The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards (Oscars) 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. Best Picture is the final award of the night and is considered the most prestigious honor of the ceremony.
The Goodbye Girl is a 1977 American romantic comedy-drama film produced by Ray Stark, directed by Herbert Ross and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Marsha Mason, Quinn Cummings and Paul Benedict. The original screenplay by Neil Simon centers on an odd trio: a struggling actor who has sublet a Manhattan apartment from a friend, the current occupant, and her precocious young daughter.
Serpico is a 1973 American neo-noir biographical crime film directed by Sidney Lumet, and starring Al Pacino. Waldo Salt and Norman Wexler wrote the screenplay, adapting Peter Maas's biography of NYPD officer Frank Serpico, who went undercover to expose corruption in the police force. Both Maas's book and the film cover 12 years, 1960 to 1972.
Born Free is a 1966 British drama film starring Virginia McKenna and Bill Travers as Joy and George Adamson, a real-life couple who raised Elsa the Lioness, an orphaned lion cub, to adulthood, and released her into the wilderness of Kenya. The film was produced by Open Road Films Ltd. and Columbia Pictures. The screenplay, written by blacklisted Hollywood writer Lester Cole, was based upon Joy Adamson's 1960 non-fiction book Born Free. The film was directed by James Hill and produced by Sam Jaffe and Paul Radin. Born Free, and its musical score by John Barry, won numerous awards.
Laurel and Hardy were a motion picture comedy team whose official filmography consists of 106 films released from 1921 and 1951. Together they appeared in 34 silent shorts, 45 sound shorts, and 27 full-length sound feature films. In addition to these, Laurel and Hardy appeared in at least 20 foreign-language versions of their films and a promotional film, Galaxy of Stars (1936), made for European film distributors.
The Producers Guild of America (PGA) is a trade association representing television producers, film producers and New Media producers in the United States. The PGA's membership includes over 7,000 members of the producing establishment worldwide. Its co-presidents are Gail Berman & Lucy Fisher. The PGA is overseen by a National Board of Directors. Vance Van Petten has served as the organization's National Executive Director since 2000.
Revelations Entertainment is an independent movie production company founded by actor Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary in 1996 with a mission to "reveal truth." The company is known for producing thought-provoking entertainment that has artistic integrity and soul.
Soapdish is a 1991 American comedy film directed by Michael Hoffman, from a screenplay by Robert Harling and Andrew Bergman. The film was produced by Aaron Spelling and Alan Greisman, and executive produced by Herbert Ross.
Bear McCreary is an American musician and composer of film, television, and video games scores based in Los Angeles, California. He is best known for his work on the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series and for the TV series Outlander and The Walking Dead. He has also scored for the PlayStation 4 video game God of War.
Lori McCreary is an American motion picture producer and computer scientist. She is CEO of the production company Revelations Entertainment, which she co-founded with actor Morgan Freeman.
Dreamgirls: Music from the Motion Picture is a soundtrack album for the 2006 film Dreamgirls. The album was released by Music World Entertainment and Columbia Records on December 5, 2006 in two versions: a single-disc standard release, and a two-disc deluxe edition. The one-disc version includes highlights from the film's songs, including "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going", "One Night Only", and "Listen", while the two disc version includes all songs present in the film alongside several bonus tracks.
Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977) was an English actor, comedian, and filmmaker whose work in motion pictures spanned from 1914 until 1967. During his early years in film, he became established as a worldwide cinematic idol renowned for his tramp persona. In the 1910s and 1920s, he was considered the most famous person on the planet.
Into the Wild is a 2007 American biographical survival film written, co-produced, and directed by Sean Penn. It is an adaptation of Jon Krakauer's 1996 nonfiction book of the same name, based on the travels of Christopher McCandless across North America and his experiences in the Alaskan wilderness in the early 1990s. The film stars Emile Hirsch as McCandless, and Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt as his parents, and features Jena Malone, Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Kristen Stewart, and Hal Holbrook.
John Ford (1894–1973) was an American film director whose career spanned from 1913 to 1971. During this time he directed more than 140 films. Born in Maine, Ford entered the filmmaking industry shortly after graduating from high school with the help of his older brother, Francis Ford, who had established himself as a leading man and director for Universal Studios. After working as an actor, assistant director, stuntman, and prop man – often for his brother – Universal gave Ford the opportunity to direct in 1917. Initially working in short films, he quickly moved into features, largely with Harry Carey as his star. In 1920 Ford left Universal and began working for the Fox Film Corporation. During the next ten years he directed more than 30 films, including the westerns The Iron Horse (1924) and 3 Bad Men (1926), both starring George O'Brien, the war drama Four Sons and the Irish romantic drama Hangman's House. In the same year of these last two films, Ford directed his first all-talking film, the short Napoleon's Barber. The following year he directed his first all-talking feature, The Black Watch.
David O. Selznick (1902–1965) was an American motion picture producer whose work consists of three short subjects, 67 feature films, and one television production made between 1923 and 1957. He was the producer of the 1939 epic Gone With the Wind. Selznick was born in Pittsburgh and educated in public schools in Brooklyn and Manhattan. He began working in the film industry in New York while in his teens as an assistant to his father, jeweler-turned-film producer Lewis J. Selznick. In 1923, he began producing films himself, starting with two documentary shorts and then a minor feature, Roulette (1924). Moving to Hollywood in 1926, Selznick became employed at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), where he produced two films before switching to Paramount in early 1928. After helping to guide Paramount into the sound era, Selznick moved to RKO Radio in 1931 where he served as the studio's executive producer. During his time at RKO he oversaw the production of King Kong (1933) and helped to develop Katharine Hepburn and Myrna Loy into major film stars.
Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He also directed several films, wrote scripts, created etchings, sketches and composed music. He was the eldest child of the actors Maurice Barrymore and Georgie Drew Barrymore, and his two siblings were John and Ethel; these and other family members were part of an acting dynasty. Reluctant to follow his parents' career, Barrymore appeared together with his grandmother Louisa Lane Drew in a stage production of The Rivals at the age of 15. He soon found success on stage in character roles. Although he took a break from acting in 1906–09 to train in Paris as a painter, he was not successful as an artist and returned to the US and acting. He also joined his family troupe, from 1910, in their vaudeville act.
