title: Max Verstappen

text: At the 2015 Monaco Grand Prix, Verstappen was involved in a high-speed collision with Romain Grosjean, after clipping the back of Grosjean's Lotus on the approach to the tight first corner, Sainte Devote, and crashed into the barriers at high speed. Verstappen was given a five-place grid penalty for causing the accident, and was branded "dangerous" by Williams driver Felipe Massa.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Verstappen continued to regularly finish in the points as well as achieving his best finish of the 2015 season in Hungary by finishing fourth, and equalled this result at the United States Grand Prix. At the end of the season, Verstappen received three awards at the FIA Prize Giving Ceremony, for "Rookie of the Year", "Personality of the Year" and "Action of the Year", for his overtake on Felipe Nasr on the outside of the Blanchimont corner at the Belgian Grand Prix.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Verstappen began the 2016 season at Toro Rosso, again alongside Sainz. Verstappen qualified fifth for the opening race of the season in Australia, but during the race made several radio calls to his team due to frustration at being behind Sainz on track before Verstappen's Toro Rosso came into contact with his teammate's car whilst attempting to pass him with three laps to go, and he eventually finished tenth. Verstappen enjoyed a more successful weekend at the following race in Bahrain, finishing sixth to score Toro Rosso's first-ever points at the Sakhir circuit.


title: Max Verstappen

text: On 5 May 2016, following the , Red Bull Racing announced that Verstappen would be replacing Daniil Kvyat from the Spanish Grand Prix onwards, with Kvyat returning to Toro Rosso. According to Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner, "Max has proven to be an outstanding young talent. His performance at Toro Rosso has been impressive so far and we are pleased to give him the opportunity to drive for Red Bull Racing." After qualifying fourth for the Spanish Grand Prix, Verstappen rose to second behind teammate Daniel Ricciardo on the opening lap after Mercedes teammates Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg crashed out of the race. Verstappen took the race lead as he was placed on a two-stop rather than the same three-stop strategy as Ricciardo, and he held off Ferrari's Kimi Räikkönen in the later stages of the race to take his first Formula One victory. By doing so he displaced Sebastian Vettel as the youngest driver ever to win a Formula One Grand Prix at the age of 18 years and 228 days.


title: Max Verstappen

text: During the Belgian Grand Prix, Verstappen collided with Räikkönen at the first corner, pushed Vettel, Räikkönen and Pérez wide at "Les Combes", and aggressively blocked Räikkönen on the Kemmel straight. Verstappen was criticised for his driving, with Räikkönen saying that he "was going to cause a huge accident sooner or later." Christian Horner noted that the driving was "on the edge", and that Verstappen will "look at it and learn for future races." In September, Formula One director Charlie Whiting called in Verstappen for a discussion, and later gave him a 'gentle warning' due to his aggressive driving. However, in October, drivers' concerns about Verstappen's defensive tactics led the FIA to disallow moving under braking.


title: Max Verstappen

text: At the 2016 Brazilian Grand Prix, Verstappen qualified fourth. In a rain affected race, he almost hit the barrier after he slid on the main straight due to a loss of traction, causing oversteer. After an additional tyre change from intermediates back to rain tyres, he ran in 16th place with just 15 laps remaining. Verstappen then made several overtakes in quick succession during the closing laps to eventually finish on the podium in third place. He received considerable praise for his performance: rival team Mercedes' team principal, Toto Wolff, labelled it "The Verstappen Show", and described Verstappen's drive as "physics..being redefined". However, Verstappen came under criticism from four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, who stated that Verstappen had pushed him off the track at the Junção corner late in the race. The race stewards did not share Vettel's view and decided that no reprimand was warranted.


title: Max Verstappen

text: During the first 14 races of the 2017 season, Verstappen suffered seven retirements, four due to mechanical issues, and three due to first lap collisions in Spain, Austria and Singapore. Of the races he finished, however, he claimed a third place in China, and in the another five races he finished fourth or fifth.


title: Max Verstappen

text: From the Malaysian Grand Prix onward, Verstappen enjoyed a surge of success. He won his second Formula One race at the 2017 Malaysian Grand Prix, a day after his 20th birthday, passing then three-time champion Lewis Hamilton for the lead in the early stages of the race. He finished second in the following race in Japan. He then finished third at the United States Grand Prix, but was classified fourth after his final lap overtake on Kimi Räikkönen was deemed illegal. He won his third Formula One race at the Mexican Grand Prix, after passing Sebastian Vettel on the opening lap.


title: Max Verstappen

text: In the first six races of the season, Verstappen had been involved in at least one incident in each race. In Australia, he qualified fourth but fell behind Kevin Magnussen at the start. In his attempts to retake the position he ran wide multiple times and damaged his car, with a spin causing him to fall further down the order. He recovered to eventually finish the race in sixth place. At the next race in Bahrain, he crashed during qualifying and started in 15th place. He had a productive first lap after which he found himself in the points while challenging Lewis Hamilton. He attempted an overtake on the reigning World Champion at the start of lap two, but collided with the Mercedes driver and suffered a puncture that ultimately led to suspension damage, forcing him out of the race.


title: Max Verstappen

text: At the next race in China, Verstappen qualified fifth and had moved up to third at the end of the first lap. Both Red Bull drivers pitted for fresh tyres during a safety car which left them with a tyre advantage over the front-runners ahead. In an overtake attempt on Sebastian Vettel for third place, Verstappen collided with the championship leader, causing him to fall to eighth and receive a 10-second penalty. He recovered to fourth place, with his penalty causing him to be classified fifth. Teammate Ricciardo went on to win the race. In Azerbaijan, Verstappen was embroiled in a race-long battle with Ricciardo for fourth place. After numerous position changes between the two teammates during the race, Ricciardo ran into the back of Verstappen during an overtake attempt from which the Dutchman aggressively defended, causing the retirement of both cars. Both drivers were blamed by the team and reprimanded by the stewards. Verstappen bounced back in Spain with his first podium of the season by finishing third behind the Mercedes drivers, holding off Sebastian Vettel. However, the race was also not without incident as he had run into the back of Lance Stroll during the virtual safety car period, causing minor front wing damage.


title: Max Verstappen

text: In Monaco, Verstappen made another error and crashed near the end of the third free practice session in an incident which closely resembled a crash he had at the same spot two years earlier. His team could not repair his car in time for qualifying and Verstappen had to start the race from the back of the grid. Verstappen did not compete and did not set a lap time in qualifying, therefore teammate Ricciardo pressed home Red Bull's advantage at the track by taking pole position and the race win. Verstappen managed to salvage 2 points by finishing ninth place, overtaking 6 cars on track. Team principal Christian Horner commented on Verstappen's start of the season, saying he "needed to stop making these mistakes" and that he could "learn from his teammate", while Helmut Marko, head of driver development at Red Bull, said that Verstappen was "too impatient". Verstappen now lay in sixth place in the championship with 35 points, only three points ahead of Fernando Alonso in the McLaren, and 37 points behind his teammate in third, who had taken two wins in the first six races.


