Presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the 89th Academy Awards ceremony celebrates the best films of 2016. Late-night talk show host, producer and comedian Jimmy Kimmel will host the Oscars for the first time. The 89th Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, February 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center in Hollywood, and will be broadcast live on the ABC Television Network at 7 p.m. EST/4 p.m. PST. The Oscars presentation will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.
Televised in the United States by ABC, the ceremony will be produced by Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd while television host Jimmy Kimmel will be the presenter for the first time.
The nominees were announced by directors Guillermo del Toro, Jason Reigman, Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, actresses Brie Larson, Marcia Gay Harden, Glenn Close, Gabourey Sidibe and Jennifer Hudson, and actors Terrence Howard, Ken Watanabe, Demian Bichir and writer Dustin Lance Black.
This is the first time ever that the nominees are revealed via global live stream at the Academy's official websites (oscars.org and oscars.com), and through local broadcasters, including Good Morning America.
La La Land received a total fourteen nominations, a record set by All About Eve in 1950s and only tied by Titanic in 1997. The motion pictures Arrival and Moonlight came in second with eight nominations each.
Before the ceremony, we go over the records set by movies in past ceremonies.
The films which have won most awards are Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), which won 11 awards each.
Most nominations received by a single film are All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997) and La La Land (2016). Each film has received 14 nominations.
The largest sweep (winning awards in every nominated category) was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003). The film won all 11 categories for which it was nominated: Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Original Score, Original Song, Sound Mixing, Art Direction, Makeup, Costume Design, Film Editing and Visual Effects.
Walt Disney won 26 awards, which make him the individual who has won most awards.
Meanwhile, Edith Head is the female who has won most awards. She won eight Oscars, all for Costume Design. She won the Oscars for Best Costume Design, starting with The Heiress (1949), and ending with The Sting (1973). After 43 years she left Paramount for Universal, perhaps due to her successful partnership with Alfred Hitchcock. She also adapted her skills for television.
With four awards, all for Best Actress, Katherine Hepburn has won more acting Oscars than anybody else.
As to directing, John Ford tops the list with four awards.
While Italy has won most awards for Best Foreign Language Film (14 awards), France is the country that has received most nominations for this category with a total of 40 nominations. Italy has received in total 32 nominations.
Meanwhile, the foreign language films that have won most awards are Fanny And Alexander (1982) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), while the latter is the foreign-language film that has received most nominations with a total of ten nominations.
To end this post with a happy note: with 20 nominations, Meryl Streep is the actress with most total nominations for acting.
Additional note: This article was written before the awards, now we know, Moonlight was eventually named the best picture winner after it was mistakenly announced that La La Land had won the award. Warren Beatty, who was presenting the award with Dunaway, had been handed the incorrect envelope by representatives of PricewaterhouseCoopers.