 Starring: Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Jack Palance, Bruno Kirby, Patricia Wettig
Director: Ron Underwood
Year Of Release: 1991
Plot: Mitch and his friends, Ed and Phil, are having a bit of a mid-life crisis. As a result they decide to do something that will make them feel like real men and book spaces on a two-week cattle drive from New Mexico to Colorado. On the trip they meet rough, tough and grizzly trail boss Curly, who they initially think is a lunatic. However as the cattle drive goes on and becomes less and less like they expected, the men start to learn a few lessons about themselves. |
I know this one is slightly tangential, as City Slicker’s only connection to the Oscars is that Jack Palance won one for the film, but it’s Academy Awards season, so I thought it was worth putting together a list of Oscar records, even if City Slickers itself doesn’t hold any (after all, what the hell else is there to write about City Slickers?).
That said, the movie is famous for the 72-year-old Palance doing one-armed push-ups when he picked up his Best Supporting Actor Oscar, so I suppose it does hold a record, as I don’t think anyone else has done exercises on-stage before their acceptance speech.
Anyway, in preparation for the big awards ceremony in a couple of week’s time, here’s our list of Oscar records.
FILMS
Films To Win The Most Oscars
Ben-Hur, Titanic and Lord Of The Rings: The Return of the King with 11 awards each
Films To Receive The Most Oscar Nominations
All About Eve and Titanic with 14 nominations each
Most Nominations With No Wins
The Turning Point and The Color Purple with 11 nominations each
First Best Picture Winner
Wings (although at the first ceremony the category was called Best Production)
First Non-American Best Picture Nominee
The Private Lives Of Henry VIII in 1933
First Non-Hollywood Best Picture Winner
Hamlet in 1948 (10 films financed exclusively outside the US have won the Best Picture Oscar, all of which were at least partially funded with British money)
First All-Colour Best Picture Winner
Gone With The Wind in 1939
First Woman Nominated In The Best Picture Category
Julia Phillips For The Sting in 1973
Winners Of The Big Five Academy Awards (Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay)
It Happened One Night, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Silence Of The Lambs (incidentally, Lambs only Oscars were the big five)
Films That Won The Best Picture Oscar and Palm D’Or at Cannes
The Lost Weekend and Marty
First Foreign-Language Film Nominated For The Best Picture Oscar
Grand Illusion in 1938 (no non-English language movie has ever won the award)
Only Film To Win Best Picture Without Receiving Any Other Nominations
Grand Hotel in 1932 (Mutiny On The Bounty and The Broadway Melody also only won Best Picture, but were nominated in other categories)
Only Film To Have The Most Nominations Overall For The Year Without A Best Picture Nod
Dreamgirls with 8 nominations in 2007
Only Best Picture Winner With No Credited Female Speaking Roles
Lawrence Of Arabia
Only Film Ever To Be Nominated For Every Category For Which It Was Eligible
Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf in 1966
ACTORS AND ACTRESSES
(We’re only including the acting categories in this section, so for example, while Clint Eastwood has won four Oscars, none were for acting and so don’t count here)
Actors To Receive The Most Oscars Across All Acting Awards
Walter Brennan (Best Supporting Actor for Come And Get It, Kentucky and The Westerner) and Jack Nicholson (Best Actor for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and As Good As It Gets, and Best Supporting Actor for Terms Of Endearment), both with three Oscars
Actor To Receive The Most Nominations Across All Acting Awards
Jack Nicholson with 12 nominations (8 Best Actor and 4 Supporting Actor)
Actors To Receive The Most Nominations In The Best Actor Category
Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier with 9 nominations each
Actors To Win The Most Oscars In The Best Actor Category
Spencer Tracy, Fredric Marsh, Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman, Tom Hanks, Jack Nicholson, Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Penn, all with two awards
Actress To Win The Most Oscars In The Best Actress Category
Person To Win The Most Acting Oscars Overall
Katherine Hepburn with 4 awards (Best Actress For Morning Glory, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, The Lion In Winter and On Golden Pond – incidentally Hepburn won for her first and last three nominated performances, with a 34 year gap in-between)
Person To Receive The Most Nominations Across All Acting Awards
Actress To Receive The Most Nominations In The Best Actress Category
Meryl Streep with 16 nominations overall (13 Best Actress and 3 Best Supporting Actress)
Oldest Best Actor Winner
Henry Fonda for On Golden Pond (76 years old)
Oldest Best Actor Nominee
Richard Farnsworth for The Straight Story (79 years old)
Youngest Best Actor Winner
Adrien Brody for The Pianist (29 years old)
Youngest Best Actor Nominee
Jackie Cooper for Skippy (9 years old)
Oldest Best Actress Winner
Oldest Best Actress Nominee
Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy (80 years old)
Youngest Best Actress Winner
Marlee Matlin for Children Of A Lesser Gold (21 years old)
Youngest Best Actress Nominee
Keisha Castle-Hughes for Whale Rider (13 years old)
Oldest Best Supporting Actor Winner
George Burns for The Sunshine Boys (80 years old)
Oldest Best Supporting Actor Nominee
Hal Holbrook for Into The Wild (82 years old)
Youngest Best Supporting Actor Winner
Timothy Hutton for Ordinary People (20 years old)
Youngest Best Supporting Actor Nominee
Justin Henry for Kramer vs Kramer (8 years old)
Oldest Best Supporting Actress Winner
