A Brief History of Oscar Ties

by Cláudio Alves

Best Live-Action Short Film is the only category to count two ties in its Oscar history.

Last month, at the 98th Academy Awards, the world got to witness the seventh official tie in Oscar history. Presenter Kumail Nanjiani was quick to assure the audience that this was not a bit but something that was really happening as the Best Live-Action Short Film race came down to two victors – The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva. For someone like me, what made this even more momentous was how, for once, the Academy made a good choice, even if they didn’t make up their mind. In a category where good taste goes to die, our champions are good examples of the form, amply deserving of this honor and their new place in the annals of Oscar history. Who would have thought?

For some added context, join me as I go over these seven ties. Were they all deserving? Let’s find out…

1931/2) Best Actor in a Leading Role

Wallace Beery, THE CHAMP
Fredric March, DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE

The first tie in Oscar history isn’t really a tie. Back during the 5th Academy Awards, the rule book specified that whenever the final tally had a difference of three votes or less, a tie would be declared. In this case, the difference was of one vote, with Fredric March winning for his work in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – how curious that the first and seventh ties happened at a ceremony where Best Actor went to a dual role in a horror movie. But, with these old rules in place, Wallace Beery also got an Oscar for The Champ, a lesser yet not wholly uninspired pick. If a tie were to happen, I might have gone with March and Alfred Lunt’s work in The Guardsman, but it is what it is.

Looking at the two pictures and performances side by side, their contrast is rather fascinating. Rouben Mamoulian’s take on Robert Louis Stevenson’s most celebrated story is a fine piece of pre-Code proto-horror, at times sensual, terrifying at others. The effects work, best evidenced in the doctor’s transformation, is rightly famous, but it’s far from the film’s only formal triumph. Karl Struss’ Oscar-nominated cinematography is just as impressive, and there’s a curious tension in an art direction that seems caught in a three-way intersection between French Romanticism, German Expressionism, and Old Hollywood spectacle, all in service of rendering Victorian London as a foggy celluloid dream.

But of course, none of it would feel quite as special without March’s tour de force, which anchors the exercise and gives it purpose. In some ways, he is the manifestation of the project’s elegance and oppositional grotesquerie, shrewd enough to understand that those extremes aren’t separate. Instead, he lets Hyde project intelligence from within his animalistic fervor, while Jekyll is just as dangerous as his alter ego. Watching the mad doctor corner Miriam Hopkins’ bar singer is almost more upsetting than witnessing Hyde’s come for the same woman. An explicit evil is less insidious than that which hides behind respectability.

Beery has much less to work with in The Champ, a project whose sentimentality can lead down a path of tonal disorder, mayhap an outright pandemonium. In other words, while Frances Marion’s story earned an Oscar, it’s a bit of a mess. The best part of it is probably how Beery attacks the melodrama with as much gusto, as much rough-hewn excess, as he was prone to bring to comedies. It allows his alcoholic former heavyweight champion to transcend the genre’s potential for self-pity, focusing instead on the portrait of a broken man keenly aware of his own brokenness yet unable to fix himself. There are limits to the characterization, and Jackie Cooper steals the show as Beery’s on-screen son, but this is still a worthy Best Actor win. 

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is currently streaming on HBO Max. It’s also available to rent on such platforms as Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video. The Champ is available to rent or purchase on Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, and Fandango at Home.

1949) Best Documentary Short Film

A CHANCE TO LIVE, Richard de Rochemont
SO MUCH FOR SO LITTLE, Edward Selzer

The worst tie in Oscar history is also its first real one, as rules had changed by the 22nd Academy Awards, demanding the same exact number of votes for two nominees to win the same category. Then again, this happened at a time when the primary criteria for the Best Documentary Short category seemed to be the thing’s educational and/or propagandistic utility. In that regard, the winners are quite apt, with A Chance to Live dripping with American self-regard as director James L. Shute points his camera to the efforts of Monsignor John Patrick Carroll-Abbin to create Boys Towns in post-war Italy. As a part of the March of Time series, it exists in that nebulous place between observational non-fiction and hectoring docudrama, leaning more toward the latter with all its reenactments, each more unpersuasive than what came before.

So Much for So Little benefits from direct comparison. If nothing else, its form is infinitely more interesting, finding Chuck Jones trying his usual tricks while limited to a vaguely realist human proportion in matters of character design. Then again, these modest triumphs of animation are in service of something that could best be described as a state-sponsored ad. It’s for a good cause, alright, and it still feels progressive TODAY(!) to advocate for socialized healthcare in the USA. However, this format rarely makes for great art, and So Much for So Little is no different. And to add insult to injury, the only person bringing anything of value to the project didn’t even win the Oscar. After all, 1949 was still a time when only producers won this category, not directors.

