Dramatic Facts About Best Picture Winners
It doesn't get any bigger than the Oscars. An award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is still the biggest badge of honor in showbusiness, and every year, they save the biggest prize for last: Best Picture.
Some of them are among the greatest movies of all time, some are so forgettable, it's hard to imagine how they ever won, but every movie that's taken home a Best Picture Oscar has an interesting story to tell.
Best Picture Facts
1. Blood Money
Steven Spielberg refused to accept his salary for Schindler's List because he said it felt like “blood money.” Instead, he used the cash to fund his Shoah Foundation, an organization that educates people on the history and impact of the Holocaust.
2. Oh Deer
The Deer Hunter viscerally shows the horrors of the Vietnam War. Most people assumed that director Michael Cimino drew on his own experience in the war—but few realized the director's dark secret. In reality, Cimino had little experience in the army and flat-out lied about his involvement. He told a reporter that he had enlisted in the army in 1968, at the height of the war, and that he was attached to a Green Beret medical unit that was never deployed.
In fact, he joined the army in 1962, only served for six months, and was never attached to a special forces unit.
3. It Never Ends
The epic 1959 Best Picture winner Ben Hur took a ridiculous nine months to shoot. As if that's not crazy enough, they spent three of those months just on the chariot race scene.
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