title: Max Verstappen

text: In Canada, Verstappen topped all three practice sessions and qualified third, two-tenths off Sebastian Vettel in pole position. He eventually finished third and set the fastest lap of the race. The following race in France brought him second place. In Austria—Red Bull's home track, he started fourth on the grid, passed Kimi Räikkönen before taking advantage of retirement from Valtteri Bottas and a botched pit-stop strategy by Lewis Hamilton, who later had to retire from fourth place, to claim the fourth race victory of his career. In Britain, Verstappen was plagued by issues, finishing the first practice session early due to a gearbox problem and crashing in the second practice session before retiring from the race due to a brake problem. He would then finish fourth in Germany after strategy errors let a recovering Hamilton get past him as he went on to win the race. Verstappen ended the first half of the season with a retirement in Hungary and was narrowly behind his teammate in the championship due to his own recent resurgence and Ricciardo's unreliability.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Verstappen enjoyed a very strong second half of the season, achieving podium finishes in Belgium, Singapore, Japan and the United States, the latter of which he achieved second place having started from 18th on the grid due to a suspension failure in qualifying. Following the qualifying session at the Mexican Grand Prix, Verstappen revealed that a mechanical problem with his Red Bull under braking cost him any chance of becoming the youngest-ever Formula One pole-sitter. As a result, Ricciardo beat Verstappen to pole position by just 0.026 seconds. Verstappen had a better start than Ricciardo and took the lead of the race into the first corner, overtaking the fast-starting Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton. Verstappen earned his fifth career win in Mexico. He was poised to win the 2018 Brazilian Grand Prix, having overtaken Räikkönen, Vettel, Bottas, and Hamilton. However, he collided with Force India driver Esteban Ocon who was trying to unlap himself on faster tyres. Ocon received a 10-second stop-and-go penalty for the incident. After the collision with Ocon, Verstappen finished in second place behind Hamilton. During an argument with Ocon after the race, Verstappen pushed the Force India driver, for which he was given two days of "public service" as a penalty by the FIA. He then finished his season with another podium as he finished third in Abu Dhabi.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Verstappen ended the season in fourth place in the championship with 249 points, claiming two wins, eleven podium finishes, and two fastest laps.


title: Max Verstappen

text: In 2019 Red Bull switched from Renault to Honda power units. After Ricciardo moved to the Renault team for 2019, Verstappen was joined at Red Bull by Pierre Gasly. Verstappen qualified in fourth and finished third in Australia, the first podium finish for a Honda-powered driver since the 2008 British Grand Prix. Verstappen was on course for a second third-place finish in Bahrain before a late safety car prevented him from overtaking Charles Leclerc's ailing Ferrari, keeping him in fourth place. Two more fourth-place finishes followed in China and Azerbaijan, and a podium in Spain in third place. In Monaco, Verstappen qualified in third place. He was released into the path of Valtteri Bottas during the drivers' pit stops, gaining second place but receiving a 5-second penalty as a result. Verstappen crossed the line in second place but was demoted to fourth by the penalty.


title: Max Verstappen

text: In Canada, Verstappen's final lap in the second qualifying session was hampered by a red flag brought out by Kevin Magnussen's crash. This caused Verstappen to qualify 11th and start the race in ninth place. He later recovered to finish fifth. In France he started and finished in fourth place. In Austria, Verstappen started third but suffered a poor start, dropping down to eighth. After a charge towards the front, he made his way up to second before controversially passing Leclerc for the lead of the race with three laps to go. This marked the first Honda-powered race victory since the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix. In Britain, Verstappen, running in third place, was hit from behind during an overtake attempt by Sebastian Vettel and spun into the gravel. Verstappen was able to continue and crossed the line in fifth place.


title: Max Verstappen

text: The wet and chaotic German Grand Prix began similarly to the race in Austria for Verstappen, as a poor start caused him to fall behind. However, he would inherit the lead midway through the race after a crash by race leader Hamilton. Verstappen would go on to extend his lead after the track began to dry, claiming his second victory of the season. In Hungary, he claimed the first pole position of his career and led most of the race before being passed in the closing laps by Hamilton, who had made another stop for fresh tyres in a gamble to catch the leader.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Before the Belgian Grand Prix, Verstappen received a new teammate in Alexander Albon after Pierre Gasly was demoted back to Toro Rosso. In the race, Verstappen had a poor start and collided with Kimi Räikkönen at the first corner, resulting in suspension damage and causing Verstappen's first retirement of the season. In Italy, he did not set a time during qualifying after his car lost power in Q1, but he was already required to start from the back of the grid due to an engine component penalty. After damaging his front wing on the first lap, he recovered to finish the race in eighth place. third and fourth-place finishes followed in Singapore and Russia respectively. After suffering damage in a first-lap collision with Charles Leclerc in Japan, Verstappen suffered his second retirement of the season.


title: Max Verstappen

text: In Mexico, he qualified in first place after setting the fastest lap-time of the session, before being handed a grid penalty for ignoring yellow flags after a crash by Valtteri Bottas. Verstappen suffered a puncture early in the race after making contact with Bottas, falling to the back of the field before eventually recovering to sixth place. A third-place finish in the United States followed, before Verstappen took the second pole position of his career with a 1:07.508 pole lap time in Brazil. In a chaotic race, he passed Lewis Hamilton for the lead on two occasions before going on to claim his third victory of the season. Verstappen ended the season with a second-place finish in Abu Dhabi.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Verstappen finished the 2019 season in third place in the championship with 278 points. He claimed three race victories, nine podium finishes, two pole positions, and three fastest laps.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Verstappen continued to race for Red Bull in , alongside Albon. At the 2020 Austrian Grand Prix, he started second, but retired early in the race after a flywheel-related problem caused an electronic issue within the power unit. Honda introduced countermeasures in response to the retirement.


