4th Academy Awards
Encyclopedia
The 4th Academy Awards were awarded to films completed and screened in 1930/1931, by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...

. At the ceremony, nine-year-old Jackie Cooper, nominated for Best Actor in "Skippy," fell asleep on the shoulder of Best Actress nominee Marie Dressler. When Dressler was announced as the winner, Cooper had to be eased onto his mother’s lap.

Cimarron
Cimarron (1931 film)
Cimarron is a 1931 Pre-Code film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. It won three Academy Awards.-Background:...

 was the first western to ever win best picture, and was the only one for 59 years until Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves
Dances with Wolves is a 1990 epic western film directed by and starring Kevin Costner. It is a film adaptation of the 1988 book of the same name by Michael Blake and tells the story of a Union Army Lieutenant who travels to the American frontier to find a military post, and his dealings with a...

 won in 1990.

Cimarron
Cimarron (1931 film)
Cimarron is a 1931 Pre-Code film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. It won three Academy Awards.-Background:...

 was also the first film to have 7 nominations, breaking the nomination record and the first to ever win more than 2 awards.

Jackie Cooper
Jackie Cooper
Jackie Cooper was an American actor, television director, producer and executive. He was a child actor who managed to make the transition to an adult career. Cooper was the first child actor to receive an Academy Award nomination...

 became the first child star to get a nomination, and was the youngest for nearly 50 years. He is the 2nd youngest Oscar nomination ever and the only lead actor nomination to be under 18.

Awards

Winners are listed first and highlighted in boldface.
Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Picture
The Academy Award for Best Picture is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to artists working in the motion picture industry. The Best Picture category is the only category in which every member of the Academy is eligible not only...

Best Director
  • Cimarron
    Cimarron (1931 film)
    Cimarron is a 1931 Pre-Code film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. It won three Academy Awards.-Background:...

    • East Lynne
      East Lynne (1931 film)
      A film version of East Lynne. The movie was adapted from the novel by Tom Barry and Bradley King and directed by Frank Lloyd. The film is a melodrama starring Ann Harding, Clive Brook, Conrad Nagel and Cecilia Loftus...

    • The Front Page
      The Front Page (1931 film)
      The Front Page is a 1931 American comedy film, directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien. Based on a Broadway play of the same name, the film was produced by Howard Hughes, written by Bartlett Cormack and Charles Lederer, and distributed by United Artists. The...

    • Skippy
      Skippy (1931 film)
      Skippy is a film that was released in 1931. It was one of the first films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. The screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Don Marquis, Norman Z. McLeod, and Sam Mintz was based on the comic strip Skippy by Percy Crosby...

    • Trader Horn
      Trader Horn (1931 film)
      Trader Horn is the first non-documentary film shot on location in Africa. The 1931 movie tells of the adventures of real-life trader and adventurer Alfred Aloysius "Trader" Horn on safari in Africa. It featured many authentic shots of African wildlife and a great deal of inauthentic plot. It was...

  • Norman Taurog
    Norman Taurog
    Norman Rae Taurog was an American film director, and screenwriter.Between 1920 and 1968, Taurog directed over 140 films, and directed Elvis Presley in more movies than any other director...

     – Skippy
    Skippy (1931 film)
    Skippy is a film that was released in 1931. It was one of the first films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. The screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Don Marquis, Norman Z. McLeod, and Sam Mintz was based on the comic strip Skippy by Percy Crosby...

    • Clarence Brown
      Clarence Brown
      Clarence Brown was an American film director.-Early life:Born in Clinton, Massachusetts, to a cotton manufacturer, Brown moved to the South when he was 11. He attended Knoxville High School and the University of Tennessee, both in Knoxville, Tennessee, graduating from the university at the age of...

       – A Free Soul
      A Free Soul
      A Free Soul is a 1931 Pre-Code film which tells the story of an alcoholic defense attorney who must defend his daughter's ex-boyfriend on a charge of murdering the mobster she had started a relationship with; a mobster whom her father had previously got an acquittal for on a murder charge...

