The Oscars have honored Broadway adaptations not only nominations – but with the biggest award of the night.
The 97th Academy Awards will kick off on March 2 at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, California. This year’s ceremony will be hosted by Conan O’Brien for the first time, after Jimmy Kimmel who hosted last year.
Nominated for the biggest award of the night are Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, The Substance, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Pérez, Nickel Boyz, I’m Still Here and Wicked. Wicked was nominated for 10 awards, with many hoping the Broadway adaption wins them all. If Wicked wins Best Picture, it would be the 11th musical to do so.
Here is a list of the 10 musicals that have won the category in the past.
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The first musical to win an Academy Award for Best Picture was the 1929 film, The Broadway Melody.
The musical starred Anita Page as Queenie Mahoney, Bessie Love as Hank Mahoney and Charles King as Eddie Kearns, who are stage show performers and songwriters trying to get their big break on Broadway.
The Broadway Melody beat Alibi (1929), In Old Arizona (1928) and The Patriot (1928) and The Hollywood Revue (1929) at the Academy’s second annual awards.
Based on the life and career of Ziegfeld Follies, the 1936 film The Great Ziegfeld took home Best Picture at the ninth annual Oscars.
The musical won against Anthony Adverse (1936), Dodsworth (1936), Libeled Lady (1936), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Romeo and Juliet (1936), The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936), A Tale of Two Cities (1935), and fellow musicals San Francisco (1936) and Three Smart Girls (1936).
The film was full of musical numbers and costumes as it starred William Powell as Florenz “Flo” Ziegfeld Jr, Myrna Loy as Billie Burke and Luise Rainer as Anna Held.
In 1945, Going My Way was the only musical nominated and it won against Indemnity (1944), Gaslight (1944), Since You Went Away (1944) and Wilson (1944).
Bing Crosby plays a young priest, Father OMalley, who is transferred from a church in East St. Louis to another in New York, where his style clashes with a veteran priest, Father Fitzgibbon (Barry Fitzgerald). The film is also considered one of the few comedic films to earn the Academy’s highest honor.
Leslie Caron made her film debut in the 1951 film, An American Paris. She played Lise Bouvier, alongside Gene Kelly who plays Jerry Mulligan, and Oscar Levant who plays Adam Cook. The film was about two friends who fall for the same Parisian woman and it is best known for its 17-minute final ballet sequence.
An American in Paris went against A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), A Place in the Sun (1951), Decision Before Dawn (1951) and Quo Vadis (1951).
Another Leslie Caron film that she was starred in won Best Picture but this time in 1959. Based on Colette’s 1944 book of the same name, Gigi depicts the story of an odd courtship between a young girl (Leslie Caron) and a wealthy Parisian playboy (Louis Jourdan).
Gigi beat Auntie Mame (1958), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), The Defiant Ones (1958) and Separate Tables (1958).
The 1961 film West Side Story is one of the most talked about musical films to this day. The musical starred Rita Moreno as Anita, Natalie Wood as Maria, Richard Beymer as Tony and others, and followed two gangs, the Jets and the Sharks, in 1957 New York City. The plot revolves around Tony, a former Jets player who falls in love with Maria, the Jets’ leader’s sister.
West Side Story went against Fanny (1961), The Guns of Navarone (1961), The Hustler (1961) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961).
The story of a proper English gentleman, Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison), who attempted to transform a scruffy, Cockney girl named Eliza Doolittle into a proper lady”, played by Audrey Hepburn.
My Fair Lady was nominated for Best Picture alongside Becket (1964), Dr. Strangelove (1964), Mary Poppins (1964) and Zorba the Greek (1964).
The Sound of Music tells the story of Maria (Julie Andrews) who takes a job as governess to a large family while she decides whether to become a nun. Julie stars alongside Christopher Plummer, who plays Captain Georg von Trapp, Eleanor Parker, who plays The Baroness and others.
The musican beat Darling (1965), Doctor Zhivago (1965), Ship of Fools (1965) and A Thousand Clowns (1965).
The 1968 Broadway adaption based on the Charles Dicken’s novel, 9-year-old orphan Oliver Twist (Mark Lester) falls in with a group of street-urchin pickpockets led by the Artful Dodger (Jack Wild) and masterminded by the criminal Fagin (Ron Moody).
Oliver! beat The Lion in Winter (1968), Romeo and Juliet (1968), Rachel, Rachel (1968) and Funny Girl (1968).
It took 34 years for a musical to win Best Picture after Oliver!. Chicago won the category in 2003 and starred Renée Zellweger as Roxie Hart, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Velma Kelly, Richard Gere as Billy Flynn and others.
The musical shows two rival murderesses getting locked up in Cook County Jail. Velma serves time for killing her husband and sister after finding the two in bed together, while Roxie goes to jail for having an affair.
Chicago beat Gangs of New York (2002), The Hours (2002), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) and The Pianist (2002).
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