A low-quality copy of A Chance to Live is available on YouTube. You can stream So Much for So Little on GuideDoc and Apple TV. It's also on YouTube!

1968) Best Actress in a Leading Role

Katharine Hepburn, THE LION IN WINTER
Barbra Streisand, FUNNY GIRL

What an iconic moment! Ingrid Bergman declaration of “it’s a tie” will live on in the minds of Oscar obsessives and other actressexuals, her very cadence and most minimal gestures fated to be remembered forevermore. Hepburn’s absence makes it even more iconic, as does Babs see-through ensemble, perhaps the most late 60s design to ever late 60s. Yes, the Best Actress result presentation at the 41st Academy Awards is one of the pinnacles of this near-100-year-old tradition. More importantly, however, is just how remarkable the honored achievements are. This is the best tie ever for the moment itself but also because it’s very hard to choose between who most deserved the statuette.

Truly, they’re both among the best winners the category ever saw. If forced to go with just one of them, I prefer Hepburn’s turn as Eleanor of Aquitaine, her mixture of poison and vulnerability a mesmerizing thing to witness. If Bergman opening that envelope is stuck in my head, so are a number of Hepburn’s line readings in this most ruthless of Christmas movies. That said, if I were an actual Oscar voter in 1968, I might have ticked Streisand on my ballot. After all, Funny Girl is one of the most perfect “a star is born” experiences Hollywood ever produced, its leading lady just as commanding in her comedienne mode as when she’s serving romantic melodrama, musical extravagance and small character moments. 

More importantly, Hepburn had just won an undeserved Oscar the year before for Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. It’s not among her worst efforts, but it’s hardly among her best, and it pales in comparison to all the other nominees. Justice for Bancroft, for Dunaway, for Audrey Hepburn, and the eternally Oscarless Edith Evans. Anyway, I’m still happy that they both won and can only dream about a universe where Best Actress 1950 also resolved itself in a tie. Also, it’s worth pointing out that then Academy president Gregory Peck went against tradition and invited Streisand into AMPAS despite Funny Girl marking her debut. Which means that, presuming she voted for herself, that single decision forced the tie.

The Lion in Winter is streaming on Kanopy and Plex. You can also rent or buy it from such platforms as Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video. Funny Girl is also available to rent or purchase from Apple TV and Amazon Prime, along with Spectrum and Fandango at Home.

1986) Best Documentary Feature Film

ARTIE SHAW: TIME IS ALL YOU’VE GOT, Brigitte Berman
DOWN AND OUT IN AMERICA, Joseph Feury & Milton Justice

Another documentary tie, another sad reminder that the Academy’s practice of only honoring producers in these categories lasted for way too long. In case you didn’t know, Down and Out in America was directed by Lee Grant, who should have become a two-time Academy Award winner when her project tied with Brigitte Berman’s Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got. It’s even more galling when one remembers how much Grant’s collaboration meant for the awarded producers, including her husband, Joseph Feury. They delayed the entire thing just to allow her to join as director, a wise decision considering so much of the picture’s power derives from Grant’s palpable fury behind the camera.

It’s difficult to overstate how remarkable the footage she collected is, all about those Americans affected by poverty in the age of Reaganomics. Whether observational or more directly engaged through interview, the way Grant engages with her subject is equal parts empathetic and outraged, conveying dignity to the folks in front of the camera while taking their pain to paint a mural of a society out of sorts, too drunk on the myth of pulling oneself by the bootstraps to realize the effects of such widespread economic selfishness on the disenfranchised, the marginalized, the unlucky. In less than 60 minutes, Down and Out in America puts forward a formidable argument, punctuated, at the end, with some unforgettable words by a desperate mother: "The land of opportunity? Where? Where is it? Show me? Somebody show me where the land of opportunity is." 

Grant’s no-nonsense narration doesn’t diminish the overall film, though it’s one element that imprisons it within a certain idea of 1980s non-fiction convention. Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got is even more beholden to mainstream documentary traditions, presenting a portrait of the famous bandleader that’s not too different from those celebrity bio docs we find polluting the streaming algorithm on the regular nowadays. Still, Berman brings a lot of elegance to her film, knowing when to linger and let the edit breathe, allowing for beautiful moments of implied reminiscence, as when we witness the brusque Shaw stop on his tracks and lose himself in recordings of his past glory. It helps that the musician proves himself a fascinating figure and that James Aquila and Mark Irwin’s cinematography imbues the whole project with a touch of sophistication. 