    • Lewis Milestone
      Lewis Milestone
      Lewis Milestone was a Russian-American motion picture director. He is known for directing Two Arabian Knights and All Quiet on the Western Front , both of which received Academy Awards for Best Director...

       – The Front Page
      The Front Page (1931 film)
      The Front Page is a 1931 American comedy film, directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien. Based on a Broadway play of the same name, the film was produced by Howard Hughes, written by Bartlett Cormack and Charles Lederer, and distributed by United Artists. The...

    • Wesley Ruggles – Cimarron
      Cimarron (1931 film)
      Cimarron is a 1931 Pre-Code film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. It won three Academy Awards.-Background:...

    • Josef von Sternberg
      Josef von Sternberg
      Josef von Sternberg — born Jonas Sternberg — was an Austrian-American film director. He is particularly noted for his distinctive mise en scène, use of lighting and soft lens, and seven-film collaboration with actress Marlene Dietrich.-Youth:Von Sternberg was born Jonas Sternberg to a Jewish...

       – Morocco
      Morocco (1930 film)
      Morocco is a 1930 film in which a Foreign Legionnaire meets and falls in love with a singer. It was directed by Josef von Sternberg and stars Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich and Adolphe Menjou. The story was adapted by Jules Furthman from the novel Amy Jolly by Benno Vigny...

  • Best Actor
    Academy Award for Best Actor
    Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

    Best Actress
    Academy Award for Best Actress
    Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...

  • Lionel Barrymore
    Lionel Barrymore
    Lionel Barrymore was an American actor of stage, screen and radio. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul...

     – A Free Soul
    A Free Soul
    A Free Soul is a 1931 Pre-Code film which tells the story of an alcoholic defense attorney who must defend his daughter's ex-boyfriend on a charge of murdering the mobster she had started a relationship with; a mobster whom her father had previously got an acquittal for on a murder charge...

    • Jackie Cooper
      Jackie Cooper
      Jackie Cooper was an American actor, television director, producer and executive. He was a child actor who managed to make the transition to an adult career. Cooper was the first child actor to receive an Academy Award nomination...

       – Skippy
      Skippy (1931 film)
      Skippy is a film that was released in 1931. It was one of the first films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. The screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Don Marquis, Norman Z. McLeod, and Sam Mintz was based on the comic strip Skippy by Percy Crosby...

    • Richard Dix
      Richard Dix
      Richard Dix was an American motion picture actor who achieved popularity in both silent and sound film. His standard on-screen image was that of the rugged and stalwart hero.-Early life:...

       – Cimarron
      Cimarron (1931 film)
      Cimarron is a 1931 Pre-Code film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. It won three Academy Awards.-Background:...

    • Fredric March
      Fredric March
      Fredric March was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr...

       – The Royal Family of Broadway
      The Royal Family of Broadway
      The Royal Family of Broadway is a comedy film, directed by George Cukor and Cyril Gardner, and released by Paramount Pictures. The screenplay was adapted by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Gertrude Purcell from the play The Royal Family by Edna Ferber and George S...

    • Adolphe Menjou
      Adolphe Menjou
      Adolphe Jean Menjou was an American actor. His career spanned both silent films and talkies, appearing in such films as The Sheik, A Woman of Paris, Morocco, and A Star is Born...

       – The Front Page
      The Front Page (1931 film)
      The Front Page is a 1931 American comedy film, directed by Lewis Milestone and starring Adolphe Menjou and Pat O'Brien. Based on a Broadway play of the same name, the film was produced by Howard Hughes, written by Bartlett Cormack and Charles Lederer, and distributed by United Artists. The...

  • Marie Dressler
    Marie Dressler
    Marie Dressler was a Canadian-American actress and Depression-era film star. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930-31 in Min and Bill.-Early life and stage career:...

     – Min and Bill
    Min and Bill
    Min and Bill is a 1930 American comedy-drama film starring Marie Dressler and Wallace Beery and based on Lorna Moon's novel Dark Star, adapted by Frances Marion and Marion Jackson....