title: Max Verstappen

text: At the 2020 Hungarian Grand Prix, he crashed in wet conditions during the formation lap while he was on his way to the starting grid, but he was able to drive the car back to the grid where his mechanics fixed the suspension of the car in the short time that was left before the start of the race. After the repairs, Verstappen progressed from seventh place on the grid to second place by the end of the race. Verstappen won the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix at Silverstone, having started from fourth.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Verstappen clinched second place at the Spanish Grand Prix, after qualifying in third. At the 2020 Belgian Grand Prix, he scored a podium in third place, following his third place on the starting grid. He suffered from two consecutive DNFs at the Italian and Tuscan Grands Prix after which he lost second place in the Championship. At the Russian Grand Prix, Verstappen finished the race in second, his seventh podium finish of 2020. At the Eifel Grand Prix, Verstappen finished in second after qualifying in third. He also managed to get the fastest lap of the race. At the Portuguese Grand Prix, Verstappen qualified third, however a poor first lap meant that he dropped back down the order to fifth place. He recovered to third and took his 40th podium in Formula 1. At the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Verstappen looked set to claim second due to Valtteri Bottas' ailing Mercedes slowing down, but a sudden puncture denied him any chance of a podium finish; Verstappen spun, resulting in his fourth retirement of the 2020 season.


title: Max Verstappen

text: During Free Practice for the Portuguese Grand Prix, Verstappen was criticised for comments he made on the team radio after a collision with Lance Stroll, where he used the words "retard" and "mongol" in response to the clash. Verstappen admitted following the session that the word choices he used were "not correct." The Mongolian government and the Mongol identity asked Verstappen to apologise for the comments; the Mongolian government also urged the FIA to take action on the comments he made.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Verstappen finished the 2020 season in third place in the championship with 214 points. He claimed two race victories, eleven podium finishes, one pole position, and three fastest laps.


title: Max Verstappen

text: At the Bahrain Grand Prix, Verstappen topped all the practice sessions and subsequently took a career fourth pole position. This was the first time he achieved back-to-back pole positions. He fought Lewis Hamilton for the race victory, and on lap 53 Verstappen overtook Hamilton, but went off track whilst doing so, resulting in him being instructed by race control to let Hamilton back into the lead and ultimately finishing second behind Hamilton. At the next race, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Verstappen qualified third with teammate Sergio Pérez second, marking the first time he was out-qualified by a teammate since the 2019 Italian Grand Prix. At the race start, Verstappen was able to pass both Pérez and pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton to take the lead. He remained in the lead after the first round of pit stops as well as the restart, following the race being suspended on lap 33. Rival Hamilton finished second, reducing his championship lead over Verstappen to one point. In the following Portuguese Grand Prix, Verstappen finished second after a long battle with Lewis Hamilton. At the Spanish Grand Prix, the battle between Verstappen and Hamilton continued, with Hamilton employing a faster two-stop strategy versus Verstappen's one-stop race. This provided Hamilton the advantage of faster tyres, allowing him to overtake Verstappen with several laps remaining in the race. Hamilton took the victory, with Verstappen taking second and the fastest lap, increasing Hamilton's championship lead to 14 points.


title: Max Verstappen

text: At the next race in Monaco, Verstappen qualified second behind Charles Leclerc, but Leclerc suffered a driveshaft failure on the way to the grid and was unable to start the race. Verstappen controlled the race from the front on the way to victory. Hamilton (who qualified seventh) finished seventh, though claiming an extra championship point by setting the fastest race lap. The result enabled Verstappen to take the lead in the Drivers' Championship for the first time in his career, by a margin of four points over Hamilton. At the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Verstappen qualified third behind Leclerc and Hamilton. Verstappen and Hamilton passed Leclerc in the opening laps before Verstappen took the lead by way of a faster pitstop. Verstappen would comfortably hold the lead until lap 46 when he suffered a tyre failure causing him to crash at high-speed and retire. A mistake by Hamilton on the restart dropped him to last place, meaning Verstappen maintained his championship lead. Verstappen took pole for the French Grand Prix. Verstappen's mistake on the first lap allowed Hamilton to take the lead which Verstappen retook during the pit stop phase. Verstappen pitted for a second time from the lead and set after the Mercedes duo, overtaking Hamilton for the lead on lap 52 of 53. He also took the fastest lap point, extending his championship lead to twelve points. Verstappen clinched pole position again at the Styrian Grand Prix and led the race from start to finish, to give him his fourth win of the season and further extend his lead to 18 points.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Verstappen took pole position at the Austrian Grand Prix, led every lap from start to finish, set the fastest lap, and won the race for his first career grand slam, being the youngest to do so. With the win, Verstappen also became the first driver to win three races in three consecutive weekends, starting at the French Grand Prix on 20 June, then the Styrian Grand Prix on 27 June and ending with the Austrian Grand Prix on 4 July. At the next race; the British Grand Prix, Verstappen was involved in a high-speed collision at the "Copse" corner with Hamilton on the first lap. This resulted in a 51 "g" impact with the barrier. He was taken to the Silverstone circuit's medical centre after the crash and was then taken to Coventry hospital for precautionary checks and further assessment, before eventually being discharged at 22:00 local time on Sunday night. Hamilton would go on to win the race, reducing Verstappen's lead in the championship to eight points. At the next race, the Hungarian Grand Prix, Verstappen's car suffered damage in a multi-car collision on lap 1, where Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas was deemed at fault. He ended the race in tenth which was promoted to ninth after Sebastian Vettel was disqualified. The outcome of the race allowed Hamilton to take the lead of the championship.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Following the summer break, Verstappen qualified on pole at the Belgian Grand Prix, ahead of Williams driver George Russell in second and Lewis Hamilton in third. The race was run for three laps, all behind the safety car, with the race official race results taken from the running order at the end of the first lap, with Hamilton and Verstappen both retaining their qualifying positions. As less than 75% of the race distance was completed, half points were awarded, resulting in Verstappen closing the gap to Hamilton to three points. At the Dutch Grand Prix Verstappen again qualified on pole, beating Hamilton by 0.038 seconds. During the race Verstappen was able to fend off attacks from both Mercedes drivers to take the win, taking the lead in the Drivers' Championship by three points. For the , Verstappen was required to start at the back of the grid for exceeding his quota of power unit components. He made his way back up the field, and after taking an early pit stop for intermediate tyres late in the race, he finished second. At the Turkish Grand Prix, Verstappen qualified second with Bottas on pole. With the race being run in wet conditions and the drivers on intermediate tyres the whole race, Verstappen finished second behind Bottas, taking the lead in the Drivers' Championship by six points as Hamilton finished fifth.


