And the Oscar went to...

This weekend we have the pleasure of seeing all of Hollywood gathering in all their glory, ostensibly to pay homage to the best and brightest among them of the previous year.

Every year, as you probably know, one movie gets crowned king- The Best Picture. Sometimes, that movie is based on a book. Actually, more often than not it is. I was planning to write a feature about every movie that was based on a book and won the Best Picture statue, but then realized that would take 56 years to do. Instead, I'm going to give you some factoids.

82 films have won the Best Picture award since the ceremony started in 1929. 42 of those films were based on novels or biographies. More were based on plays (including Shakespeare), but that's not what this blog is about.

First time a movie based on a book won Best Picture: All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930
Based on: All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

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First time a movie based on a book swept the "big five" nominations: Cimarron, 1931
Based on: Cimarron by Edna Ferber

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Longest movie based on a book to win Best Picture: Gone with the Wind, 1940 with a theatrical run time of 238 minutes, though the actual film is only 224 minutes (minus the intermission, entr'acte and exit music). The film was based on Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.

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Honorable mention: The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, 2004, while only boasting a theatrical run time of 201 minutes, the extended DVD version contains an extra 50 minutes, making it the picture with the longest run time to win a Best Picture award (the theatrical release is the version used for Academy consideration, so the official record goes to Gone With the Wind).

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The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King holds the winningest record at the Academy Awards, for any film, not just those based on novels: it was nominated for eleven awards, and won all eleven. Only seven others films have won everything they were nominated for when they were nominated for more than two awards (you have to admit, two for two is not nearly so impressive as eleven for eleven.) Return of the King also ties for the most awards, period, with Ben-Hur and Titanic. Though, neither of those were based on a book, so we're not going to talk about them here.

One more note for The Lord of the Rings trilogy (which, of course, is based on The Lord of the Rings books by JRR Tolkein): the three films combined had 30 nominations, with 17 wins. 

Three movies have swept the "big five" wins (not just nominations, but actual wins). Two of those movies were based on novels: The Silence of the Lambs, 1991, based on The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

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and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975, based on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey. 

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The most recent film based on a novel to win Best Picture is Slumdog Millionaire, 2009, which was based on Q&A by Vikas Swarup. The novel was later re-released with the film title and a tie-in cover.

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This year, ten films are nominated for Best Picture. Two of them are based on a novel: True Grit based on True Grit by Charles Portis.

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and Winter's Bone based on Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell.

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