    • Marlene Dietrich
      Marlene Dietrich
      Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...

       – Morocco
      Morocco (1930 film)
      Morocco is a 1930 film in which a Foreign Legionnaire meets and falls in love with a singer. It was directed by Josef von Sternberg and stars Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich and Adolphe Menjou. The story was adapted by Jules Furthman from the novel Amy Jolly by Benno Vigny...

    • Irene Dunne
      Irene Dunne
      Irene Dunne was an American film actress and singer of the 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s. Dunne was nominated five times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, for her performances in Cimarron , Theodora Goes Wild , The Awful Truth , Love Affair and I Remember Mama...

       – Cimarron
      Cimarron (1931 film)
      Cimarron is a 1931 Pre-Code film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. It won three Academy Awards.-Background:...

    • Ann Harding
      Ann Harding
      Ann Harding was an American theatre, motion picture, radio, and television actress.-Early years:Born Dorothy Walton Gatley at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, to George G. Gatley and Elizabeth "Bessie" Crabb. The daughter of a career army officer, she traveled often during her early life...

       – Holiday
      Holiday (1930 film)
      Holiday is a 1930 romantic comedy film which tells the story of a young man who is torn between his free-thinking lifestyle and the tradition of his wealthy fiancée's family. It stars Ann Harding, Mary Astor, Edward Everett Horton, Robert Ames and Hedda Hopper...

    • Norma Shearer
      Norma Shearer
      Edith Norma Shearer was a Canadian-American actress. Shearer was one of the most popular actresses in North America from the mid-1920s through the 1930s...

       – A Free Soul
      A Free Soul
      A Free Soul is a 1931 Pre-Code film which tells the story of an alcoholic defense attorney who must defend his daughter's ex-boyfriend on a charge of murdering the mobster she had started a relationship with; a mobster whom her father had previously got an acquittal for on a murder charge...

  • Best Story
    Academy Award for Best Story
    The Academy Award for Best Story was an Academy Award given from the beginning of the Academy Awards until 1957, when it was eliminated in favor of the Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay, which had been introduced in 1940.-1920s:...

    Best Adapted Screenplay
  • The Dawn Patrol – John Monk Saunders
    John Monk Saunders
    John Monk Saunders was an American novelist, screenwriter and film director.-Early life and career:...

    • The Doorway to Hell
      The Doorway to Hell
      The Doorway to Hell is a 1930 Pre-Code crime film directed by Archie Mayo and starring Lew Ayres and James Cagney in his second film role. The film's title was typical of the sensationalistic titles of many Pre-Code films...

       – Rowland Brown
    • Laughter
      Laughter (film)
      Laughter is a 1930 film directed by Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast and starring Fredric March, Nancy Carroll and Frank Morgan.The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Story.-Plot:...

       – Harry d'Abbadie d'Arrast, Douglas Doty and Donald Ogden Stewart
      Donald Ogden Stewart
      Donald Ogden Stewart was an American author and screenwriter.-Life:His hometown was Columbus, Ohio. He graduated from Yale University, where he became a brother to the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity , in 1916 and was in the Naval Reserves in World War I.After the war he started to write and found...

    • The Public Enemy
      The Public Enemy
      The Public Enemy is a 1931 American Pre-Code crime film starring James Cagney and directed by William A. Wellman. The film relates the story of a young man's rise in the criminal underworld in prohibition-era urban America...

       – John Bright and Kubec Glasmon
    • Smart Money – Lucien Hubbard
      Lucien Hubbard
      Lucien Hubbard was a film producer and screenwriter. He is best known for producing Wings, for which he received the first Academy Award for Best Picture. Lucien produced and or wrote ninety-two films over the course of his career...

       and Jose Jackson
  • Cimarron
    Cimarron (1931 film)
    Cimarron is a 1931 Pre-Code film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. It won three Academy Awards.-Background:...

