Academy Awards Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

Trivia quiz questions with answers about the Academy Awards.

Academy Awards Trivia Quiz Questions With Answers

What are the Academy Awards?
A: The Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars, are a set of awards for artistic and technical merit in the film industry, given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), to recognize excellence in cinematic achievements as assessed by the Academy's voting membership.

What are the various category winners awarded?
A: A copy of a golden statuette, officially called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more commonly referred to by its nickname "Oscar".

The award was originally sculpted by whom?
A: George Stanley from a design sketch by Cedric Gibbons.

When was the Academy Awards ceremony first broadcast on radio?
A: In 1930 and televised for the first time in 1953.

It is the oldest worldwide what?
A: Entertainment awards ceremony and is now seen live worldwide.

Its equivalents, the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music are modeled after what?
A: The Academy Awards.

The 91st Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2018, will be held when?
A: On February 24, 2019, at the Dolby Theatre, in Los Angeles, California.

The ceremony will be broadcast on what network?
A: ABC.

A total of how many Oscar statuettes have been awarded from the inception of the award through the 90th ceremony?
A: 3,072.

When was the first Academy Awards presentation was held?
A: On May 16, 1929, at a private dinner function.

Where was it held?
A: At the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people.

The post-awards party was held where?
A: At the Mayfair Hotel.

The cost of guest tickets for that night's ceremony was how much?
A: $5 ($73 in 2018 dollars).

How many statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the film-making industry of the time, for their works during the 1927–28 period?
A: Fifteen.

The ceremony ran for how long?
A: 15 minutes.

When were the winners announced to media?
A: Three months earlier.

That was changed for the what?
A: The second ceremony in 1930.

Since then, for the rest of the first decade, when were the results given to newspapers for publication?
A: At 11:00 pm on the night of the awards.

This method was used until an occasion when the Los Angeles Times did what?
A: Announced the winners before the ceremony began; as a result, the Academy has, since 1941, used a sealed envelope to reveal the name of the winners.

Who was the first Best Actor awarded to?
A: Emil Jannings, for his performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh.

He had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier, making him what?
A: This made him the first Academy Award winner in history.

At that time, the winners were recognized for all of their work done in a certain category during what?
A: The qualifying period.

With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, and professionals were honored for what?
A: A specific performance in a single film.

For the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned what time period?
A: Two calendar years.

At the 29th ceremony, held on 27 March 1957, what category was introduced?
A: The Best Foreign Language Film.

Until then, foreign-language films had been honored with what?
A: The Special Achievement Award.

The 74th Academy Awards, held in 2002, presented the first what?
A: Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

Since 1973, all Academy Awards ceremonies have ended with what?
A: The Academy Award for Best Picture.

What is the best known award?
A: The Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette.

Made of gold-plated bronze on a black metal base, it is how tall?
A: 13.5 in (34.3 cm).

What does it weigh?
A: 8.5 lb (3.856 kg).

What does it depict?
A: It depicts a knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a crusader's sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes.

What do the five spokes represent?
A: The original branches of the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, and Technicians.

The model for the statuette is said to be whom?
A: Mexican actor Emilio "El Indio" Fernández.

Sculptor George Stanley (who also did the Muse Fountain at the Hollywood Bowl) sculpted whose design?
A: Cedric Gibbons' design.

The statuettes presented at the initial ceremonies were gold-plated solid what?
A: Bronze.

Within a few years the bronze was abandoned in favor of what?
A: Britannia metal, a pewter-like alloy which is then plated in copper, nickel silver, and finally, 24-karat gold.

Due to a metal shortage during World War II, Oscars were made of what for three years?
A: Painted plaster.

Following the war, the Academy invited recipients to do what?
A: To redeem the plaster figures for gold-plated metal ones.

The only addition to the Oscar since it was created is what?
A: A minor streamlining of the base.

Where was the original Oscar mold cast in 1928?
A: At the C.W. Shumway & Sons Foundry in Batavia, Illinois, which also contributed to casting the molds for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and Emmy Award's statuettes.

From 1983 to 2015, approximately 50 Oscars in a tin alloy with gold plating were made each year in Chicago by whom?
A: Illinois manufacturer R.S. Owens & Company.

It would take how long to manufacture 50 statuettes?
A: Between three and four weeks.

In 2016, the Academy returned to bronze as the core metal of the statuettes, handing manufacturing duties to whom?
A: Walden, New York-based Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry.

While based on a digital scan of an original 1929 Oscar, the statuettes retain their what?
A: Their modern-era dimensions and black pedestal.

Cast in liquid bronze from 3D-printed ceramic molds and polished, they are then electroplated in what?
A: 24-karat gold by Brooklyn, New York–based Epner Technology.

The time required to produce 50 such statuettes is roughly how long?
A: Three months.

When did the trophy officially received the name "Oscar"?
A: In 1939 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

To prevent information identifying the Oscar winners from leaking ahead of the ceremony, Oscar statuettes presented at the ceremony have what?
A: Blank base plates.

Until 2010, winners returned their statuettes to the Academy, and had to wait several weeks to have what?
A: Their names inscribed on their respective Oscars.

Since 2010, winners have had the option of having engraved nameplates applied to their statuettes where?
A: At an inscription-processing station at the Governor's Ball, a party held immediately after the Oscar ceremony.

The R.S. Owens company has engraved nameplates made before the ceremony, bearing the name of what?
A: Every potential winner.

The nameplates for the non-winning nominees are later what?
A: recycled.

Since 1950, the statuettes have been legally encumbered by the requirement that what?
A: Neither winners nor their heirs may sell the statuettes without first offering to sell them back to the Academy for US$1.

If a winner refuses to agree to this stipulation, then the Academy does what?
A: It keeps the statuette.

Academy Awards not protected by this agreement have been sold in public auctions and private deals for how much?
A: Six-figure sums.

In December 2011, Orson Welles' 1941 Oscar for Citizen Kane (Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay) was put up for auction, after his heirs won a what?
A: A 2004 court decision contending that Welles did not sign any agreement to return the statue to the Academy.

On 20 December 2011, it sold in an online auction for how much?
A: US$861,542.

In 1992, Harold Russell needed money for what?
A: His wife's medical expenses.

In a controversial decision, he consigned his 1946 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for The Best Years of Our Lives to whom?
A: Herman Darvick Autograph Auctions, and on 6 August 1992, in New York City, the Oscar sold to a private collector for $60,500.

Why was he not required to offer it to the Academy first?
A: Because he won the award before 1950.