title: Max Verstappen

text: At the United States Grand Prix, Verstappen took pole position in qualifying, edging Hamilton by 0.209 seconds. Verstappen won the race and extended his lead in the Drivers' Championship to twelve points as Hamilton finished second with the fastest lap. At the 2021 Mexico City Grand Prix, Verstappen qualified third with a gap to pole-sitter Bottas of 0.350 seconds. Verstappen's main opponent Hamilton qualified second. At the race start, Verstappen took the lead from Bottas and Hamilton into turn 1 and won the race, and as a result extended his lead in the championship to 19 points.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Verstappen and Hamilton were on equal points in the Drivers' Championship going into the final round, the , with Verstappen leading on countback. Verstappen overtook Hamilton on the final lap to win the race, and his first Formula One World Drivers' Championship. Verstappen, who had qualified on pole position by nearly four-tenths of a second, had a slow start off the line at the start of the race and dropped to second place. Verstappen was trailing Hamilton by over ten seconds until a late safety car was called in due to a crash at turn 14 involving Williams driver Nicholas Latifi. The withdrawal of the safety car and the resumption of the race following the safety car period was met with controversy. Race director Michael Masi allowed only a certain number of lapped cars through, which after the race brought from the Mercedes team a protest and stated intention to appeal against the race result, arguing that all lapped cars should be allowed through, Red Bull counter argued that this was not specified by the wording of the regulations. The protest was rejected, although subsequent investigation by the FIA ruled that Masi had misinterpreted the rule and the wording of the rule was amended for the 2022 season to specify that "all" cars will unlap themselves (at the race director's discretion) rather than "any". Verstappen passed Hamilton at turn 5 of the final lap of the race to become the 34th Formula One World Drivers' Champion.


title: Max Verstappen

text: In March 2022 Verstappen signed a five-year contract extension with Red Bull Racing for the 2023 to 2028 seasons.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Verstappen suffered two fuel system related retirements in the first three races, finding himself 46 points behind championship leader Charles Leclerc. He responded by winning five of the next seven races, allowing him to take the championship lead and build a gap of 37 points over second place, by then held by his teammate Sergio Pérez.


title: Max Verstappen

text: He would go on to dominate much of the season, winning 15 races, securing the World Drivers' Championship at the Japanese Grand Prix.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Following Verstappen's maiden pole position at the 2019 Hungarian Grand Prix, former Formula One World Champion Nico Rosberg described him as the fastest driver in Formula One. Rosberg elucidated that Verstappen did not have the fastest car during the qualifying session in Hungary, emphasising that it was Verstappen's raw speed that allowed him to secure pole position: "Mercedes still had the fastest car, and it's just Verstappen with his driving that put it up there in pole."


title: Max Verstappen

text: In 2019, former Formula One World Champion Jenson Button stated that he believes Verstappen is the fastest Formula One driver ever: "I think he is the fastest driver that has ever driven an F1 car. I really do, I think he is unbelievably fast." Journalist Scott Mitchell from "The Race" commented: "When everything comes together, Verstappen is the quickest driver in F1 over one lap, but the odd mistake and scruffy session must be eliminated." Helmut Marko, head of Red Bull's driver development programme, stated that Verstappen is the fastest driver Red Bull have ever had. In 2021, three-time Formula One World Champion Jackie Stewart claimed that Verstappen is the fastest driver in Formula One, but he also added that Verstappen is still in the "puppy stage" of his career. Peter Windsor, an experienced Formula One journalist, expressed Verstappen's ability to change direction "quicker than anybody else" through the high-speed section Maggots and Becketts: Silverstone's fastest sequence of corners. Windsor stressed that Verstappen's lightning-quick change of direction is a result of the innate feel he has for creating the "perfect platform" to achieve what he wants with the car during a lap. He is intrinsically able to create, for "a trillionth of a second", a minuscule "flat area" between the left and the right of a change of direction ahead of him, in order to attain a stable balance with the car before applying the next steering and throttle input. Scuderia AlphaTauri's team principal, Franz Tost, declared Verstappen to be the fastest driver in Formula One; following the Dutchman's "really deserved" maiden title triumph in 2021. On the subject of sim racing, Verstappen was deemed the "fastest" driver by IndyCar racer and former Formula One driver Romain Grosjean.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Former Formula One driver Eddie Irvine praised Verstappen, stating that he is "by far the most dominant team leader on the grid." Irvine highlighted that Verstappen "has had many different second drivers in the team and none of them have got close to him." During the 2020 season, Jenson Button stated that he doesn't "think there's been a driver that's annihilated their team-mates like he [Verstappen] has in a very long time." Motorsport columnist and former Formula One driver Jolyon Palmer, commented that Verstappen's maiden world championship triumph could usher in a new era of "dominance" in the sport. Palmer wrote:[Verstappen's] qualifying pace is frightening and has been the basis for this title-charging campaign. He's had the most pole positions of anyone with 10 – almost half of the races, and it would have been half had he completed his mesmeric Jeddah lap, which ended up being possibly Max's biggest error in a near-perfect season. For a driver who has demolished three successive team mates in three years and made only a handful of small mistakes in that time, you question what scope their even is for improvement – but if he can take his game onto another level from here, we could be about to see the start of a new era of dominance.Journalist Scott Mitchell expounded the reason why the Dutchman's teammates have fallen short "even with the data." Mitchell wrote: "Verstappen drives mainly on intuition, and that comes from years of training and preparation. He has a database in his head which he can use immediately. Even with data, Gasly and Albon could see where he was faster, but they could never grasp how he was faster there. That's because what makes Verstappen so good is mainly unconscious." According to Mitchell, those years of training and driving on his intuition has made it impossible for other drivers to measure up to Verstappen.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Helmut Marko, the current advisor to the Red Bull GmbH Formula One teams, asserted that Verstappen's progress has moved him clear of his former Formula 1 team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, in both qualifying and race trim. "There is specific data," Marko told Autosport, "In qualifying the gap to Ricciardo is greater. The strange thing is Max sometimes slides more, but still manages to keep the tyres alive." Verstappen previously mentioned that he was three or four-tenths faster on average than "very fast qualifier" Daniel Ricciardo. Marko concluded that then 20-year-old Verstappen "clearly moved away" from Ricciardo since the "second half of the 2018 season."


title: Max Verstappen

text: Following his maiden Formula One win, at the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix, three-time Formula One World Champion Niki Lauda described Verstappen as the "talent of the century." Red Bull Team Principal Christian Horner stated that Verstappen is the best driver Red Bull have ever seen: "I have no doubt [Verstappen is] the best we have seen on one of our cars, in terms of outright raw ability and commitment. He's the best driver we’ve seen."


