How many films have been nominated for 12 or more Oscars in their calendar year? Only 25 across the eighty-three years of Oscar history. The King's Speech is the latest initiate of this very exclusive bunch. The films, along with their number of noms/wins, in chronological order are...
- Gone With the Wind (1939) -13/8
- Mrs. Miniver (1942) -12/6
- The Song of Bernadette (1943) -12/4
- Johnny Belinda (1948) -12/1
- All About Eve (1950) -14/6
- A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) -12/4
- From Here To Eternity (1953) -13/8
- On the Waterfront (1954) - 12/8
- Ben Hur (1959) -12/11
- My Fair Lady (1964) -12/8
- Becket (1964) - 12/1
- Mary Poppins (1964) -13/5
- Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) -13/5
- Reds (1981) -12/3
- Dances With Wolves (1990) -12/7
- Schindler's List (1993) -12/7
- Forrest Gump (1994) -13/6
- The English Patient (1996) -12/9
- Titanic (1997) -14/11
- Shakespeare in Love (1998) -13/7
- Gladiator (2000) -12/5
- The Lord of the Ring: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) -13/4
- Chicago (2003) -13/6
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) -13/3
- The King's Speech (2010) -12/???
Biggest Winner Among the Nom' Gobblers:
Ben-Hur nearly made a clean sweep, winning all its categories but Adapted Screenplay which went to the romantic drama Room at the Top instead. Ben-Hur is tied with Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King with most wins of all time... but curiously enough of the three-top Oscar earners only the fantasy epic made a clean sweep of it winning in every single one of its categories.
Biggest Loser Among the Nom' Gobblers:
Johnny Belinda which took home only one Oscar for best actress (Jane Wyman). Beckett also took home only one prize but it had a huge disadvantage in that 1964 was the most monotonous year ever nomination-wise with three (!) films clearing the obscene 12 nom hurdle. Most years don't even get one film that dominant. My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins in an infamous singing duel to the death devoured 13 Oscars between them. Supercalifragilisticexpialadocious!
CHARTS
But what you really want to know his how many of them won Best Picture, don'tcha? Well, I bolded them above so that's 15 of the 25... with 1 undetermined.
So let's do a pie chart...
God I love pie charts. And pies.
[Tangent: omg. I gotta start thinking about the Oscar party menu]
What does all this mean for The King's Speech?
Well, you'll be the judge of that in the comments, won't you? If you're just eyeballing those pie charts, and not really think about the particulars of this race , the likeliest scenario is that The King's Speech wins Best Picture and four to five other Oscars. But that seems like a lot, doesn't it? With a film as strong as The Social Network hanging around.
Before this rather shocking tally (seriously sound mixing, and cinematography???) most armchair and professional pundits assumed it was heading to only two sure wins: Actor & Screenplay with a lot of competition coming for its expected nominations in Costuming and Art Direction. But given the charts above -- not too mention the 12 nominations -- I'd say we underestimated its pull. Can it steal Best Picture from The Social Network? That would be Grand Theft Oscars.
Related Reading: Best Pictures From the Outside In
and current Oscar Race articles