41st Academy Awards


The 41st Academy Awards were presented on April 14, 1969, the first to be staged at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. For the first time since the 11th Academy Awards, there was no host.
Oliver! is the only winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture to receive a G-rating prior to winning the award, as well as the last British film to win Best Picture until Chariots of Fire in 1982 and the last movie musical to win until Chicago in 2003.
The year was notable for the first—and so far, only—tie for Best Actress. Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter and Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl shared the award. Hepburn also became the second actress and third performer overall to win an acting Oscar two years in a row, after Luise Rainer in 1936 and 1937, and Spencer Tracy in 1937 and 1938. The previous year, Hepburn had won Best Actress for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
As the special effects director and designer for , Stanley Kubrick was the recipient of the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, the only Oscar he would ever win.
Cliff Robertson's performance in Charly was met with a generally mixed reception from critics and audiences. When he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, it engendered some controversy: less than two weeks after the ceremony, TIME mentioned the Academy's generalized concerns over "excessive and vulgar solicitation of votes" and said "many members agreed that Robertson's award was based more on promotion than on performance."
Young Americans was announced as the Documentary Feature winner, but on May 7, 1969, the film was disqualified when it was discovered that it had premiered in October 1967, thus making it ineligible for a 1968 award. Journey into Self, the first runner-up, was awarded the Oscar the following day.
Controversy was created on Oscar night when Johnny Carson and Buddy Hackett announced in a sketch on the evening's Tonight Show, which was recorded three hours before the awards ceremony, that Oliver! would be the winner for Best Picture and that Jack Albertson would win for Best Supporting Actor. Columnist Frances Drake claimed that most observers believed Carson and Hackett "were playing a huge practical joke or happened to make a lucky guess". As Carson recalled it on the air years later, it created a huge controversy and people at Price Waterhouse were fired. Referring to it as "The Great Carson Hoax", PricewaterhouseCoopers stated in a 2004 press release that it was "later proven that Carson and Hackett made a few lucky guesses for their routine, dispelling rumors of a security breach and keeping the integrity of the balloting process intact". The Academy later hired Carson five times to host the ceremony.

Winners

Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface and indicated with a double dagger.
Best PictureBest Director