title: Max Verstappen

text: Former Formula One driver Gerhard Berger echoed Jenson Button's recent comments, anointing Max Verstappen as the Formula One driver of this era with the most raw talent. Speaking to "Sport1", Berger ventured: “When it comes to raw talent, Max Verstappen is the most talented of all. But it’s not just about raw talent, it’s about the whole package. That means it’s not just about setting the fastest laps but also to win a race. And not just [about] one race but many and eventually a championship, and championships." Two-time Formula One World Champion Fernando Alonso commented that Verstappen is the standout driver in Formula One, declaring the Red Bull star to be "one step ahead" of everyone. Alonso noted that Verstappen deserved to win the Formula One drivers’ championship in Abu Dhabi, ahead of the title decider that saw the Dutchman and Lewis Hamilton enter level on points: “Mercedes lately have been more performing and they’ve won a couple of races now, but Max is driving – in my opinion – one step ahead of all of us. We saw the [qualifying] lap in Jeddah, until he touched the wall at the last corner, that lap was coming from Max, not the Red Bull." Former Formula One Driver Karun Chandhok likened Verstappen's ruthless and uncompromising attitude in race combat to Michael Schumacher's unyielding and iron-willed style of racing. Verstappen was ranked first in the annual Formula One team principals’ top ten drivers ranking in 2021.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Following Verstappen being given a warning for his driving conduct at the 2016 Belgian Grand Prix, the 18-year-old received the backing of then three-time champion Lewis Hamilton, who commented: "firstly, give the guy a break, he is 18 years old. What the frickin' heck were any of us doing at 18?"


title: Max Verstappen

text: Despite earning high praise and acclaim from Formula One drivers and experts in and out of the sport, Verstappen faced criticism in the wake of the penalties he incurred during the 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Following this race, former Formula One driver Martin Brundle wrote: "Such is [his] car control and cunning, he's sometimes able to pull off the audacious moves and leave a margin of doubt as to whether it's hard racing or simply a professional foul outside of the regulations and it's those moments which are generating the confusion, controversies and inconsistencies. Ayrton Senna and Michael Schumacher had their faults too, and I was on the receiving end from both of them on occasions, but it's a sizeable dent on their immense reputations, not a positive." Following an impressive first half of the 2022 season, journalist David Tremayne claimed Verstappen had elevated himself to a new higher level compared to his 2021 title winning season, suggesting Verstappen's first title had made him more relaxed and "chirpy".


title: Max Verstappen

text: Verstappen has accumulated a significant fanbase from around the world, but in particular from his home country of the Netherlands. Grand Prix events have dedicated Verstappen grandstands with thousands of travelling Dutch fans, boosting ticket sales particularly for European races such as Belgium, Austria and Hungary. During the 2021 Dutch Grand Prix, Honda's Formula One managing director Masashi Yamamoto praised the Verstappen supporters saying that ″in the six years I've been involved with Honda F1, I've never seen such a great turnout as at the Dutch Grand Prix. It was like being in a football stadium″ and that ″when Max crossed the finish line first, the whole circuit coloured orange″.


title: Max Verstappen

text: Verstappen has a supporters song, "Super Max!" which was released by the Pitstop Boys. The song went viral after his 2021 championship victory, reaching number two in the UK and fifth in the Global Spotify viral charts respectively.


title: Max Verstappen

text: In 2022, Verstappen was named the winner of the Laureus World Sports Award for Sportsman of the Year.


title: Max Verstappen

text: On 3 October 2014, Verstappen became the youngest driver to participate in a Formula One Grand Prix weekend (17 years, 3 days), driving in FP1 at the Japanese Grand Prix, deputising in place of Toro Rosso's Jean-Eric Vergne.


title: Max Verstappen

text: On 3 August 2019, Verstappen became the first Dutch Formula One driver to take pole position, for the Hungarian Grand Prix, while also setting a new lap record on the Hungaroring and becoming the 100th polesitter in the sport's history.


title: Max Verstappen

text: On 23 May 2021, after winning the Monaco Grand Prix, Verstappen became the first Dutch Formula One driver to lead the World Championship.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: Ewan Gordon McGregor ( ; born 31 March 1971) is a Scottish actor. His accolades include a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and the BAFTA Britannia Humanitarian Award. In 2013, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to drama and charity.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: His first professional role was in 1993, as a leading role in the British Channel 4 series "Lipstick on Your Collar". He then achieved international fame with his portrayals of heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama films "Trainspotting" (1996) and "T2 Trainspotting" (2017), Obi-Wan Kenobi in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy (1999–2005), poet Christian in the musical film "Moulin Rouge!" (2001), SPC John Grimes in "Black Hawk Down" (2001), young Edward Bloom in "Big Fish" (2003), Rodney Copperbottom in "Robots" (2005), Camerlengo Father Patrick McKenna in "Angels and Demons" (2009), "the ghost" in Roman Polanski's political thriller "The Ghost Writer" (2010), Dr. Alfred Jones in the romantic comedy-drama "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" (2011), Lumière in the live-action adaptation of the musical romantic fantasy "Beauty and the Beast" (2017), the adult version of the titular character in the fantasy comedy-drama "Christopher Robin" (2018), the adult version of Dan Torrance in the horror film "Doctor Sleep" (2019), and Black Mask in the DC Extended Universe superhero film "Birds of Prey" (2020). He'd make his directorial debut with the historical crime-drama "American Pastoral" (2016), where he also played Seymour "Swede" Levov.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: In 2018, McGregor won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film for his dual role as brothers Ray and Emmit Stussy in the third season of FX anthology series "Fargo", and received Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy for both "Moulin Rouge!" and "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen". McGregor has also starred in theatre productions of "Guys and Dolls" (2005–2007) and "Othello" (2007–2008). In 2021, he portrayed fashion designer Halston in a Netflix miniseries "Halston" for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. He returned as Obi-Wan in the 2022 Disney+ miniseries "Obi-Wan Kenobi".


