Which film has won the most Oscars ever? Academy Award winner records
Find out who’s had the most nominations and wins for acting, directing, screenwriting and more.
While this year's Oscar Best Picture lineup is an extremely impressive and varied one, there is one film in particular that has emerged as the hot favourite to scoop up the most awards: Christopher Nolan's critically acclaimed box office smash Oppenheimer.
The film is up for a grand total of 13 awards, including Best Picture, Best Director for Nolan, and Best Actor for Cillian Murphy, and is widely expected to convert several of those nominations into wins at Hollywood's Dolby Theatre on Sunday 10th March.
Meanwhile, other films with multiple nods include Poor Things on 11, Killers of the Flower Moon on 10 and Barbie on 8, each of whom will be hoping to take home at least one award when all is said and done.
But the question is, with its whopping 13 nominations, does Oppenheimer have a chance of breaking records to become the most decorated film in Academy Award history?
The Oscars are almost 100 years old, having first been held in 1929, and since then there have been a whole heap of victories celebrating the entertainment industry's very best on-screen and behind-the-scenes talent.
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Read on to find out which film has the prestigious claim of owning the most Academy Awards, along with information about which actors, directors and screenwriters have collected the largest number of golden statuettes.
Here’s everything you need to know.
Which film has won the most Oscars of all time?
Three films hold the record of winning the most Academy Awards, having garnered 11 Oscars each: Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
Out of these, Titanic received the most nods with a total of 14 nominations.
There's a remote chance of the record being equalled or bettered this time around – Oppenheimer is up for 13 awards so would need to win in all but two of the categories in which it's nominated to draw level with the three aforementioned films, which seems relatively unlikely.
Even more outlandish would be Poor Things, which can technically draw level given it is also up for eleven awards, but it would need to accomplish the extremely unlikely feat of winning in all of those categories – an all but impossible task.
Who has won the most Oscars of all time?
The person who has triumphed more times at the Oscars than anyone else in history is Walt Disney.
America’s most iconic filmmaker racked up a whopping 26 Oscars, four of which were honorary awards, and he also holds the record for the most nominations on record – 59.
Who has won the most Oscars for acting?
Actress Katharine Hepburn holds the record for the most Oscars for acting, having won four Academy Awards across her career and earned a total of 12 nominations.
Hepburn won Oscars in the best actress category for her performances in the films Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968) and On Golden Pond (1981).
Actors Jack Nicholson, Daniel Day-Lewis and Walter Brennan, meanwhile, are the three men with the most Oscars for acting, having each won three times.
While some of Brennan and Nicholson’s awards were for best supporting actor, all three of Day-Lewis’s victories were for best leading actor, and he holds the record in that category.
Who is the most nominated actor at the Oscars?
The person with the most nominations for acting is Meryl Streep, who has received 21 nods over the course of her career.
She has won three times for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Sophie’s Choice (1982) and The Iron Lady (2011).
Streep has also been nominated for The Deer Hunter, The French Lieutenant's Woman, Silkwood, Out of Africa, Ironweed, A Cry in the Dark, Postcards from the Edge, The Bridges of Madison County, One True Thing, Music of the Heart, Adaptation, The Devil Wears Prada, Doubt, Julie & Julia, August: Osage County, Into the Woods, Florence Foster Jenkins, and The Post.
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Who has won the most Oscars for directing?
John Ford won none of his four Oscars for his famous Westerns. Instead, he holds the Best Director record for The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941) and The Quiet Man (1952).
Although Ford has won the most Oscars of any director, William Wyler holds the record for the most nominations in this discipline earning 12, three of which won him some silverware. Ford was nominated for five overall, boasting an enviable conversion rate.
Which British person has won the most Oscars?
Film composer John Barry has won more Oscars than any other Brit.
He has garnered five Academy Awards in total, two for Born Free (1966), and one each for Lion in Winter (1968), Out of Africa (1985) and Dances with Wolves (1990).
Who has won the most Oscars for screenwriting?
Five people have been awarded three screenwriting Oscars: Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, and Paddy Chayefsky.
But it is Allen who has won the most Academy Awards in the Best Original Screenplay category, for his films Annie Hall (1977), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), and Midnight in Paris (2011).
Which British actor has won the most Oscars?
That would be Daniel Day Lewis with his three wins for My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood and Lincoln.
The actor was also nominated for Oscars for his turns in In the Name of the Father, Gangs of New York and Phantom Thread.
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