42nd Academy Awards


The 42nd Academy Awards were presented April 7, 1970, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. For the second year in a row, there was no official host. Awards were presented by seventeen "Friends of Oscar": Bob Hope, John Wayne, Barbra Streisand, Fred Astaire, Jon Voight, Myrna Loy, Clint Eastwood, Raquel Welch, Candice Bergen, James Earl Jones, Katharine Ross, Cliff Robertson, Ali MacGraw, Barbara McNair, Elliott Gould, Claudia Cardinale, and Elizabeth Taylor. This was the first Academy Awards ceremony to be broadcast via satellite to an international audience, but only outside North America. Mexico and Brazil were the sole countries to broadcast the event live.
This is currently the highest rated of the televised Academy Awards ceremonies, according to Nielsen ratings.
Midnight Cowboy became the first and so far, the only X-rated film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Its rating has since been downgraded to R. The previous year had seen the only G-rated film to win Best Picture, Carol Reed's Oliver!.
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? set an Oscar record by receiving nine nominations without one for Best Picture.
This was the last time until the 68th Academy Awards wherein none of the four winning performances came from Best Picture nominees, as well as the first time where every acting nomination, as well as every major nominated film, was in color.

The ceremony

This was the first Academy Award ceremony intended to be broadcast via satellite worldwide, but according to Klaus Lehmann, a foreign sales executive of the ABC television network, in addition to Canada and Mexico, only two South American countries, Chile and Brazil, roughly in the Oscars' time zone, were interested in the live coverage. The Chilean television rights to the Oscars were sold by ABC International to Televisión Nacional de Chile while the Brazilian rights were sold to TV Tupi. The latter country's rights to the TV broadcast of the Oscars were moved to a joint venture of TV Bandeirantes and TV Record. Starting in 1974, the Brazilian TV rights to the Oscars were sold by NBC to Rede Globo. An early attempt to change the Academy Awards presentation's start time to 1 p.m. to fit European television audiences was rejected by AMPAS executives. Since at the time television standards conversion was difficult, about 50 other countries did not broadcast the event live. In Europe, most TV broadcasters signed off at midnight, thus the Oscars were not broadcast live and were recorded on film and then shipped to broadcasters with a minimum 4-day delay from the awards' broadcast date.