title: Ewan McGregor

text: McGregor was ranked number 36 on "Empire" magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list in 1997. In a 2004 poll for the BBC, He was named the fourth most influential person in British culture. "IndieWire" named McGregor one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination. McGregor has been involved in charity work and has served as an ambassador for UNICEF UK since 2004. He became an American citizen in 2016.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: McGregor was born on 31 March 1971 in Perth, Scotland, and was raised in nearby Crieff. His mother, Carol Diane ("née" Lawson), is a retired teacher at Crieff High School and latterly deputy head teacher at Kingspark School in Dundee. His father, James Charles Stewart "Jim" McGregor, is a retired physical education teacher and careers master at the independent Morrison's Academy in Crieff. He has an older brother, Colin (born 1969), a former Tornado GR4 pilot in the Royal Air Force. His uncle is actor Denis Lawson and his aunt by marriage was actress Sheila Gish, which makes him a step-cousin of Gish's actress daughters, Kay Curram and Lou Gish.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: McGregor attended Morrison's Academy. After leaving school at the age of 16, he worked as a stagehand at Perth Theatre and studied a foundation course in drama at Kirkcaldy College of Technology, before moving to London to study drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama when he was 18 years old.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: Six months prior to his graduation from Guildhall, McGregor began a leading role in Dennis Potter's six-part Channel 4 series "Lipstick on Your Collar" (1993). Not long afterwards, he starred in the BBC adaptation of "Scarlet and Black" (also 1993) with a young Rachel Weisz and made his film debut in Bill Forsyth's "Being Human" (1994). For his role in the thriller "Shallow Grave" (also 1994), he won an Empire Award. The film was his first collaboration with director Danny Boyle. He had a major role in the 1996 Channel 4 comedy-drama film "Brassed Off", written and directed by Mark Herman. His international breakthrough followed with the role of heroin addict Mark Renton in Boyle's "Trainspotting" (1996), an adaptation of Irvine Welsh's novel of the same name.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: McGregor played the male romantic lead role in the British film "Little Voice" (1998). He was cast as the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy, released between 1999 and 2005. Kenobi was originally played by Sir Alec Guinness in the first "Star Wars" trilogy. McGregor's uncle, Denis Lawson, had played Wedge Antilles in the original trilogy. While the prequels received mixed reviews, McGregor's performance was well received. McGregor said making the prequels was difficult, as he had to act mostly against green screens and the dialogue was "not exactly Shakespeare". He also stated that the negative reaction to the films had been difficult.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: McGregor starred in "Moulin Rouge!" (2001) as the young poet Christian, who falls in love with the terminally-ill courtesan Satine (Nicole Kidman), for which his performance was widely praised and nabbed McGregor his first Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nomination. He also appeared in Ridley Scott's war film "Black Hawk Down" (2001) as John Grimes. He starred alongside Renée Zellweger in "Down with Love" (2003). He also portrayed the younger Edward Bloom in Tim Burton's critically acclaimed film "Big Fish" (2003) alongside Albert Finney, Jessica Lange, Alison Lohman and Billy Crudup. In the same period, he also received critical acclaim for his portrayal of an amoral drifter mixed up with murder in the drama "Young Adam" (also 2003), which co-starred Tilda Swinton.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: McGregor voiced two successful animated features; he played the robot Rodney Copperbottom in "Robots", which also featured the voices of Halle Berry and Robin Williams, and he voiced the lead character in Gary Chapman's "Valiant" (both 2005), alongside Jim Broadbent, John Cleese and Ricky Gervais. Also around this time, McGregor played two roles – one a clone of the other – opposite Scarlett Johansson in Michael Bay's science fiction action thriller film "The Island" (2005). He also headlined Marc Forster's 2005 film "Stay", a psychological thriller co-starring Naomi Watts and Ryan Gosling.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: He narrated the Fulldome production "Astronaut" (2006), created for the National Space Centre. Around the same time, he also narrated the STV show "JetSet" (also 2006), a six-part series following the lives of trainee pilots and navigators at RAF Lossiemouth as they undergo a gruelling six-month course learning to fly the Tornado GR4, the RAF's primary attack aircraft. McGregor starred opposite Colin Farrell in the Woody Allen film "Cassandra's Dream" (2007), and he co-starred with Jim Carrey in "I Love You Phillip Morris" and appeared in "Amelia" (both 2009) alongside Hilary Swank. He played "the ghost" – the unnamed main character – in Roman Polanski's political thriller "The Ghost Writer" (2010). He portrayed Camerlengo Patrick McKenna in Ron Howard's mystery thriller "Angels & Demons" (also 2009), the film adaptation of Dan Brown's novel of the same name and a sequel to Howard's "The Da Vinci Code", co-starring Tom Hanks as Robert Landon. In 2011, McGregor starred in the British comedy "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen" directed by Lasse Hallström and co-starring Emily Blunt and Kristin Scott Thomas, for which he received his second Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nomination. At the same year, he was awarded with the SIFF Golden Space Needle Award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting at the 2011 Seattle International Film Festival.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: In 2012, he was a member of the Jury for the Main Competition at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. At the San Sebastián International Film Festival, he was awarded the Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award and became the youngest recipient of the award. The same year, he also starred in the disaster drama film "The Impossible" opposite Naomi Watts and Tom Holland. In 2013, McGregor starred alongside Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts in "", which was based on Tracy Letts's Pulitzer Prize-winning .


title: Ewan McGregor

text: McGregor starred in the action comedy film "Mortdecai" (2015), alongside Johnny Depp and Paul Bettany. Robbie Collin of "The Daily Telegraph" felt the film was "psychotically unfunny". He made his directorial debut with "American Pastoral" (2016), in which he also starred.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: In 2017, he reprised his role as Mark Renton in "T2 Trainspotting". McGregor played Lumière (originally voiced by Jerry Orbach in the 1991 animated film) in the live-action adaptation of Disney's "Beauty and the Beast", directed by Bill Condon, with an ensemble cast featuring Emma Watson and Dan Stevens in leading roles, alongside Luke Evans, Kevin Kline, Josh Gad, Stanley Tucci, Ian McKellen, and Emma Thompson. Filming began in May 2015 at Shepperton Studios in London, and the movie was released in March 2017. He then starred in FX anthology series in the third season of "Fargo" (both 2017), which garnered him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film for his dual performance of Emmit Stussy and Ray Stussy at the 75th Golden Globe Awards. In 2018, McGregor starred as the adult version of the titular character in "Christopher Robin", a live-action adaptation of Disney's "Winnie the Pooh" franchise directed by Marc Forster and starred alongside Hayley Atwell.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: In 2019, McGregor starred as the older Danny Torrance in "Doctor Sleep", the film adaptation of Stephen King's novel of the same name. In 2020, he appeared opposite Margot Robbie in Warner Bros.' DC Comics film "Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)", directed by Cathy Yan, as the main villain Roman Sionis / Black Mask.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: On 23 August 2019, Lucasfilm announced that McGregor would reprise his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in a new "Star Wars" television series, due for release on Disney+ in 2022.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: In 2021, McGregor created a charismatic portrait of the American fashion designer Halston in the eponymously titled miniseries for Netflix, based on the candid biography "Simply Halston" by journalist Steven Gaines. McGregor was also billed as executive producer, jointly with Ryan Murphy.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: From November 1998 to March 1999, McGregor starred as Malcolm Scrawdyke in a revival of David Halliwell's "Little Malcolm and His Struggles Against the Eunuchs", directed by his uncle, Denis Lawson. The production was first staged at the Hampstead Theatre before transferring to the Comedy Theatre in London's West End. In November 2001, McGregor made a cameo appearance in "The Play What I Wrote".


