The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since the awards debuted in 1929. This award goes to the producers of the film and is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible to submit a nomination and vote on the final ballot. The Best Picture category is traditionally the final award of the night and is widely considered as the most prestigious honor of the ceremony.
Emil Jannings was a Swiss-born German actor who was popular in Hollywood in the 1920s. He was the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Actor for his roles in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. As of 2024, Jannings is the only German ever to have won the category.
Lewis Shepard Stone was an American film actor. He spent 29 years as a contract player at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and was best known for his portrayal of Judge James Hardy in the studio's popular Andy Hardy film series. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1929 for his performance as Russian Count Pahlen in The Patriot. Stone was also cast in seven films with Greta Garbo, including in the role of Doctor Otternschlag in the 1932 drama Grand Hotel.
Paul I was Emperor of Russia from 1796 until his 1801 assassination. Paul remained overshadowed by his mother for most of his life. He adopted the laws of succession to the Russian throne—rules that lasted until the end of the Romanov dynasty and of the Russian Empire. He also intervened in the French Revolutionary Wars and toward the end of his reign, added Kartli and Kakheti in Eastern Georgia into the empire, which was confirmed by his son and successor Alexander I.
Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward is an American retired actress. She made her career breakthrough in the 1950s and earned esteem and respect playing complex women with a characteristic nuance and depth of character. Her accolades include an Academy Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She is the oldest living Best Actress Oscar-winner.
The Last Command is a 1928 silent romantic drama film directed by Josef von Sternberg, and written by John F. Goodrich and Herman J. Mankiewicz from a story by Lajos Bíró. The film stars Emil Jannings, who won the first Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the 1929 ceremony for his performances in this film and The Way of All Flesh, the only year multiple roles were considered. Evelyn Brent and William Powell co-star.
The Way of All Flesh is a 1927 American silent drama film directed by Victor Fleming, written by Lajos Bíró, Jules Furthman, and Julian Johnson from a story by Perley Poore Sheehan. Star Emil Jannings won the first Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the 1929 ceremony for his performances in this film and The Last Command, the only year that multiple roles were considered.
The 1st Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and hosted by AMPAS president Douglas Fairbanks, honored the best films from 1 August 1927 to 31 July 1928 and took place on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Tickets cost $5 ; 270 people attended the event, which lasted 15 minutes. It is the only Academy Awards ceremony not broadcast on either radio or television; a radio broadcast was introduced for the 2nd Academy Awards.
The 2nd Academy Awards, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) on April 3, 1930, at an awards banquet in the Cocoanut Grove of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, honored the best films released between August 1, 1928, and July 31, 1929. This was the first Academy Awards ceremony broadcast on radio, by local station KNX, Los Angeles.
Peter Ludwig Graf von der Pahlen was a Russian courtier and general of Baltic German stock, who played a pivotal role in the assassination of Emperor Paul of Russia in 1801. He became a general in the Imperial Russian Army in 1798, a count in 1799, and served as the Military Governor of St. Petersburg from 1798 to 1801.
Florence Vidor was an American silent film actress.
The Age of Innocence is a 1993 American historical romantic drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. The screenplay, an adaptation of the 1920 novel of the same name by Edith Wharton, was written by Scorsese and Jay Cocks. The film stars Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder and Miriam Margolyes, and was released by Columbia Pictures. The film recounts the courtship and marriage of Newland Archer (Day-Lewis), a wealthy New York society attorney, to May Welland (Ryder); Archer then encounters and legally represents Countess Olenska (Pfeiffer) prior to unexpected romantic entanglements.
Marianne von Pistohlkors, born Marianna Erikovna von Pistohlkors was a Russian-born aristocrat and later an actress. She was a suspected co-conspirator in the murder of Grigori Rasputin. As the first wife of Count Nicholas von Zarnekau, she was known for many years as Countess Marianne von Zarnekau. She became one of the first women of nobility to attend the Imperial School of Dramatic Arts, and she appeared under the stage name of Mariana Fiory in MGM's 1944 film, Song of Russia.
The Valiant is a 1929 American pre-Code drama film released by Fox Film Corporation in the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system on May 19, 1929. It is produced and directed by William K. Howard and stars Paul Muni, Marguerite Churchill, and John Mack Brown. Although described by at least one source as a silent film containing talking sequences, synchronized music, and sound effects, The Valiant has continuous dialogue and is a full "talkie" made without a corresponding silent version.
Strictly Dishonorable is a 1951 romantic comedy film written, produced and directed by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama, and starring Ezio Pinza and Janet Leigh. It is the second film to be based on Preston Sturges' 1929 hit Broadway play of the same name after a pre-Code film released by Universal Pictures in 1931 with the same title.
Count Nikolay Alexandrovich Zubov was the eldest of the Zubov brothers who, together with Count Pahlen, masterminded the conspiracy to assassinate Tsar Paul of Russia.
Peter the Great is a 1922 German silent historical film directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki and starring Emil Jannings, Bernhard Goetzke and Dagny Servaes. It depicts the life of the reformist Russian Tsar Peter the Great. It premiered in Berlin on 2 November 1922. The film's art direction was by Hans Dreier.
The Patriot is a 1938 French historical drama film directed by Maurice Tourneur and starring Harry Baur, Pierre Renoir and Suzy Prim. The film was based on a novel by Alfred Neumann which had previously been turned into a 1928 American silent film The Patriot starring Emil Jannings. It was made by the French subsidiary of the German company Tobis Film. The sets were designed by the Russian-born art director Alexandre Lochakoff.
Poor Poor Paul is a 2003 Russian historical drama film. It is a biopic of Czar Paul I of Russia and the final film of the historical trilogy of Vitaly Melnikov "The Empire. The Beginning".
