OSCARS LISTS: RECORDS AND CURIOSITIES
The Winners List
The 1987 Chinese/Italian co-production THE LAST EMPEROR by Bernardo Bertolucci is  the only film produced outside of America or Britain to have received the  ultimate award for Best Motion Picture. However it was not a foreign language film,  and so was not nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.
In 1998 ROBERTO BEGNINI (who won  Best Actor and Best Foreign Film awards as the writer/director/star of  "Life is Beautiful") became only the second person to have won an  Oscar for acting in a foreign language film. SOPHIA LOREN, who presented Begnini with the  award for Best Foreign Film, was the first: she won Best Actress  in 1961 for her performance in "Two Women".  Since then, MARION COTILLARD has become the third  foreign language recipent, winning Best Actress for the 2007 French film  "La Vie En Rose".
Only six films have won both an Oscar for Best Foreign  Language Film and other Academy Awards as well:  The 1963 winner, Fellini's "8½" (Italian) also  won an Oscar for Best Costume Design;  "A MAN AND A WOMAN" (French, 1966) also won the  Best Original Screenplay Oscar;  Costa-Gavras's "Z" (French/Algerian) in 1969  also won for Film Editing;  and Ingmar Bergman's "FANNY AND ALEXANDER" (Sweden, 1983)  won 3 further Oscars for Cinematography, for Art Direction and for Costume Design.  1998's winner, "LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL" (Italian) also  received the Best Actor award for Roberto Benigni and a music award for Best  Original Dramatic Score.  And most recently, Ang Lee's "CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON"  (Taiwan, 2000) won 3 further Oscars for Cinematography, for Art Direction & Set Design, and for  Original Music Score.
DIRECTORS
The Winners List
JOHN FORD holds the record for most "Best Directing" awards - four in total, from five nominations,  from 1935 (for "The Informer"), 1940 ("The Grapes Of Wrath"),  1941 ("How Green Was My Valley") and 1952 (for "The Quiet Man").  Intriguingly for the architect of the cinematic American west, none are  Westerns - "Stagecoach" (1939), his only other directing nomination, failed to win him an award  and "The Searchers" (1952) was passed over completely.
As for other directorial achievers, only FRANK CAPRA and WILLIAM WYLER stand close with three awards each, although Wyler's  three (for "Mrs Miniver" (1942), "The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) and the  epic 1959 "Ben-Hur") came from 14 nominations - the most nominations ever achieved by a  film director.
JOSEPH L. MANKIEWICZ deserves a special mention for his efforts in Directing for 1949.  He achieved Best Director in that year for "A Letter To Three  Wives", but the film itself failed to achieve Best Picture - instead  that honour went to "All The King's Men"... also directed by  Joseph L. Mankiewicz!
MANKIEWICZ also went on to achieve a  rare "follow-on" Oscar in the next year (1950) for directing  "All About Eve", something that has otherwise only happened to JOHN FORD (in 1941 and 1942 for  "The Grapes Of Wrath" and "How Green Was My Valley").
ALFRED HITCHCOCK (the renowned "Master of Suspense") never won a single award for Best  Director -  not even when his film "Rebecca" (1940) was voted Best Motion  Picture... Among the film profession, many (who ultimately also do the  voting) found the Master difficult to work with...
Another maverick, STANLEY KUBRICK (who died in 1999 and was responsible for such films as "Spartacus",  "Paths Of Glory", "Dr.Strangelove", "A Clockwork Orange",  "2001: A Space Oddysey" and "The Shining") never won a Best  Director's award. Nor did did the influential but independent film-maker ROBERT ALTMAN (whose films included  "Mash", "Nashville" and "Gosford Park").  And none of their films achieved Best Motion Picture either. Even MARTIN SCORSESE (whom many film critics  call "the greatest American director alive today"...) spent many years in the  "Oscar" wilderness until securing the 2006 "double" of Best Director and Best Film  with  "The Departed" (a film which curiously failed to attract  any Best Actor/Actress nominations, let alone awards).
MUSIC
The Songwinners' List
From 1934 until 1971, every award for Best Original Song went to  a "Tin Pan Alley"-type ballad only (although most of the winning songs were  and have remained classics). But after the start of popular rock'n'roll in  the mid-1950s, still no rock, soul or blues song won the top award - not  even an Elvis movie song - until ISAAC HAYES broke the mould with 1971's soul music "Theme From Shaft"".
Since then, the awards have recognised other rhythmic song-styles but  the preferred choice among Academy voters is still for laid-back or MOR  songs with lyrics usually associated with romance. Only three songwriters have  won the top award with uncompromising lyrics - the performing artists BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN with "Streets of  Philadelphia" for 1993, BOB DYLAN with  "Things Have Changed" for 2000, and EMINEM with "Lose Yourself" for 2002.
The prolific popular songwriter RANDY NEWMAN was  nominated 15 times (8 for Best Score, 7 for Best Song) before finally winning at his 16th  attempt with the song "If I Don't Have You" at the ceremony for 2001. Since then  "We Belong Together", his 20th nomination, has won him a second Oscar.
