The document provides information on top movies and Academy Awards from the 1950s-1980s. Some of the highest grossing and most acclaimed films from each decade are listed. Key details include All About Eve receiving a record 14 nominations in 1950, and Ben-Hur winning a record 11 Oscars in 1959. The Godfather won Best Picture in 1972 and its sequel in 1974. Notable directors from the era included Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg.
2. 1950’s Top Ten Movies 1. Singin' in the Rain (1952) 2. 12 Angry Men (1957) 3. Rear Window (1954) 4. Sweet Smell of Success (1957) 5. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) 6. All About Eve (1950) 7. Ben-Hur (1959) 8. Vertigo (1958) 9. Some Like It Hot (1959) 10. The Searchers (1956)
3. 1950’s Academy Awards - All About Eve (1950) was the first most-nominated film with 14 bids in Oscar history until James Cameron's Titanic (1997) tied the record 47 years later. Won 6 of 14 Oscars. MGM's (producer Sam Zimbalist) and director William Wyler's three and a half-hour long epic drama Ben-Hur (1959) was the most-honored motion picture in Academy Awards history up to that time and for many years - until 1997, with its record-breaking eleven Oscars from twelve nominations. And it was the most expensive film of its time, budgeted at $15 million. - The big winner in 1957 was David Lean's epic (almost three hour long) prison-war film based on Pierre Boulle's best-selling World War II novel The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957) (with eight nominations and seven Oscars including Best Picture).
4. 1960’s Top Ten Movies 1. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) 2. Psycho (1960) 3. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 4. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) 5. Oliver! (1968) 6. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) 7. Spartacus (1960) 8. Planet of the Apes (1968) 9. The Sound of Music(1965) 10. Cool Hand Luke (1967)
5. 1960’s Academy Awards The Best Picture winner in 1964 was My Fair Lady, which emerged as the overall winner with eight Oscars. Its win involved an upset and turnaround, however. Andrews, from the Broadway version, was replaced in the lead starring role by non-singing film star Audrey Hepburn (who had voice-overs for the songs). The Sound of Music (1965) won Best Picture and 4 other awards. The Sound of Music also topped Gone With The Wind (1939) as the most commercially-successful, money-grossing film to date - thereby saving its studio 20th Century Fox from bankruptcy. The Best Picture winner in 1961 was a well-honored musical in a contemporary updating of Shakespeare's story of Romeo and Juliet (with rival NY street gangs) titled West Side Story. The film had eleven nominations and ten Oscar wins.
6. 1970’s Top Ten Movies 1. The Godfather(1972) 2. Jaws (1975) 3. Star Wars (1977) 4. The Godfather: Part II (1974) 5. Chinatown (1974) 6. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) 7. Taxi Driver (1976) 8. Superman (1978) 9. The French Connection (1971) 10. Spirit of the Beehive (1973)
7. 1970’s Academy Awards The Godfather (with ten nominations and only three wins) . The Godfather told the epic story of the patriarchal, aging figurehead of a 'Mafia' dynasty who also served as 'godfather' to the New York Sicilian immigrants in the late. The Best Picture victor, The Godfather, Part II, shifted back and forth over six decades in time to retrace the story of the same Corleone family and how it was founded. It got eleven nominations and six wins. The year's innovative Best Picture victor - The French Connection (with eight nominations and five wins), a semi-documentary film and exciting cops and drug dealers action thriller, based on two real-life New York narcotics squad officers who seized a 120 lb., multi-million dollar shipment of smuggled heroin in 1961 in a transported car.
8. 1980’s Top Ten Movies 1. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) 2. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) 3. Star Wars Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) 4. Wings of Desire (1987) 5. The Right Stuff (1983) 6. Aliens (1986) 7. Time Bandits (1981) 8. The Terminator (1984) 9. A Christmas Story (1983) 10. Raging Bull (1980)
9. 1980’s Academy Awards Paramount Pictures' Terms of Endearment (with eleven nominations and five wins) was the emotionally-manipulative film about a Houston woman's (MacLaine) affair with an ex-astronaut (Nicholson) and her stubborn and exasperated struggles with her contentious daughter (Winger) over many years. Ultimately, the 1984 awards were monopolized by Amadeus with eight wins. The Best Picture winner was visually and musically superior and focused on the court rivalry between composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, both composers for Hapsburg Emperor Joseph II. Sydney Pollack's grandly-spectacular, Out of Africa, was based by Kurt Luedtke on the life, works, and memoirs of Karen Blixen. The romantic biopic had eleven Oscar nominations and won seven in all - except in the acting categories.
10. Academy Award Winning Actresses Katharine Hepburn had 12 nominations and 4 wins spanning her 60 year acting career, still a record for an actress today. Deborah Kerr holds the record for the most nominations without a win (6), but got an Honorary Oscar later on. Meryl Streep has been nominated 16 times and won twice, holding a record for most nominations for a man or woman ever. Barbra Streisand – won 2 of 5 Julie Andrews – won 1 of 3 Sally Field – won 2 of 2 Jane Fonda – won 2 of 5 Audrey Hepburn – won 2 of 5 Elizabeth Taylor – won 3 of 6
11. Academy Award Winning Actors Peter O’Toole was nominated for 8 Oscars without winning any but got an honorary Oscar for his performances. Al Pacino, best known for his roles in The Godfather Trilogy and Scarface, received 8 nominations and won 1 of them. Robert DeNiro was 2 of 6 of his nominations, best known from Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. Jack Nicholson has 3 wins from his 12 nominations, best known for The Shining. Paul Newman – won 3 of 12 Marlon Brando – won 2 of 8 Dustin Hoffman – won 2 of 7 Gregory Peck – won 2 of 6 Gene Hackman – won 2 of 5 Michael Caine – won 2 of 6
12. Top Directors of the Era Steven Spielberg – 30 Movies Raiders of the Lost Ark E.T. Alfred Hitchcock – 53 Movies Psycho Vertigo Stanley Kubrick – 14 Movies Dr. Strangelove 2001: A Space Odyssey Martin Scorsese – 31 Movies Taxi Driver Goodfellas Francis Ford Coppola – 15 Movie The Godfather Trilogy George Lucas – 6 Movies, but produced many other movies such as the Indiana Jones movies The Star Wars Movies Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg, and Lucas Alfred Hitchcock Stanley Kubrick
