it continued but I am glad Fantastic Beasts won.
Steve G: Good observation. Yes, that does seem to be the way it is at the moment, eh?
Viola Davis is the second most nominated actress with the last name Davis after Bette.
I wonder if Gone with the Wind is the only time the Best Picture winner was longer than the Oscar ceremony.
There is this trend: one more time a foreign cinematographer wins. Only four American cinematographers have won this century. Hall, Richardson (twice), Pfister and Elswit.
Mexico has four wins (Lubezki x3 + Navarro), Australia has three, and China, England, Italy, Chile and Sweden have one winner each.
Most diverse category in terms of countries?
Great post!
I know it's the country that wins, but I wish they would also list the director. At least on IMDB.
Only the second time ever the sound categories have split between two films that were nominated for both.
The Gibson trivia was brilliant.
I saw this comment on elsewhere.
Musicals have been at the heart of some of the more surprising Oscar moments. To whit
a) Most prognosticators assumed that the 1951 best picture race was between A Place in the Sun (which won best director, of course) and A Streetcar Named Desire. An American in Paris won.
b) The directors Guild Award had a 100% prediction rate. Whoever won that won the oscar. Until the 1968 awards, that is, where Anthony Harvey won for A Lion in Winter but Carol Reed won the oscar. Oliver, of course, was the best picture winner that year.
c) The next time the director's guild was wrong? The infamous 1972 year, a year so destined for The Godfather that Bob Fosse's friends were commiserating with him that Cabaret came out the one year he couldn't win.
d) Chicago vs The Pianist "vs" Gangs of New York....
I count 3 times, not 2, where the sole acting prize for a Best Picture winner was Best Actress:
-1936 The Great Ziegfeld, Luise Rainer
-1977 Annie Hall, Diane Keaton
-1989 Driving Miss Daisy, Jessica Tandy
This is the first time that both Supporting actor winners are black. For Leading, it was in 2002 when Halle and Denzel won.
Sidenote: the worst win o the night for me is Costume. Atwood doesn't need ano Oscars to add to her alr big stash o 3 n her works this time is really not tt (pun intended) fantastic!
I wld've luv to see Jackie or Allied wins. Hell, any o the other 4 nominees r more deserving o the Oscars than Atwood!!!
Paul Outlaw - 40.75 is not even close to a record, regarding the average of the acting winnows ages, the youngest was in 1961 (Schell 31, Loren 26, Chakiris 28 and Moreno 30), The oldest in 1981 (Fonda 76, Hepburn 74, Gielgud 77 and baby Stapleton 56).
Also, the first film about black characters to win Best Picture and NOT be about racism. That's actually a really big deal.
@ UA: Thanks, that was a very young year, but super atypical, no? I did a random sampling and the average was usually 41-44.
@ Philip H.: I know what you mean, but I kinda disagree.
Yes, your riight, yet there were other "under 40" years. From the top of my head: 1954 (Brando 30, Kelly 25, O'Brien 39, Saint 30), 1980 (De Niro 37, Spacek 31. Hutton 20, Steenburgen 28) and 2000 (Craw 36, Roberts 33, Del Toro 34, Harden 41).
Well of course the first time a movie was nominated for 14 Oscars and didn't win Best Picture.
And totally random, but there are now two Best Actress winners named Emma: Stone & Thompson. That also applies to Joan Crawford & Joan Fontaine, Jane Fonda & Jane Wyman. Any others?
Helen (Hayes and Mirren), Jenifer (Jonse and Lawrence), Susan (Hayward and Sarandon) and of course, the consecutive Julies (Andrews and Christie). There was also a third Joan(ne) - Woodward.
@ UA: Looking at those examples, all you need is a youngish Best Actor to pull the quartet's average down, which will probably happen more and more often now as the Academy diversifies. Average Best Actor is now about 43 and would be much higher without the dozen or so youngest (out of all 90).
Another bit of trivia: Dede Gardner is the first female producer to win two Best Picture Oscars. (Thanks for that one, Wikipedia!)
Also, are Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner the first producing pair to win two Best Picture Oscars?
Oscar trivia is why I return to this site...
"Viola Davis is only the second person in history to win the Tony and the Oscar for the same role but in different categories...."
In addition to those two, I believe Joel Grey (Cabaret) won the Tony for featured actor in a musical and then an Oscar for supporting actor.
KBJr: You're correct, he did - but Featured and Supporting are the "same" category.
This was also a year in which no cast member of any of the films had been in more than 4 best picture nominees (Kyle Chandler, Stephen Henderson, Viola Davis, David Wernam, Amy Adams, Michael Stuhlbarg, JK Simmons all had four) including 2016.
In years past, you had Michael Pena and Matt Damon at 5, Brad Pitt in 7 and Leo and Hanks at 8
In 2014 you had Tom Wilkinson at 8, Ralph Fiennes at 6, and Goldblum, Martin Sheen, Harvey Keitel, and William DaFoe at 5
In 2013 you had Rance Howard at 5, Brad Pitt, Ed Harris, George Clooney at 6, Tom Hanks and Leo at 7, and DeNiro at 9
So far more newbies to OScar this year than in the past 3 years
Is this the first time when three Best Actress nominees did (some sort of) singing for their roles?
Emma is a given since she's in a musical, Meryl does bad singing, and Natalie sings "Happy Birthday" to her child in a birthday party.