     – Howard Estabrook
    Howard Estabrook
    Howard Estabrook was an American actor, film director and producer, and screenwriter.-Biography:Born Howard Bolles in Detroit, Michigan, Estabrook began his career in 1904 as a stage actor in New York. He made his film debut in 1914 during the silent era, and would go on to appear in several...

    • The Criminal Code
      The Criminal Code
      The Criminal Code is a Hollywood crime film, directed by Howard Hawks, based on a play by Martin Flavin with cinematic adaptation by screenwriters Seton I...

       – Seton I. Miller
      Seton I. Miller
      Seton Ingersoll Miller was a Hollywood screenwriter and producer. During his career, he worked with many notable American film directors, such as Howard Hawks and Michael Curtiz....

       and Fred Niblo, Jr.
      Fred Niblo, Jr.
      Fred Niblo, Jr. was a successful Hollywood screenwriter. His career began in 1930 and lasted a little over twenty years. He died in Los Angeles, California, in February 1973, aged 70. Niblo, Jr. was the son of director Fred Niblo.- Awards :He was nominated with Seton I...

    • Holiday
      Holiday (1930 film)
      Holiday is a 1930 romantic comedy film which tells the story of a young man who is torn between his free-thinking lifestyle and the tradition of his wealthy fiancée's family. It stars Ann Harding, Mary Astor, Edward Everett Horton, Robert Ames and Hedda Hopper...

       – Horace Jackson
    • Little Caesar
      Little Caesar (film)
      Little Caesar is a 1931 Warner Bros. Pre-Code crime film. It tells the story of a hoodlum who ascends the ranks of organized crime until he reaches its upper echelons. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy, the film stars Edward G. Robinson and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.. The story was adapted by Francis Edward...

       – Francis Edward Faragoh
      Francis Edward Faragoh
      Francis Edward Faragoh was an American screenwriter. He wrote for 20 films between 1929 and 1947. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1931 for Best Writing, Adaptation for Little Caesar...

       and Robert N. Lee
      Robert N. Lee
      Robert N. Lee was an American screenwriter. He wrote for 31 films between 1922 and 1945. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay at the 4th Academy Awards for Little Caesar....

    • Skippy
      Skippy (1931 film)
      Skippy is a film that was released in 1931. It was one of the first films nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. The screenplay by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Don Marquis, Norman Z. McLeod, and Sam Mintz was based on the comic strip Skippy by Percy Crosby...

       – Joseph L. Mankiewicz
      Joseph L. Mankiewicz
      Joseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career and is best known as the writer-director of All About Eve , which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six. He was brother to screenwriter and drama critic Herman J...

       and Sam Mintz
  • Best Sound Recording
  • Paramount Publix Studio Sound Department
    • MGM Studio Sound Department
    • RKO Radio Studio Sound Department
    • Samuel Goldwyn-United Artists Studio Sound Department
  • Best Art Direction
    Academy Award for Best Art Direction
    The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...

    Best Cinematography
    Academy Award for Best Cinematography
    The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...

  • Cimarron
    Cimarron (1931 film)
    Cimarron is a 1931 Pre-Code film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. It won three Academy Awards.-Background:...

     – Max Rée
    Max Rée
    Max Rée was a Danish Costume Designer and art director. He won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction for the film Cimarron.He was born in Copenhagen, Denmark and died in Los Angeles, California.-External links:...

    • Just Imagine
      Just Imagine
      Just Imagine is a 1930 science-fiction musical comedy directed by David Butler, to console audiences distressed by the Great Depression. The film is probably best known for its art direction and special effects in its portrayal of New York City in an imagined 1980...

       – Stephen Goosson
      Stephen Goosson
      Stephen Goosson was an Academy Award-winning American film set designer.Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Goosson was an architect in Detroit before starting his film career as art director for producer Lewis J. Selznick, and films for Fox Film Corporation such as New Movietone Follies of 1930...

       and Ralph Hammeras
      Ralph Hammeras
      Ralph Hammeras was an American special effects designer, cinematographer and art director. He was nominated for three Academy Awards.He was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and died in Los Angeles, California.-Awards:...

