The Film That Wins the Most Oscars Usually Takes Best Picture. Here Are 20 Exceptions to That Rule

The film that wins the most Oscars usually takes the top prize, best picture. It happened at the ceremony earlier this year, when best picture winner Anora was also the film that picked up the most awards (five). It also happened at the 2023 and 2024 ceremonies when best picture winners Everything Everywhere All at Once and Oppenheimer, respectively, were also the nights’ top winners, each with seven awards.

But there are exceptions to every rule, including this one. At the very first Oscar ceremony in 1929, Wings took what is now called best picture but was not the biggest winner overall. The same thing has happened 19 more times in Oscar history. It’s happening more often than it used to. It didn’t happen at all in the 1980s or ’90s, but it has happened seven times since 2005. Twice in the last decade, a music heavy film (La La Land and Bohemian Rhapsody) won the most awards, but failed to bring home best picture.

Best picture has been the most coveted Oscar since the inaugural ceremony in 1929, when Wings took the award, then called outstanding picture. The award wasn’t called best picture until the 1963 ceremony, when Lawrence of Arabia took the prize. The name of the category has gone from outstanding picture to outstanding production, outstanding motion picture, and best motion picture, before finally settling on the simple two-word phrase we know today.

Here’s a complete list of the 20 times the best picture winner was not the film that won the most awards, or at least one of the films that won the most awards, in the case of a tie for that distinction. The dates shown are the year of the Oscar ceremony.