Is this a tie for the ages? Maybe not, but it’s a good one nonetheless, managing to honor two very different modes of American documentary filmmaking. You have the proselytizing political activism of Grant’s movie on one side, and the individual-minded portraiture of Artie Shaw on the other. It’s also notable that this is the first and only time when both projects were directed by women, making for a good reminder that female filmmakers have historically had a better chance of breaking into the American industry through non-fiction rather than narrative work. Indeed, the 1986 Best Documentary Feature lineup had another woman directing in the running, with Sharon I. Sopher, who helmed the Emmy-winning Witness to Apartheid.

Artie Shaw: Time Is All You’ve Got is available on Film Movement, Apple TV, and Hoopla. You can find Down and Out in America on Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Kanopy, and Fandango at Home.

1994) Best Live-Action Short Film

FRANZ KAFKA’S IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, Peter Capaldi & Ruth Kenley-Letts
TREVOR, Peggy Rajski & Randy Stone

Peter Capaldi is one of those folks whose Oscar win is mostly forgotten because they’re so much more famous for their work in front of the camera. The same could be said of fellow nominees Sean Astin, who also vied for this Oscar in 1994 with Kangaroo Court, and JoBeth Williams with her relatively star-studded On Hope. Not that Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life is lacking in well-known names in its cast. Richard E. Grant plays a very British-ized take on Franz Kafka suffering from writer’s block as he tries to pen his Metamorphosis. For someone circling the same one joke for 23 minutes, the actor is remarkably adept at finding variation in his comedic despair.

The same could be said about the coterie of colorful figures who knock on his door and disrupt the author’s solipsistic breakdown. I’m especially fond of Phyllis Logan’s purposefully annoying presence in an outlandish piece of 1910s millinery courtesy of costume designer Hazel Pethig. For sure, the production value is off the charts for what amounts to an extended comedy sketch, sets and cinematography pointing toward a pseudo-Expressionistic spin on the quaint English period drama, while the effects and score push for something altogether more absurd, perchance surreal. In a category where miserabilism so often wins, Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life provides necessary variation. 

Peggy Rjski’s Trevor follows a similar note. Here, a young high schooler confronts his homosexuality and ponders suicide as seen through a stylized tenor of high melodrama. The tonal alchemy at hand is rather risky, yet the film maintains a sense of empathy toward its title character. It draws laughs from his unrequited crush, the way he seems to be the last one to know his Diana Ross-loving ass is gay, while never feeling like it’s mocking him. One could say that Rjski’s experiment has a kinship with Todd Haynes’ Dottie Gets Spanked, though less overtly metatextual and not nearly as alienating in style. Nevertheless, it’s an important title in the history of New Queer Cinema of the 1990s. 

In fact, less than four years later, the director would found the Trevor Project in partnership with fellow filmmakers Celeste Lecesne and Randy Stone, with whom she shared this Oscar win. With its focus on suicide prevention among LGBTQ+ youth, the organization remains one of the best things to ever come out of an Oscar-winning film, going forward with a mission to help all the Trevors out there. Looking at all these ties, it’s interesting to note just how many of them blossom from contrasting approaches and the ensuing divisions such things may inspire in the voting body, even when the two projects share a humorous irreverence as they do here. All in all, a fantastic tie – also, fantastic speeches from the winners.

Low-quality copies of Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life can be found on such video platforms as YouTube and VK Video. Trevor is freely available on various sites, courtesy of the Trevor Project.

2012) Best Sound Editing

SKYFALL, Per Hallberg & Karen Baker Landers
ZERO DARK THIRTY, Paul N. J. Ottosson

You might have noticed that, in most of these ties, there’s at least one first-time winner among the honored artists. Not so at the 85th Academy Awards, when Karen Baker Landers won her second Oscar, while Per Hallberg and Paul N. J. Ottonson collected their third little golden men. That detail might be a bitter pill to swallow for Skyfall’s re-recording mixer, Greg P. Russell. The Bond movie brought him his 16th nomination and, to this day, he hasn’t won. Had the Mixing and Editing categories been merged sooner, would he finally have an Oscar. Or would both Skyfall and Zero Dark Thirty have lost to Les Misérables? 

Conjectures aside, it’s hard to argue against these results, even if, personally, I feel more inclined to give Ottonson a solo win. There’s something really special about how he negotiates Bigelow’s demands for gritty realism with the dramatic potential of the film’s specific scenarios. At times, Zero Dark Thirty is working to immerse you in the environments its characters inhabit, as if you were there with them. At other times, the film pulls for a deeper sense of subjectivity, inviting you to be in these people’s heads rather than their companions. I’m thinking of the contrast between the polyphonic mayhem of the marketplace versus the blast that shakes a dinner for two. 