title: Ewan McGregor

text: From June 2005 to April 2007, McGregor starred alongside Jane Krakowski, Douglas Hodge and Jenna Russell in the Donmar Warehouse revival of "Guys and Dolls" after it transferred to the Piccadilly Theatre in London. He played the leading role of Sky Masterson. McGregor received the LastMinute.com award for Best Actor for his performance in 2005, and he was nominated for a Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 2007.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: From December 2007 to February 2008, McGregor starred as Iago in "Othello" at the Donmar Warehouse alongside Chiwetel Ejiofor as Othello and Kelly Reilly as Desdemona. He reprised the role on BBC Radio 3 in May 2008.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: A motorcyclist since his youth, McGregor undertook a marathon international motorbike trip with his best friend Charley Boorman and cameraman Claudio von Planta in 2004. From mid-April to the end of July, they travelled from London to New York via central Europe, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, Canada and the United States on BMW R1150GS Adventure motorbikes, for a cumulative distance of 22,345 miles (35,960 km). The trip included visits to several UNICEF programs along the route, and formed the basis of a television series and a best-selling book, both called "Long Way Round".


title: Ewan McGregor

text: The "Long Way Round" team reunited in 2007 for another motorcycle trip from John o' Groats in Scotland to Cape Town in South Africa. The journey, entitled "Long Way Down", lasted from 12 May until 5 August 2007. McGregor's brother Colin joined the motorcycle team during the early stages of the "Long Way Down" journey, and his father Jim also rode on sections of both "Long Way Round" and "Long Way Down".


title: Ewan McGregor

text: McGregor appeared in a two-part BBC documentary in April 2012 entitled "Ewan McGregor: Cold Chain Mission" in which he travels by motorbike, boat, plane and foot to deliver vaccines to children in remote parts of India, Nepal and the Republic of Congo. The trip was part of his work as a UNICEF Ambassador.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: In a June 2015 interview, McGregor indicated that a long discussed South American trip with Boorman was still in the planning stages, but he expected that an excursion through the Baja California Peninsula would take place first.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: On 14 December 2019, McGregor and Boorman finished a three-month journey on electric Harley-Davidson LiveWire motorcycles from Patagonia, Argentina, to California, United States, for a docuseries. The 11-episode series, "Long Way Up", debuted on Apple TV+ on 18 September 2020.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: McGregor married Eve Mavrakis, a French-Greek Jewish production designer whom he met on the set of "Kavanagh QC", in 1995. Together they have four daughters, two of them adopted, one a street child from Mongolia he met while travelling in "Long Way Round". With his children raised in Mavrakis's Jewish faith, McGregor said in 2016, "My involvement in religion has more to do with the Jewish faith now and not the Christian faith, which I was very vaguely brought up in." McGregor has a heart and dagger tattoo of the names of Mavrakis and their daughters on his right arm. On 19 January 2018, having been separated since May 2017, McGregor filed for divorce from Mavrakis, citing irreconcilable differences; the divorce was finalised on 13 August 2020.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: In May 2017, McGregor began a relationship with American actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead, whom he met on the set of "Fargo". Their son, Laurie, was born in June 2021. McGregor and Winstead married in April 2022.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: McGregor is involved in charity work, including UNICEF UK since 2004 and GO Campaign. During the "Long Way Round" journey in 2004, McGregor and his travelling companions saw some of UNICEF's work in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia, and during the "Long Way Down" trip in 2007, he and Charley Boorman did some work for UNICEF in Africa. McGregor hosted the annual Hollywood gala for the GO Campaign in 2009 and 2010. He has worked with the Children's Hospice Association Scotland, as featured in "Long Way Down". In 2012, he travelled with UNICEF immunization workers to remote parts of India, Nepal and the Republic of Congo for a BBC2 documentary entitled "Ewan McGregor: Cold Chain Mission". In June 2015, McGregor read Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl" for the children's fairy tales app GivingTales in aid of UNICEF, together with other prominent figures such as Sir Roger Moore, Stephen Fry, Dame Joan Collins, Joanna Lumley, and Sir Michael Caine.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: In 2007, on an episode of "Parkinson", McGregor said he had been a teetotaller for the last seven years. He also mentioned this in an interview with the "Irish Independent" in 2008, stating that he would often turn up to sets drunk or hungover in the late 1990s, and that he decided to stop altogether to avoid spiralling down further.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: In September 2020, after travelling through Chile for the documentary "Long Way Up", he revealed that his great-grandfather, John “Juan” Charles McIndoe, was born in Chile to Scottish parents while his father worked with the American engineers in the construction of the railways at the end of the 19th century. Later, John went to Glasgow and worked as a wine importer and diplomat.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: McGregor was an outspoken critic of Brexit. Although opposed to Scottish independence from the United Kingdom in the 2014 Scottish referendum, he later declared during an interview that he would have voted for Scotland to leave the United Kingdom if he had been able to cast his vote the day after the United Kingdom left the European Union. In 2020 he voiced his support for Scottish independence, saying that "it's time".


title: Ewan McGregor

text: McGregor became a naturalised US citizen after 2016 so he would be able to vote in the 2020 US presidential election. During his journey on "Long Way Up", he travelled entirely on his US passport.


title: Ewan McGregor

text: In 2010, McGregor was appointed by the French government as a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres (Knight of the Order of the Arts and Letters). McGregor was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2013 New Year Honours for services to drama and charity.


title: Academy Awards

text: The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment industry worldwide. Given annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the awards are an international recognition of excellence in cinematic achievements, as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a golden statuette as a trophy, officially called the "Academy Award of Merit", although more commonly referred to by its nickname, the "Oscar". The statuette, depicting a knight rendered in the Art Deco style, was originally sculpted by Los Angeles artist George Stanley from a design sketch by art director Cedric Gibbons.


title: Academy Awards

text: The 1st Academy Awards were held in 1929 at a private dinner hosted by Douglas Fairbanks in The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The Academy Awards ceremony was first broadcast by radio in 1930 and was televised for the first time in 1953. It is the oldest worldwide entertainment awards ceremony and is now televised live worldwide. It is also the oldest of the four major annual American entertainment awards; its equivalents – the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theater, and the Grammy Awards for music – are modeled after the Academy Awards. A total of 3,140 Oscar statuettes have been awarded since its inception in 1929.


title: Academy Awards

text: The first Academy Awards presentation was held on May 16, 1929, at a private dinner function at The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel with an audience of about 270 people.


title: Academy Awards

text: The post-awards party was held at the Mayfair Hotel. The cost of guest tickets for that night's ceremony was $5 ($ at 2020 prices). Fifteen statuettes were awarded, honoring artists, directors and other participants in the film-making industry of the time, for their works during the 1927–28 period. The ceremony ran for 15 minutes.


