1st Academy Awards in the context of "Academy Award"

The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The Oscars are widely considered to be the most prestigious awards in the film industry.

The major award categories, known as the Academy Awards of Merit, are presented during a live televised Hollywood ceremony in February or March. It is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony. The 1st Academy Awards were held in 1929. The second ceremony, in 1930, was the first to be broadcast by radio, and the 1953 ceremony was the first to be televised. It is the oldest of the four major annual American entertainment awards. Its counterparts — the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music — are modeled after the Academy Awards.

Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor and filmmaker best known for being the first actor to play the masked Vigilante Zorro and other swashbuckling roles in silent films. One of the biggest stars of the silent era, Fairbanks was referred to as "The King of Hollywood". He was also a founding member of United Artists as well as the Motion Picture Academy and hosted the 1st Academy Awards in 1929.

Born in Denver, Colorado, Fairbanks started acting from an early age and established himself as an accomplished stage actor on Broadway by the late 1800s. He made his film debut in 1915 and quickly became one of the most popular and highest paid actors in Hollywood. In 1919, he co-founded United Artists alongside Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford and D. W. Griffith. Fairbanks married Pickford in 1920 and the couple came to be regarded as "Hollywood royalty". Primarily a comedic actor early in his career, he moved into the adventure genre with the 1920 film The Mark of Zorro and found further success in films including Robin Hood (1922) and The Thief of Bagdad (1924).

The Academy Award for Best Actress is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 1st Academy Awards to an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The award is traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Actor winner. However, in recent years, it has shifted towards being presented by previous years' Best Actress winners instead.

The Best Actress award has been presented 97 times, to 80 different actresses. The first winner was Janet Gaynor for her roles in 7th Heaven (1927), Street Angel (1928), and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), and the most recent winner is Mikey Madison for her role in Anora (2024). The record for most wins is four, held by Katharine Hepburn; Frances McDormand has won three times, and thirteen other actresses have won the award twice. Meryl Streep has received the most nominations in the category—seventeen—and has won twice. At the 41st Academy Awards in 1969, Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn received the same number of votes and so shared the award, the only time this has occurred.

The Academy Award for Best Director (officially known as the Academy Award of Merit for Directing) is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It is given in honor of a film director who has exhibited outstanding directing while working in the film industry.

The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held in 1929 with the award being split into "Dramatic" and "Comedy" categories; Frank Borzage and Lewis Milestone won for 7th Heaven and Two Arabian Knights, respectively. However, these categories were merged for all subsequent ceremonies. Nominees are determined by single transferable vote within the directors branch of AMPAS; winners are selected by a plurality vote from the entire eligible voting members of the academy.

The Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay is the Academy Award (also known as an Oscar) for the best screenplay not based upon previously published material; writers with "written by", "screenplay" or "story" credits are all collectively recognized as recipients for each nomination.

The category was created in 1940, and has always existed concurrently with the Best Adapted Screenplay category (conversely for films based on pre-existing intellectual properties); originally, it also co-existed with a third writing category, Best Story, which had been active since the original Academy Awards ceremony in 1929; this latter award was meant to reward specifically writers who originated a film's plot and characters rather than those who wrote the dialogue and final screenplay, although Best Story would later be merged into Best Original Screenplay in 1956.

The Academy Honorary Award – instituted in 1950 for the 23rd Academy Awards (previously called the Special Award, which was first presented at the 1st Academy Awards in 1929) – is given annually by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Since 2009, it has been presented at the separate annual Governors Awards rather than at the regular Academy Awards ceremony. The Honorary Award celebrates motion picture achievements that are not covered by existing Academy Awards, although prior winners of competitive Academy Awards are not excluded from receiving the award.

Unless otherwise specified, Honorary Award recipients receive the same gold Oscar statuettes received by winners of the competitive Academy Awards. Unlike the Special Achievement Award instituted in 1972, those on whom the Academy confers its Honorary Award do not have to meet "the Academy's eligibility year and deadline requirements".

The Academy Award for Best Actor is an award presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). It has been awarded since the 1st Academy Awards to an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance in a leading role in a film released that year. The award is traditionally presented by the previous year's Best Actress winner. However, in recent years, it has shifted towards being presented by previous years' Best Actor winners instead.

The Best Actor award has been presented 97 times, to 86 actors. The first winner was German actor Emil Jannings for his roles in The Last Command (1928) and The Way of All Flesh (1927). The most recent winner is Adrien Brody for The Brutalist (2024); he previously won the award for The Pianist (2002) at the age of 29, making him the category's youngest winner. The record for most wins is three, held by Daniel Day-Lewis, and ten other actors have won twice. The record for most nominations is nine, held jointly by Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier. At the 5th Academy Awards in 1932, Fredric March finished one vote ahead of Wallace Beery; under the rules of the time this resulted in them sharing the award, the only time this has occurred.