Seven iconic Oscars records: most wins, shocking tie and first ever self-directed victory

With the 97th annual Oscars occurring this Sunday 2 March at the classic Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, many records have the potential to be tied or broken. In the ceremony’s near century of history, many impressive records have been broken and within those achievements made radical impacts on the film industry as a whole.  

Most Oscar winning generations 

Often people see winning an Oscar as an individual achievement, but for some Oscar winning is a multigeneration familial rite of passage. The record for the most Oscar winning generations was broken by the Huston family. First, Walter Huston won the award for Best Supporting Actor for neo-western film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre in 1948 and for this film his son John won Best Director. The record-breaking third generation of the Huston family to win an Oscar came to be in 1985 when John’s daughter, Angelica, won for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in black comedy film Prizzi's Honour.

Fewest Oscar nominations for a genre 

Different genres of film have different pulls and audiences. The Academy Membership (the voters for the main awards) set up for a year might be drawn to a different set of genres than others. One genre that seemingly got the short end of the stick with Oscar nominations is horror. In all of Oscars’ history only 57 horror films have been nominated (in any category); this ratio makes up approximately 1.1% of all of the Academy Awards’ nominations.  

This year though, a few front-running films have a chance to shake things up. For instance, if body horror film The Substance wins best picture, it would only be the second horror film to do so after 1991’s Silence of the Lambs. The 2024 film was nominated a total of five times for the upcoming ceremony.  

Most consecutive Oscar wins 

Picture of Walt Disney holding his first Oscar. Photo credit: Alamy.

Often for individuals that have won multiple Oscars, there is a large gap of time in between the times they have achieved the very impressive feat. For the muti-talented Walt Disney, however, he took home Oscars a record-breaking eight years in a row. Walt’s consecutive wins were for the same category, Best Short Subject (Cartoons). His streak started in 1932, when the award was first introduced.  

Most Oscars won — lifetime 

It makes sense that as a man that has won eight Oscars in a row and was a primary force behind one of the largest production companies, Walt Disney holds the record for the most Oscars won in a lifetime. In between the years 1932 to 1969, Walt won a whopping 26 Oscars. There is a notable gap between Walt and the person with the second most Oscars, art director Cedric Gibbons, who won 11 times.  

Walt won in a variety of categories including the aforementioned Best Short Subject (Cartoon), Best Short Subject (Two-reel), Best Documentary (Short Subject), Best Short Subject (Live-action), and more. Amongst his large array of awards, there are four non-competitive Oscars to honour his achievements.  

First person to win an Oscar for a self-directed performance 

It is always impressive when a film wins multiple Oscar awards, but three films hold the coveted record for most Oscars won by a film.  Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003) all impressively won 11 Oscars. Ben-Hur and Titanic were nominated for 12 and 14 awards respectively. The Lord of the Rings’ final act in its trilogy won all of its nominations. All three films won Best Picture, Art Direction, and Best Director.  

Only tie for Best Actress Oscar 

Some viewers of the Oscars take bets on who they think will win; one could only imagine the shock in 1969 when for the first and only time, the Best Actress in a Leading Role was announced as a tie between Katherine Hepburn and Barbra Streisand. Katherine won for The Lion in Winter (1968) and Barbra for Funny Girl (1968).   

As rare as this outcome is, this was not the first or last time that there was a tie at the Oscars, in fact it has happened six times throughout the award show’s history, most recently in 2012 the Sound Editing award was split between the creatives behind Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty.  

With the award show airing live on Sunday, there is a chance that more Guinness World Records titles will be broken. Either way, the show has become a centre point in the zeitgeist of the movie industry.  

Header: generic photo of Oscar trophies. Photo credit: analogicus/ Pixabay.