Peggy Ashcroft for A Passage To India (77 years old)
Oldest Best Supporting Actress Nominee
Oldest Acting Nominee Across All Categories
Gloria Stuart for Titanic (87 years old)
Youngest Best Supporting Actress Winner
Youngest Best Supporting Actress Nominee
Youngest Oscar Winner In Any Acting Category
Tatum O’Neal for Paper Moon (10 years old) (three other 10-years have been nominated in this category, although O’Neal is still the absolute youngest – however a five-year-old Shirley Temple did pick up a non-competitive honorary award in 1934)
First African American Best Actor Nominee
First African American Best Actor Winner
Sidney Poiter was nominated for The Defiant Ones in 1958 and then won for Lilies Of The Field in 1963
First African American Acting Nominee/Winner
First African American Oscar Winner In Any Category
Hattie McDaniel, who won Best Supporting Actress for Gone With The Wind in 1939
First African American Best Actress Nominee
Dorothy Dandridge for Carmen Jones in 1954
First African American Best Actress Winner
Halle Berry for Monster’s Ball in 2001
Only Actor/Actress To Be Nominated For Two Oscars After They Died
James Dean for Giant and East Of Eden
Only Person To Win An Acting Oscar After They Died
Peter Finch for Network in 1977
Person With The Most Acting Nominations and No Wins
Peter O’Toole with 8 nominations (he picked up an honorary award in 2003, but has never won a competitive Oscar)
Only Person To Win An Acting and Screenplay Oscar
Emma Thompson, who won a Best Actress Oscar for Howard’s End and a Best Screenplay Oscar for Sense & Sensibility
Only People To Win Oscars For Playing The Same Character
Marlon Brando won Best Actor for The Godfather and Robert De Niro won Best Supporting Actor for The Godfather Part II, both for playing Don Vito Corleone
Only People To Be Nominated For Playing The Same Character In The Same Film
Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart were both nominated for playing Rose at different ages in Titanic, while Winslet and Judi Dench were both nominated for playing Iris Murdoch in Iris
Only Person To Be Nominated In Two Categories For The Same Role In The Same Film
Barry Fitzgerald managed this unusual feat when he was nominated in both the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor categories for his role in 1944’s Going My Way. He eventually won Best Supporting Actor. (The rules have since been changed so this couldn’t happen again)
Most Acting Nominations For A Single Film
All About Eve and From Here To Eternity both received five acting nominations
Most Common Profession Of The Characters Winning The Best Supporting Actress Oscar
I know this is slightly random compared to most of the other records, but it’s kind of interesting as eight actresses have won for playing prostitutes, more than any other profession
Only Year When No Americans Won Acting Oscars
1964, when three Brits – Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison and Peter Ustinov – and a Russian – Lila Kedrova – picked up the awards
Only People To Tie For An Acting Oscar
Tied votes happened for Best Actor in 1932, when Fredric March and Wallace Beery both won, and for Best Actress in 1968, when both Katherine Hepburn and Barbara Streisand won
DIRECTORS
Most Best Director Oscars
John Ford With 4 awards (The Informer, The Grapes Of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, The Quiet Man)
Most Best Director Nominations
William Wyler with 12 nominations (resulting in three wins)
Oldest Best Director Winner
Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby (74 years old)
Oldest Best Director Nominee
John Huston for Prizzi’s Honor (79 years old)
Youngest Best Director Winner
Norman Taurog for Skippy (32 years old)
Youngest Best Director Nominee
First African-American Best Director Nominee
John Singleton for Boyz N The Hood (24 years old) (Lee Daniels became the second African American nominee this year – and oddly as Boyz N The Hood wasn’t nominated for Best Picture, he also became the first African American director of a Best Picture nominated movie)
First Asian Winner Of The Best Director Award
Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain
First Female Best Director Nominee
Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties in 1976 (no woman has ever won, although that may change with Kathryn Bigelow this year)
Only Person To Win The Best Director Award In The Same Year As Another Of Their Movies Won Best Picture
Joseph L. Mankiewicz won Best Director for A Letter Three Three Wives in 1949, the same year another of his films, All The King’s Men, won Best Picture
OTHER RECORDS
Most Nominated And Oscar Winning Person
Winner Of Most Awards at the Same Ceremony
Walt Disney, with 59 Oscar nominations, 22 competitive wins and 4 honorary awards. He also won four awards at the same ceremony in 1954, a feat no-one else has achieved.
Winner Of More Than One Award At The Most Ceremonies
Alan Menken has won two Oscars at four separate ceremonies (Best Original Song and Best Original Score for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and Pocahontas)
Most Nominated Person For The Same Film
Warren Beatty, who was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Screenplay for both Heaven Can Wait and Reds
Longest Acceptance Speech
If you think it’s bad nowadays, Greer Garson spoke for seven whole minutes when she won for Mrs. Miniver in 1942.
TIM ISAAC
PREVIOUS: City Of God - Or, what happened to the South American film bubble (and the oddities of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar)?
NEXT: Cleopatra - Or, the movie that cost so much it nearly destroyed a studio
CLICK HERE to see the index of 909 films and TV shows the Movie-A-Day Project will be covering
CLICK HERE to find out more about the idea behind The Movie-A-Day Project
CLICK HERE to follow Movie_A_Day on Twitter