  • Oliver! – John Woolf, producer
  • *Funny Girl – Ray Stark, producer
  • *The Lion In Winter – Martin Poll, producer
  • *Rachel, Rachel – Paul Newman, producer
  • *Romeo and Juliet – John Brabourne and Anthony Havelock-Allan, producers
  • Carol Reed – Oliver!
  • *Stanley Kubrick – '
  • *Gillo Pontecorvo – The Battle of Algiers
  • *Anthony Harvey – The Lion In Winter
  • *Franco Zeffirelli – Romeo and Juliet
    • Best ActorBest Actress
  • Cliff Robertson – Charly as Charlie Gordon
  • *Alan Arkin – The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter as John Singer
  • *Alan Bates – The Fixer as Yakov Bok
  • *Ron Moody – Oliver! as Fagin
  • *Peter O'Toole – The Lion In Winter as King Henry II of England
  • Katharine Hepburn – The Lion In Winter as Eleanor of Aquitaine
  • Barbra Streisand – Funny Girl as Fanny Brice
  • *Patricia Neal – The Subject Was Roses as Nettie Cleary
  • *Vanessa Redgrave – Isadora as Isadora Duncan
  • *Joanne Woodward – Rachel, Rachel as Rachel Cameron
    • Best Supporting ActorBest Supporting Actress
  • Jack Albertson – The Subject Was Roses as John Cleary
  • *Seymour Cassel – Faces as Chet
  • *Daniel Massey – Star! as Noël Coward
  • *Jack Wild – Oliver! as Jack Dawkins
  • *Gene Wilder – The Producers as Leo Bloom
  • Ruth Gordon – Rosemary's Baby as Minnie Castevet
  • *Lynn Carlin – Faces as Maria Frost
  • *Sondra Locke – The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter as Mick Kelly
  • *Kay Medford – Funny Girl as Rose Stern Borach
  • *Estelle Parsons – Rachel, Rachel as Calla Mackie
    • Best Story and Screenplay Written Directly for the ScreenBest Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium
  • The Producers – Mel Brooks
  • *' – Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke
  • *The Battle of Algiers – Franco Solinas and Gillo Pontecorvo
  • *Faces – John Cassavetes
  • *Hot Millions – Ira Wallach and Peter Ustinov
  • The Lion in Winter – James Goldman based on his play
  • *The Odd Couple – Neil Simon based on his play
  • *Oliver! – Vernon Harris based on the play by Lionel Bart and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
  • *Rachel, Rachel – Stewart Stern based on the novel A Jest of God by Margaret Laurence
  • *Rosemary's Baby – Roman Polanski based on the novel by Ira Levin
    • Best Documentary FeatureBest Documentary Short Subject
  • Journey into Self – Bill McGaw
  • *A Few Notes on Our Food Problem – U.S. Information Agency
  • *The Legendary Champions – William Cayton
  • *Other Voices – David H. Sawyer
  • *Young Americans – Robert Cohn and Alex Grasshoff
  • Why Man Creates – Saul Bass
  • *The House That Ananda Built – Films Division, Government of India
  • *The Revolving Door – Vision Associates Production for the American Foundation Institute of Corrections
  • *A Space to Grow – Office of Economic Opportunity for Project Upward Bound
  • *A Way Out of the Wilderness – Dan E. Weisburd
    • Best Live Action Short SubjectBest Short Subject – Cartoons
  • Robert Kennedy Remembered – Guggenheim Productions
  • *The Dove – Coe-Davis Ltd.
  • *Duo – National Film Board of Canada
  • *Prelude – Prelude Co.
  • Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day – Walt Disney
  • *The House That Jack Built – National Film Board of Canada
  • *The Magic Pear Tree – Murakami-Wolf Films
  • *Windy Day – Hubley Studios
    • Best Original Score for a Motion Picture Best Score of a Musical Picture – Original or Adaptation
  • The Lion in Winter – John Barry
  • *The Fox – Lalo Schifrin
  • *Planet of the Apes – Jerry Goldsmith
  • *The Shoes of the Fisherman – Alex North
  • *The Thomas Crown Affair – Michel Legrand
  • Oliver! – Johnny Green
  • *Finian's Rainbow – Ray Heindorf
  • *Funny Girl – Walter Scharf
  • *Star! – Lennie Hayton
  • *The Young Girls of Rochefort – Adaptation: Michel Legrand; Song Score: Michel Legrand and Jacques Demy
    • Best Song Original for the PictureBest Sound
  • "The Windmills of Your Mind" from The Thomas Crown Affair – Music by Michel Legrand; Lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman
  • *"Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang – Music and Lyrics by The Sherman Brothers: Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman
  • *"For Love of Ivy" from For Love of Ivy – Music by Quincy Jones; Lyrics by Bob Russell
  • *"Funny Girl" from Funny Girl – Music by Jule Styne; Lyrics by Bob Merrill
  • *"Star!" from Star! – Music by Jimmy Van Heusen; Lyrics by Sammy Cahn
  • Oliver! – Shepperton Studio Sound Dept.
  • *Bullitt – Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Studio Sound Dept.
  • *Finian's Rainbow – Warner Bros.-Seven Arts Studio Sound Dept.
  • *Funny Girl – Columbia Studio Sound Dept.
  • *Star! – Twentieth Century-Fox Studio Sound Dept.
    • Best Foreign Language FilmBest Costume Design

    • War and Peace – U.S.S.R.
    • *The Boys of Paul Street – Hungary
    • *The Firemen's Ball – Czechoslovakia
    • *The Girl with the Pistol – Italy
    • *Stolen Kisses – France
  • Romeo and Juliet – Danilo Donati
  • *The Lion in Winter – Margaret Furse
  • *Oliver! – Phyllis Dalton
  • *Planet of the Apes – Morton Haack
  • *Star! – Donald Brooks
    • Best Art DirectionBest Cinematography
  • Oliver! – Art Direction: John Box and Terence Marsh; Set Decoration: Vernon Dixon and Ken Muggleston
  • *' – Art Direction and Set Decoration: Anthony Masters, Harry Lange and Ernest Archer
  • *The Shoes of the Fisherman – Art Direction and Set Decoration: George W. Davis and Edward Carfagno
  • *Star! – Art Direction: Boris Leven; Set Decoration: Walter M. Scott and Howard Bristol
  • *War and Peace – Art Direction: Mikhail Bogdanov and Gennady Myasnikov; Set Decoration: G. Koshelev and V. Uvarov
  • Romeo and Juliet – Pasqualino De Santis
  • *Funny Girl – Harry Stradling
  • *Ice Station Zebra – Daniel L. Fapp
  • *Oliver! – Oswald Morris
  • *Star! – Ernest Laszlo
    • Best Film EditingBest Special Visual Effects
  • Bullitt – Frank P. Keller
  • *Funny Girl – Robert Swink, Maury Winetrobe and William Sands
  • *The Odd Couple – Frank Bracht
  • *Oliver! – Ralph Kemplen
  • *Wild in the Streets – Fred R. Feitshans Jr. and Eve Newman
  • ' – Stanley Kubrick
  • *Ice Station Zebra – Hal Millar and Joseph McMillan Johnson

    • Multiple nominations and awards

    These films had multiple nominations:
    The following films received multiple awards:

    Honorary Awards