Winners and nominees

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

  • John Schlesinger – Midnight Cowboy
  • *Arthur Penn – Alice's Restaurant
  • *George Roy Hill – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
  • *Sydney Pollack – They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
  • *Costa-Gavras – Z
    • Best ActorBest Actress
  • John Wayne – True Grit as Rooster Cogburn
  • *Richard Burton – Anne of the Thousand Days as King Henry VIII of England
  • *Dustin Hoffman – Midnight Cowboy as Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo
  • *Peter O'Toole – Goodbye, Mr. Chips as Arthur Chipping
  • *Jon Voight – Midnight Cowboy as Joe Buck
  • Maggie Smith – The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie as Jean Brodie
  • *Geneviève Bujold – Anne of the Thousand Days as Anne Boleyn
  • *Jane Fonda – They Shoot Horses, Don't They? as Gloria Beatty
  • *Liza Minnelli – The Sterile Cuckoo as Mary Ann "Pookie" Adams
  • *Jean Simmons – The Happy Ending as Mary Wilson
    • Best Supporting ActorBest Supporting Actress
  • Gig Young – They Shoot Horses, Don't They? as Rocky
  • *Rupert Crosse – The Reivers as Ned
  • *Elliott Gould – Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice as Ted Henderson
  • *Jack Nicholson – Easy Rider as George Hanson
  • *Anthony Quayle – Anne of the Thousand Days as Thomas Wolsey
  • Goldie Hawn – Cactus Flower as Toni Simmons
  • *Catherine Burns – Last Summer as Rhoda
  • *Dyan Cannon – Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice as Alice Henderson
  • *Sylvia Miles – Midnight Cowboy as Cass
  • *Susannah York – They Shoot Horses, Don't They? as Alice LeBlanc
    • Best Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or ProducedBest Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – William Goldman
  • *Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice – Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker
  • *The Damned – Story by Nicola Badalucco; Screenplay by Nicola Badalucco, Enrico Medioli, and Luchino Visconti
  • *Easy Rider – Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Terry Southern
  • *The Wild Bunch – Story by Walon Green and Roy N. Sickner; Screenplay by Walon Green and Sam Peckinpah
  • Midnight Cowboy – Waldo Salt based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy
  • *Anne of the Thousand Days – Screenplay by John Hale and Bridget Boland; Adaptation by Richard Sokolove based on the play by Maxwell Anderson
  • *Goodbye, Columbus – Arnold Schulman based on the novel by Philip Roth
  • *They Shoot Horses, Don't They? – James Poe and Robert E. Thompson based on the novel by Horace McCoy
  • *Z – Jorge Semprun and Costa-Gavras based on the novel by Vassilis Vassilikos
    • Best Documentary FeatureBest Documentary Short Subject
  • Arthur Rubinstein – The Love of Life
  • *Before the Mountain Was Moved
  • *In the Year of the Pig
  • *Olimpiada en México
  • *The Wolf Men
  • Czechoslovakia 1968 – Denis Sanders and Robert M. Fresco
  • *'
  • *Jenny Is a Good Thing
  • *Leo Beuerman
  • *The Magic Machines
    • Best Live Action Short SubjectBest Short Subject – Cartoons
  • The Magic Machines – Joan Keller Stern
  • *Blake – Doug Jackson
  • *People Soup – Marc Merson
  • It's Tough to Be a Bird – Ward Kimball
  • *Of Men and Demons – John Hubley and Faith Hubley
  • *Walking – Ryan Larkin
    • Best Original Score for a Motion Picture Best Score of a Musical Picture - Original or Adaptation
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – Burt Bacharach
  • * Anne of the Thousand Days – Georges Delerue
  • * The Reivers – John Williams
  • * The Secret of Santa Vittoria – Ernest Gold
  • * The Wild Bunch – Jerry Fielding
  • Hello, Dolly! – Adaptation score by Lennie Hayton and Lionel Newman
  • * Goodbye, Mr. Chips – Music and Lyrics by Leslie Bricusse; Adaptation score by John Williams
  • * Paint Your Wagon – Adaptation score by Nelson Riddle
  • * Sweet Charity – Adaptation score by Cy Coleman
  • * They Shoot Horses, Don't They? – Adaptation score by Johnny Green and Albert Woodbury
    • Best Song Original for the PictureBest Sound
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – Burt Bacharach and Hal David for "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head"
  • *"Come Saturday Morning" — The Sterile Cuckoo • Music by Fred Karlin • Lyrics by Dory Previn
  • *"Jean" — The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie • Music and Lyrics by Rod McKuen
  • *"True Grit" — True Grit • Music by Elmer Bernstein • Lyrics by Don Black
  • *"What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" — The Happy Ending • Music by Michel Legrand • Lyrics by Alan and Marilyn Bergman
  • Hello, Dolly! – Jack Solomon and Murray Spivack
  • *Anne of the Thousand Days – John Aldred
  • *Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – William Edmondson and David Dockendorf
  • *Gaily, Gaily – Robert Martin and Clem Portman
  • *Marooned – Les Fresholtz and Arthur Piantadosi
    • Best Foreign Language FilmBest Costume Design
  • Z
  • *Ådalen 31
  • *Battle of Neretva
  • *The Brothers Karamazov
  • *My Night at Maud's
  • Anne of the Thousand Days – Margaret Furse
  • *Gaily, Gaily – Ray Aghayan
  • *Hello, Dolly! – Irene Sharaff
  • *Sweet Charity – Edith Head
  • *They Shoot Horses, Don't They? – Donfeld
    • Best Art DirectionBest Cinematography
  • Hello, Dolly! – Art Direction: John DeCuir, Jack Martin Smith, and Herman A. Blumenthal; Set Decoration: Walter M. Scott, George James Hopkins, and Raphaël Bretton
  • *Anne of the Thousand Days – Art Direction: Maurice Carter and Lionel Couch; Set Decoration: Patrick McLoughlin
  • *Gaily, Gaily – Art Direction: Robert F. Boyle and George B. Chan; Set Decoration: Edward G. Boyle and Carl Biddiscombe
  • *Sweet Charity - Art Direction: Alexander Golitzen and George C. Webb; Set Decoration: Jack D. Moore
  • *They Shoot Horses, Don't They? – Art Direction: Harry Horner; Set Decoration: Frank R. McKelvy
  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – Conrad Hall
  • *Anne of the Thousand Days – Arthur Ibbetson
  • *Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice – Charles Lang
  • *Hello, Dolly! – Harry Stradling
  • *Marooned – Daniel L. Fapp
    • Best Film EditingBest Special Visual Effects
  • Z — Françoise Bonnot
  • * Hello, Dolly! — William H. Reynolds
  • * Midnight Cowboy — Hugh A. Robertson
  • * The Secret of Santa Vittoria — William Lyon and Earle Herdan
  • * They Shoot Horses, Don't They? — Fredric Steinkamp
  • Marooned – Robbie Robertson'
  • *Krakatoa, East of Java'' – Eugène Lourié and Alex Weldon

    • Multiple nominations and awards

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