beauty and the beast won best picture at the academy awards.
which film won best picture at the academy awards?
beauty and the beast
the film was nominated for eleven academy awards: best picture, best director, best adapted screenplay, best original score, best original song, best visual effects, best art direction, best costume design, best make-up, best sound mixing and best film editing. at the 76th academy awards in 2004, the film won all the categories for which it was nominated and it holds the record for highest academy award totals along with "titanic" and "ben-hur". it was the first fantasy film to win the academy award for best picture. it also was the last movie for 14 years to win the academy award for best picture without being chosen as one of the top ten films of the year by the national board of review, until the release of "the shape of water" in 2017.
the lord of the rings: the return of the king
"the dark knight" was nominated for eight academy awards for the 81st ceremony, breaking the previous record of seven held by "dick tracy" for the most nominations received by a film based on a comic book, comic strip, or graphic novel. "the dark knight" won two awards: best supporting actor for heath ledger and best sound editing. it was additionally nominated for six others, these being best art direction, best cinematography, best sound mixing, best visual effects, best makeup, and best film editing. heath ledger was the first posthumous winner of the best supporting actor award, and only the second posthumous acting winner ever (peter finch posthumously won the best actor award for his performance in the 1976 film "network"). in addition, ledger's win marked the first win in any of the major oscar categories (producing, directing, acting, or writing) for a superhero-based film. notably, richard king's win in the sound editing category blocked a complete awards sweep of the evening by the eventual best picture winner, "slumdog millionaire". although it did not receive a best picture nomination, the show's opening song paid homage to "the dark knight" along with the five best picture nominees, including host hugh jackman riding on a mockup of the batpod made out of garbage. in spite of the film's critical success, the film was noticeably absent from the best picture nominee list, prompting controversy and led many to criticize the academy awards for "snubbing" the film. there was speculation that the academy of motion picture arts and sciences later changed their number of best picture nominees to ten, instead of the traditional five, because of the film's omission. in a question-and-answer session that followed the announcement, the academy's then president sidney ganis said; "i would not be telling you the truth if i said the words "dark knight" did not come up."
the dark knight (film)