Skyfall’s sound effects are less interesting, but not by much. There’s the polish and spectacle this franchise accustomed its audience to, with some narrative-specific tidbits to zhuzh it up some. I’m thinking of the entire Home Alone sequence, where the dynamic duo of Hallberg and Baker Landers get to rethink the series’ commonplace explosions and gunshot as artisanal boobytraps. Those lightbulbs full of nails are an especially nice challenge. And then there’s the Komodo dragon in the casino’s pit, the crispy crackling and roar of a manor house consumed by flames in the distance, glass walls shattering around a gunfight.

Skyfall is streaming on Netflix and Apple TV. You can also rent or purchase it on a variety of platforms, including Amazon Prime Video and Fandango at Home. Zero Dark Thirty is streaming on Apple TV and Paramount+. You can rent the film on various other platforms, including Spectrum and Plex.

2025) Best Live-Action Short Film

THE SINGERS, Sam A. Davis & Jack Piatt
TWO PEOPLE EXCHANGING SALIVA, Alexandre Singh & Natalie Musteata

Since I’ve started following the Oscars and committing myself to the insanity of watching every nominated film, no category has disappointed me so much or with as much regularity as Best Live-Action Short Film. The amount of misery porn and suffering children this race has selected over the years is staggering, not to mention unrepresentative of the form. If you watch short films beyond the Oscars, trust that they aren’t as monotonously bleak as all that. This year’s crop of five managed to evade such fates, while still falling into the mediocrity that has characterized this chapter of Oscar history. Well, three of them did.

And then there were two, the exceptions to this rule of inadequacy and our ultimate winners. First, there’s The Singers, the kind of film you’d expect to see from a cinematographer turned director. Sam A. Davis, whose name you might recognize from having shot Dídi, adapts a short story by Ivan Turgenev where a night at the pub turns into an improvised singing competition between melancholic drunkards. This is the sort of premise that benefits from the short film’s miniature proportion, being more about an echoing gesture than narrative flux. Moreover, it allows Davis to experiment with purposeful low-light cinematography, finding Rembrandt-like portraiture when glancing at the patrons, faces emerging from velvety shadow, smoke plumes framing their countenance. 

There’s a beautiful simplicity in The Singers that’s altogether absent from Two People Exchanging Saliva. Musteata and Singh’s film is almost too complicated for its own good, coming up with the bizarre sci-fi premise of a future Paris where kissing is illegal and the economy runs on slaps. Sure, one can surmise many meanings from this, from a commentary on a society where violence is more attractive to capital than tenderness, or a meditation on how much we’ve grown disconnected from each other. All this serves as context for a tale of lesbian yearning between a shop girl and a dissatisfied housewife, tragic romance styled like a fashion editorial in silvery grayscale. Characters have names like Malaise and Chagrin, symbolism abounds and it’s all a bit too precious for its own good.

However, the execution is pitch-perfect. One should expect stylishness from a film produced by the Galeries Lafayette, but Two People Exchanging Saliva exceeds expectations with its retro costumes and lush score, production design so sharp it could cut glass, and a cast full of beautiful people who’re as adept at striking fetching poses as they are at pantomiming pain melting into the possibility of pleasure. Zar Amir Ebrahimi is excellent as the bored wife, yet Luàna Bajrami is even more impressive in a weirder, less demonstrative register. Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned Vicky Krieps doing narrator duties with a droll delivery that makes everything happening on screen feel haunting, deep, transgressive, too.

The cherry on top was how everything unraveled on stage at the 98th Academy Awards. Nanjiani did a great job as a presenter, avoiding the vague clumsiness with which Mark Wahlberg handled the situation in 2012. Moreover, the speeches were allowed to breathe in a night when playing off winners resulted in a minor controversy. The French team even got to get in a dig at Chalamet’s unfortunate comments on the campaign trail. These filmmakers won’t be seen disrespecting the performing arts, thank you very much. Viva l’Opera! Vive le Ballet! And all hail these short filmmakers who made Oscar history, turning their category into the only one in Academy history to have more than one tie in its annals.

The Singers is streaming exclusively on Netflix. Two People Exchanging Saliva is currently available on Apple TV and Vimeo.

Which tie is your favorite? And, if you could turn a past Oscar wun into a tie, which would it be? Please, sound off in the comments.

Comments

[Mr Ripley79]

Any particular years you would have liked to have seen or preferred a tie.

My 3 pics off the top of my head just the acting categories

1991 Foster and Sarandon
1979 Sellers and Hoffman
1950 Davis and Swanson

I am sure there'd be many more if I looked into it.