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The Movies That Won The Most Oscars

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: December 25, 2023 10:47 am

The Oscars, the annual movie excellence awards from the Academy of Motion Pictures, date back to 1929. Voting for the awards is done by over 10,000 Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences members. A total of 398 new members joined last year.

For Oscar voting, members in each category cast a ballot for the nominees in their respective categories. Actors only vote for actors, for example. For the best picture, all members can vote. When voting for the winners, all members can vote in all categories. The final ballots are submitted online and given to two partners of the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. The winners’ names are unknown outside this group until just before each winner is announced.

The highest number of wins by any film is eleven. Three films have reached this level–” Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)”, “Titanic” (1997), and “Ben Hur” (1959). These are the best movies directed by actors.

According to Variety information for each film, “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Kingdom” was part of a series based on novels by J.R.R. Tolkien. It won an Oscar for Best Picture, director, adapted screenplay, editing, set decoration, costume design, makeup, original score, original song, sound mixing, and visual effects, the magazine reports. These are the 55 best movies ever made.

Unlike “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Kingdom,” “Titanic” starred two of the most accomplished film actors of their generation–-Leonardo Dicaprio and Kate Winslet. Its wins were for “best picture, director, cinematography, set decoration, costume design, film editor, score, song, sound, sound effects editing and visual effects.”

“Ben Hur” stars one of the most famous actors in movie history–Charlton Heston. His films include The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Touch of Evil (1958), The Big Country (1958), El Cid (1961), The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), and Planet of the Apes (1968), Variety reports that “Bun Hur” won for best picture, director, actor, supporting actor, cinematography (color), set decoration (color), costume design (color), film editing, score, sound and special effects.

Notably, two of these films did extremely well at the box office. When adjusted for inflation, “Titanic” ranks fourth on the highest-grossing movie list at $2.3 billion, “Lord of the Rings: The Return of the Kingdom” ranks 29th at $1.1 billion. While “Ben Hur” is not near the top of the highest-grossing films list, it was the most expensive made in history up until its time, with a budget of $15.1 million. It is a number that has been surpassed hundreds of times since then.