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.

[1] The Best Picture category is traditionally the final award of the night and is widely considered the most prestigious honor of the ceremony.

[12] The Academy can make exceptions to the limit, as when Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack were posthumously included among the four producers nominated for The Reader.

[13] As of 2014[update] the Producers Branch Executive Committee determines such exceptions, noting they take place only in "rare and extraordinary circumstance[s].

The only two Best Director winners to win for films that did not receive a Best Picture nomination were during the early years of the awards: Lewis Milestone for Two Arabian Knights (1927/28), and Frank Lloyd for The Divine Lady (1928/29).

[15] Although the Academy never officially said so, many commenters noted the expansion was likely in part a response to public criticism of The Dark Knight and WALL-E (both 2008) (and, in previous years, other blockbusters and popular films) not being nominated for Best Picture.

"Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going to allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize," AMPAS President Sid Ganis said in a press conference.

[20] Bruce Davis, the Academy executive director at the time, said, "A Best Picture nomination should be an indication of extraordinary merit.

[22] Nineteen non-English language films have been nominated in the category: La Grande Illusion (French, 1938); Z (French, 1969); The Emigrants (Swedish, 1972); Cries and Whispers (Swedish, 1973); The Postman (Il Postino) (Italian/Spanish, 1995); Life Is Beautiful (Italian, 1998); Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Mandarin Chinese, 2000); Letters from Iwo Jima (Japanese, 2006, but ineligible for Best Foreign Language Film because it was an American production); Amour (French, 2012); Roma (Spanish/Mixtec, 2018); Parasite (Korean, 2019); Minari (Korean, 2020, but ineligible for Best International Feature Film because it was an American production);[23] Drive My Car (Japanese/Korean/Mandarin Chinese/German/Korean Sign Language, 2021), All Quiet on the Western Front (German, 2022), Anatomy of a Fall (French, 2023), Past Lives (Korean, 2023, but ineligible for Best International Feature Film because it was an American production), The Zone of Interest (German/Polish/Yiddish, 2023), Emilia Pérez (Spanish, 2024) and I'm Still Here (Portuguese, 2024).

Others include Cimarron, Cavalcade, Gone with the Wind, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, Patton, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Last Emperor, Dances with Wolves, Schindler's List, Forrest Gump, Braveheart, The English Patient, Titanic, Gladiator, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and Oppenheimer.

The Godfather Part II and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King are the only sequels to have won the award, and their respective trilogies are the only series to have three films nominated.

Similarly, The Queen features Michael Sheen as Tony Blair, a role he had played previously in the television film The Deal.

[30] Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima was a companion piece to his film Flags of Our Fathers that was released earlier the same year.

In addition, Black Panther is a continuation of the events that occurred in Captain America: Civil War and the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Four of the nominees for the 94th ceremony were based on source material previously made into films: CODA, Dune, Nightmare Alley, and West Side Story.

The 2021 version of West Side Story became the second adaptation of the same source material for a previous Best Picture winner to be nominated for the same award after 1962's Mutiny on the Bounty.

The Artist (2011) was the first essentially silent (with the exception of a single scene of dialogue, and a dream sequence with sound effects) film since Wings to win Best Picture.

Other winners and nominees, such as Tom Jones (prior to its 2018 reissues by The Criterion Collection and the British Film Institute) and Star Wars, are widely available only in subsequently altered versions.

[36] The only surviving complete prints of 1931's East Lynne and 1934's The White Parade exist within the UCLA film archive.

[38][39] There are four general standards, of which a film must satisfy two to be considered for Best Picture: (a) on-screen representation, themes and narratives; (b) creative leadership and project team; (c) industry access and opportunities; and (d) audience development.

[40] The standards are intended to provide greater opportunities for employment, in cast, crew, studio apprenticeships and internships, and development, marketing, publicity, and distribution executives, among underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, women, LGBTQ+ people, and persons with cognitive or physical disabilities (not counting developmental disabilities like the autism spectrum), or who are deaf or hard of hearing.

[44] In general, the awardees of that category have been criticized for disproportionately recognizing films about white men over those of women or non-white people.

[45] Though there have been exceptions like Barry Jenkins's Moonlight, films like Precious and Get Out have been seen as potentially being shut out of the Best Picture race because of older and white Academy voters choosing not to see them.

Saving Private Ryan was immediately pegged as a favorite for the category by many members and fans of Spielberg's films, but it lost to Shakespeare in Love.

[54][55][56] After announcing the award, presenter Jack Nicholson was caught on camera mouthing the word "whoa" out of apparent surprise at the result.

[57] The film's use of moral quandary as a storytelling medium was widely reported as ironic since many saw it as the "safe" alternative to Brokeback Mountain, which is about a gay relationship (the other nominees, Good Night and Good Luck, Capote, and Munich also tackle heavy subjects of McCarthyism, homosexuality, and terrorism).

[66][67][68][69] Other animated films that garnered Best Picture speculation but were ultimately not nominated include Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio[70] The Boy and the Heron,[71] and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

[11] The Academy can make exceptions to the limit, as when Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack were posthumously among the four nominated for The Reader.

Starting with the 7th Academy Awards, held in 1935, the period of eligibility became the full previous calendar year from January 1 to December 31.

This has been the rule every year since except 2020, when the end date was extended to February 28, 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and 2021, which was correspondingly limited to March 1 to December 31.