In the 96-year history of the Academy Awards, just 15 films have won eight or more Oscars. Oppenheimer has a good chance of joining them when the 2024 Oscars are presented at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday (March 10). The three-hour drama is expected to win eight awards, including best picture, best director and best original score, and could win as many as 10 (from its 13 nominations) if everything goes its way.
The list of films that have won eight or more Oscars is quite diverse, including epics, biopics and musicals. All but one of these films won best picture. The exception was Cabaret, which swept eight 1972 Oscars but lost the big one to The Godfather, which won just two other awards besides best picture.
Three of these films – The Last Emperor, Gigi and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – achieved clean sweeps, winning in every category in which they were nominated. The latter film, the third in that trilogy, made the biggest Oscar night sweep of all, winning in all 11 categories in which it was nominated.
Here are all films that have won eight or more Oscars, listed in ascending order. We show the year the film was released, the total number of nominations it received (flagging the three that achieved clean sweeps), the names of the producer(s), director(s) and people most responsible for the music – indicating if they won or were nominated for Oscars in those capacities, and finally, the studio that released the film.