    • Morocco
      Morocco (1930 film)
      Morocco is a 1930 film in which a Foreign Legionnaire meets and falls in love with a singer. It was directed by Josef von Sternberg and stars Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich and Adolphe Menjou. The story was adapted by Jules Furthman from the novel Amy Jolly by Benno Vigny...

       – Hans Dreier
      Hans Dreier
      Hans Dreier was a film art director.Born in Bremen, Germany, Dreier began his career in German film in 1919 and by the end of the 1920s had relocated to Hollywood....

    • Svengali
      Svengali (1931 film)
      Svengali is a drama/horror film starring John Barrymore, Marian Marsh, and Bramwell Fletcher, directed by Archie Mayo, written by J. Grubb Alexander, and released by Warner Brothers. It is based on the gothic horror novel Trilby by George du Maurier. The film was originally released on May 22, 1931...

       – Anton Grot
      Anton Grot
      Anton Grot was a Polish art director. He was born in Kelbasin, Poland and died in Stanton, California.-Awards:Grot was nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Art Direction:* The Sea Hawk...

    • Whoopee!
      Whoopee! (film)
      Whoopee is a 1930 "All-Talking All-Color" musical comedy film photographed in two-color Technicolor. The plot of the film closely followed the stage show produced by Florenz Ziegfeld in 1928.-Production:...

       – Richard Day
      Richard Day (art director)
      Richard Day was a Canadian art director. He won seven Academy Awards and was nominated for a further 13 in the category Best Art Direction He worked on 265 films between 1923 and 1970....

  • Tabu
    Tabu (film)
    Tabu is a 1931 film directed by F.W. Murnau. The film is split into two chapters, the first called "Paradise" depicts the lives of two lovers on a South Seas island until they are forced to escape the island when the girl is chosen as a holy maid to the gods...

     – Floyd Crosby
    Floyd Crosby
    Floyd Delafield Crosby, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer.Crosby was born and raised in West Philadelphia, the son of Julia Floyd and Frederick Van Schoonhoven Crosby...

    • Cimarron
      Cimarron (1931 film)
      Cimarron is a 1931 Pre-Code film directed by Wesley Ruggles and based on the Edna Ferber novel Cimarron. It won three Academy Awards.-Background:...

       – Edward Cronjager
    • Morocco
      Morocco (1930 film)
      Morocco is a 1930 film in which a Foreign Legionnaire meets and falls in love with a singer. It was directed by Josef von Sternberg and stars Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich and Adolphe Menjou. The story was adapted by Jules Furthman from the novel Amy Jolly by Benno Vigny...

       – Lee Garmes
      Lee Garmes
      Lee Garmes, A.S.C. was an American cinematographer. During his career, he worked with directors Howard Hawks, Max Ophuls, Josef von Sternberg, Alfred Hitchcock, King Vidor, Nicholas Ray and Henry Hathaway, whom he had met as a young man when the two first came to Hollywood in the silent era...

    • The Right to Love – Charles Lang
      Charles Lang
      Charles Bryant Lang, Jr., A.S.C. was an American cinematographer.Early in his career he worked with the Akeley camera, a gyroscope-mounted "pancake" camera designed by Carl Akeley for outdoor action shots...

    • Svengali
      Svengali (1931 film)
      Svengali is a drama/horror film starring John Barrymore, Marian Marsh, and Bramwell Fletcher, directed by Archie Mayo, written by J. Grubb Alexander, and released by Warner Brothers. It is based on the gothic horror novel Trilby by George du Maurier. The film was originally released on May 22, 1931...

       – Barney McGill

  • Multiple nominations and awards

    The following 7 films received multiple nominations.
    • 7 nominations: Cimarron
    • 4 nominations: Skippy and Morocco
    • 3 nominations: The Front Page and A Free Soul
    • 2 nominations: Holiday and Svengali

    The following film received multiple awards.
    • 3 awards: Cimarron
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