The 1st Academy Awards ceremony took place on May 16, 1929, at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, recognising films released between August 1, 1927, and August 1, 1928. Organised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a non-profit body founded on May 11, 1927, by 36 film industry figures including Louis B. Mayer, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, the event set the template for what became the most widely followed film awards in the world. The ceremony lasted just 15 minutes from start to finish, and AMPAS president Douglas Fairbanks both hosted the evening and handed each statuette directly to its recipient.
Key facts
- Country: United States
- Type: Academy Awards ceremony
- Date: 16 May 1929
- Location: Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
The Ceremony
The event was held as a formal banquet rather than a public broadcast, and a ticket cost $5, which equates to roughly $94 in 2025. Guests who sat down to dinner chose between chicken fillet and sauteed sole. Douglas Fairbanks, who had co-founded the Academy two years earlier, presided over the awards presentation, which ran for only 15 minutes despite covering every competitive category the Academy had established.
The eligibility window was unique: no subsequent ceremony has covered exactly that same twelve-month period running from August 1, 1927, to August 1, 1928. Sound film was already breaking into cinemas during those months, but the Academy ruled that pictures such as The Jazz Singer could not compete against silent films, on the grounds that sound technology would give them an unfair advantage in the competitive categories.
Winners and Awards
William A. Wellman’s Wings (1927) took the Outstanding Picture award and remains the only fully silent film to win what is now called the Academy Award for Best Picture. Its $2 million production budget made it the most expensive film of its era. The Best Director prize was split into two categories that year: Frank Borzage won for Dramatic Picture for Seventh Heaven, and Lewis Milestone won for Comedy Picture for Two Arabian Knights.
F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise received the Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Picture, a category that existed only at this single ceremony. The film also won for Best Cinematography and Best Actress, making it the dominant artistic prizewinner of the night.
The Best Actress award went to Janet Gaynor for her work across three separate films: 7th Heaven, Sunrise, and Street Angel. No actress before or since has won a single Oscar citing performances in three distinct pictures, making Gaynor’s win a structural anomaly in the award’s history.
The Statuette
Louis B. Mayer asked Cedric Gibbons, the art director at MGM, to design the Academy Award trophy. Los Angeles sculptor George Stanley then realised Gibbons’s design in three dimensions. The finished statuette depicts a knight holding a crusader’s sword and standing on a reel of film.
The nickname ‘Oscar’ was not officially adopted by the Academy until 1939, a full ten years after the first ceremony. One popular account of how the name arose credits Academy librarian and eventual executive director Margaret Herrick, who reportedly remarked on seeing the trophy for the first time that it looked like her Uncle Oscar.
Did you know
- The Oscar statuette’s nickname has unclear origins. One popular account holds that Academy librarian and eventual executive director Margaret Herrick, on seeing the trophy for the first time, remarked that it resembled her Uncle Oscar. (oscars.org)
- Wings (1927), the first Best Picture winner, carried a production budget of $2 million, making it the most expensive film of its era. Director William A. Wellman was not invited to the Academy Awards banquet: Paramount executives were still displeased with him over delays during production. (cinema.ucla.edu)
- The Academy officially began using the nickname ‘Oscar’ for its awards only in 1939, ten years after the first ceremony. (history.co.uk)
- Admission to the first Academy Awards ceremony cost $5 per ticket, equivalent to roughly $94 in 2025. The dinner menu offered guests a choice of chicken fillet or sauteed sole. (tovima.com)
Data sources
Data updated: 2026-10-30