84th Academy Awards

84th Academy Awards
Date	February 26, 2012
Site	Kodak Theatre; Hollywood, California
Host	Billy Crystal
Highlights
Best Picture	The Artist
Most wins	The Artist & Hugo (5)
Most nominations	Hugo (11)

The 84th Academy Awards were held on February 26, 2012, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. The ceremony honored the best films, directors, actors, etc. of 2011 and was televised in the U.S. on ABC. It was Billy Crystal's ninth time hosting the Oscars.

Nominees and Winners[]

The Academy awarded Oscars in 24 categories during the ceremony, with The Artist and Hugo winning in five categories each. Hugo led the field of 61 nominated films with 11 nominations.

The Artist became the first entirely black & white film since The Apartment and the first silent film since Wings to win the Best Picture Oscar (though it technically includes sound effects and a single line of dialogue; Schindler's List was not entirely black & white, as it included several minor color elements). Woody Allen's Best Original Screenplay win placed him in a tie with Billy Wilder, Francis Ford Coppola, Paddy Chayefsky and Charles Brackett for the most Oscars in writing categories (3). Best Supporting Actor winner Christopher Plummer became the oldest Oscar winner in an acting category to date (82 years, 75 days at the time of the awards ceremony).

Based on a survey by the Academy on statistics about actors with the most Oscar nominations from 1929 to 2012,Meryl Streep was at the top of the list, with 17 nods to her name.

Best Picture[]

Best Actor[]

Best Actress[]

The-Iron-Lady-poster-001 — *The Iron Lady*

Best Supporting Actor[]

Best Supporting Actress[]

Best Director[]

Best Original Screenplay[]

Best Adapted Screenplay[]

Descendants film poster — *The Descendants*

Best Animated Feature[]

Best Foreign Language Film[]

Best Documentary Feature[]

Best Documentary Short[]

Best Live Action Short[]

Best Animated Short[]

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore — *The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore*

Best Original Score[]

Best Original Song[]

Best Sound Editing[]

Best Sound Mixing[]

Best Art Direction[]

Best Cinematography[]

Best Makeup[]

Best Costume Design[]

Best Film Editing[]

Best Visual Effects[]

Changes to the Categories[]

The Academy announced several changes to the eligibility and nomination processes for a number of the annual competitive awards categories.

Best Picture: The final nominees can now range from anywhere between 5 and 10 in number. The nomination voting process will be the same as before, through preferential balloting, but now only films that receive a minimum of 5% of total number one votes are eligible for Best Picture nominations. "A Best Picture nomination should be an indication of extraordinary merit. If there are only eight pictures that truly earn that honor in a given year, we shouldn’t feel an obligation to round out the number", Academy executive director Bruce Davis explained.
Best Animated Feature: This is now a permanent competitive category, and no longer requires the Board to annually "activate" it. Additionally, rules were amended to give the category more flexibility in terms of the number of nominees it can allow.
Best Documentary Feature: The category's eligibility period has been modified. Prior to 2011, documentaries that screened theatrically between September 1 and August 31 of the following year were eligible. This has now been changed to match the calendar year from January 1 to December 31. As a transition period, the 84th Academy Awards will accept documentaries that were released between September 1, 2010, to December 31, 2011.
Best Visual Effects: Previously, seven shortlisted visual effects contenders were announced several weeks before the official nominations announcement. This number has now been changed to 10 to coincide with last year's expansion of the category from 3 to 5 nominees.