At the other end of the musical scale, maestro composer and arranger JOHN WILLIAMS remains at the top of the music lists  with five awards from 45 nominations (41 for Best Dramatic Score and four for Best Song).  His works include the scoring of  "Jaws" (1975),  "Star Wars" (1977),  "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) and  "Schindler's List" (1993).
Apart from "Best Original Score" and "Best Original Song", there is a third musical Award  category still in existence - "Best Original Musical". Due however  to continuous insufficient eligibility each year, it has not been awarded since 1984 (when  won by "Purple Rain").
COLOUR
Throughout its first 73 years until March 2002, the Best Actor Oscar  had only been won by a black man once - by SIDNEY POITIER for  "The Lilies In The Field" in 1963, despite the emergence of strong roles for  coloured actors and actresses from the 1960s onwards.
Meanwhile, only three black American actors had won the Best  Supporting category, and all comparatively late on: LOUIS GOSSET Jr (1982), DENZIL WASHINGTON (1989) and CUBA GOODING Jr (1996); and in the female arena  only WHOOPIE GOLDBERG (1990) had matched the  singular achievement of Best Supporting Actress 51 years earlier by HATTIE McDANIEL (1939).
Finally in 2002 the 74th Award show saw Afro-Americans win both top  honours, and both in the same year - Best Actress for the first time, and  Best Actor again at last: first HALLE BERRY (for her 2001 performance in  "Monsters Ball") and then DENZIL WASHINGTON (for his portrayal of a  bad cop in "Training Day").  Two years later JAMIE FOXX was nominated in  both acting categories (the only person ever to have achieved this double)  for his Leading Role in the biopic "Ray" (for which he won the Oscar)  and his Supporting Role in "Collateral".
ACTORS
The Winners List
Several actors have won 2 oscars in their careers, but only WALTER BRENNAN and JACK NICHOLSON have achieved a record 3  Oscars for Best Acting in Leading and/or Supporting roles.
LAURENCE OLIVIER was nominated  11 times (10 for acting roles) during his career - a record only  surpassed recently by JACK NICHOLSON with his 12th acting nomination in 2002.
SPENCER TRACY was the only actor ever to achieve the Best Actor award two years in succession  (in 1937 and 1938, for "Captains Courageous" and "Boys Town") - until TOM HANKS repeated the feat in 1993 and 1994 (for "Philadelphia" and "Forrest Gump")...  The only other actor to achieve a near-similar "repeat" accolade is JASON ROBARDS,  who won the award for Best Supporting Actor in both 1976 and 1977  (for "All The President's Men" and "Julia").
BARRY FITZGERALD is the only person ever  to have been nominated for the same role in both Best Supporting Actor and Best Actor categories, after his 1944 performance as a priest in  "Going My Way".  He ultimately won the award for Best Support, the Best Actor award going  instead to the film's fellow priest and crooner BING CROSBY... Since then, the Academy's rules  have been changed to prevent a nomination in both categories.
Several people have been nominated for different portrayals of the same  character (either in the same film or in different films), but MARLON BRANDO (for "The Godfather", 1972) and ROBERT DeNIRO (for "The Godfather II", 1974) are  the only persons to have actually won Oscars for performances as the same character (being  that of Don Corleone).
ACTRESSES
The Winning List
KATHERINE HEPBURN achieved and still holds the record  of four Oscars for Best Female Acting in a Leading and/or Supporting role.  Nominated 12 times (and all for Leading Roles only) during a span of 48 years, her  four Oscars were awarded for 1933 ("Morning Glory"), 1967 ("Guess Who's Coming  To Dinner"), 1968 ("The Lion In Winter") and 1981 ("On Golden Pond").
Among all other actresses only INGRID BERGMAN has approached close to Hepburn's  unique feat, with 3 Oscars awarded for 1944 ("Gaslight"),  1956 ("Anastasia") and 1974 (with her Supporting Role in  "Murder On The Orient Express"). Ingrid Bergman's  tally is perhaps all the more remarkable considering that she was ostracised  by the Hollywood community for several years after 1948 because of her married affair  with Roberto Rossellini (Italian director of "Stromboli").
LUISE RAYNER was the only actress ever to  achieve the Best Actress award two years in succession (in 1936 and 1937, for  "The Great Ziegfeld and "The Good Earth") - until KATHERINE HEPBURN did the "double" in 1967  (for "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner") and 1968 (for "The Lion In Winter").  Curiously Hepburn's "two-in-a-row" feat also happened to match the previous  achievement of her partner SPENCER TRACY...
Surprisingly, MERYL STREEP has just two Oscars  (for a Supporting Role in 1979's "Kramer vs. Kramer" and a Leading Role in  1988's "Sophie's Choice"). With her 12th acting nomination (and 10th in a leading role)  for 1999's "Music Of The Heart" she equalled the record for most-nominated  actress set in 1981 by Katherine Hepburn, and surpassed it with her 13th nomination  for a Supporting Role in 2002's "Adaptation". She still holds the record to the  present day ("Doubt" in 2008 and "Julie and Julia in 2009 being her  15th and 16th nominations in a 31 year span comprising 13 for Best Actress and 3 for  Best Supporting Actress).
WRITERS