title: Academy Awards

text: For this first ceremony, winners were announced to the media three months earlier. For the second ceremony in 1930, and the rest of the first decade, the results were given to newspapers for publication at 11:00 pm on the night of the awards. In 1940, the "Los Angeles Times" announced the winners before the ceremony began; as a result, the following year the Academy started using a sealed envelope to reveal the names of the winners.


title: Academy Awards

text: The term "Oscar" is a registered trademark of the AMPAS; however, in the Italian language, it is used generically to refer to any award or award ceremony, regardless of which field.


title: Academy Awards

text: The first Best Actor awarded was Emil Jannings, for his performances in "The Last Command" and "The Way of All Flesh". He had to return to Europe before the ceremony, so the Academy agreed to give him the prize earlier; this made him the first Academy Award winner in history. At that time, winners were recognized for the entirety of their work done in a certain category during the qualifying period; for example, Jannings received the award for two movies in which he starred during that period, and Janet Gaynor later won a single Oscar for performances in three films. With the fourth ceremony, however, the system changed, and professionals were honored for a specific performance in a single film. For the first six ceremonies, the eligibility period spanned two calendar years.


title: Academy Awards

text: At the 29th ceremony, held in 1957, the Best Foreign Language Film category, now known as Best International Feature Film, was introduced. Until then, foreign-language films had been honored with the Special Achievement Award.


title: Academy Awards

text: Perhaps the most widely seen streaker in history was 34-year-old Robert Opel, who streaked across the stage of The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles flashing a peace sign on national US television at the 46th Academy Awards in 1974. Bemused host David Niven quipped, "Isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?" Later, evidence arose suggesting that Opel's appearance was facilitated as a publicity stunt by the show's producer Jack Haley Jr. Robert Metzler, the show's business manager, believed that the incident had been planned in some way; during the dress rehearsal Niven had asked Metzler's wife to borrow a pen so he could write down the famous line, which was thus not the ad-lib it appeared to be.


title: Academy Awards

text: From 1973 to 2020, all Academy Awards ceremonies have ended with the Academy Award for Best Picture. For 2021, this tradition was broken as the ceremony ended with the Academy Award for Best Actor.


title: Academy Awards

text: Traditionally, the previous year's winner for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor present the awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, while the previous year's winner for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress present the awards for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.


title: Academy Awards

text: On February 9, 2020, "Parasite" became the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture at the award ceremony of 92nd Academy Awards.


title: Academy Awards

text: Tom Hanks announced at the 2020 Oscar Ceremony, the opening of the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on December 14, 2020. The museum development started in 2017 under Kerry Brougher, but is now led by Bill Kramer. The industry curated exhibits will be geared toward the history of motion picture, the art & science of film making, exhibiting trailblazing directors, actors, film-makers, sound editors and more, and will house famous artifacts from acclaimed movies like Dorothy's Ruby Red Slippers.


title: Academy Awards

text: The 93rd Academy Awards ceremony, honoring the best films of 2020 and early 2021, was held on April 25, 2021, after it was postponed from its original February 28, 2021, schedule due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cinema. As with two previous ceremonies, there was no host. The ceremony was broadcast on ABC. It took place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California for the 19th consecutive year, along with satellite location taking place at the Union Station also in Los Angeles. Because of the virus impact on films and TV industries, Academy president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson announced that for the 2021 Oscar Ceremony, streaming movies not shown in theaters would be eligible, though at some point the requirement that movies be shown in theaters would return.


title: Academy Awards

text: The best known award is the Academy Award of Merit, more popularly known as the Oscar statuette. Made of gold-plated bronze on a black metal base, it is 13.5 in (34.3 cm) tall, weighs 8.5 lb (3.856 kg), and depicts a knight rendered in Art Deco style holding a sword standing on a reel of film with five spokes. The five spokes represent the original branches of the Academy: Actors, Writers, Directors, Producers, and Technicians.


title: Academy Awards

text: Sculptor George Stanley (who also did the Muse Fountain at the Hollywood Bowl) sculpted Cedric Gibbons' design. The statuettes presented at the initial ceremonies were gold-plated solid bronze. Within a few years, the bronze was abandoned in favor of Britannia metal, a pewter-like alloy which is then plated in copper, nickel silver, and finally, 24-karat gold. Due to a metal shortage during World War II, Oscars were made of painted plaster for three years. Following the war, the Academy invited recipients to redeem the plaster figures for gold-plated metal ones. The only addition to the Oscar since it was created is a minor streamlining of the base. The original Oscar mold was cast in 1928 at the C.W. Shumway & Sons Foundry in Batavia, Illinois, which also contributed to casting the molds for the Vince Lombardi Trophy and Emmy Award's statuettes. From 1983 to 2015, approximately 50 Oscars in a tin alloy with gold plating were made each year in Chicago by Illinois manufacturer R.S. Owens & Company. It would take between three and four weeks to manufacture 50 statuettes. In 2016, the Academy returned to bronze as the core metal of the statuettes, handing manufacturing duties to Walden, New York-based Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry. While based on a digital scan of an original 1929 Oscar, the statuettes retain their modern-era dimensions and black pedestal. Cast in liquid bronze from 3D-printed ceramic molds and polished, they are then electroplated in 24-karat gold by Brooklyn, New York–based Epner Technology. The time required to produce 50 such statuettes is roughly three months. R.S. Owens is expected to continue producing other awards for the Academy and service existing Oscars that need replating.


title: Academy Awards

text: The Academy officially adopted the name "Oscar" for the trophies in 1939. However, the origin of the nickname is disputed.


title: Academy Awards

text: One biography of Bette Davis, who was a president of the Academy in 1941, claims she named the award after her first husband, band leader Harmon Oscar Nelson. A frequently mentioned originator is Margaret Herrick, the Academy executive director, who, when she first saw the award in 1931, said the statuette reminded her of "Uncle Oscar", a nickname for her cousin Oscar Pierce.


title: Academy Awards

text: Columnist Sidney Skolsky, who was present during Herrick's naming in 1931, wrote that "Employees have affectionately dubbed their famous statuette 'Oscar'." The Academy credits Skolsky with "the first confirmed newspaper reference" to "Oscar" in his column on March 16, 1934, which was written about that year's 6th Academy Awards. The 1934 awards appeared again in another early media mention of "Oscar": a "Time" magazine story. In the ceremonies that year, Walt Disney was the first to thank the Academy for his "Oscar" during his acceptance speech.


title: Academy Awards

text: Bruce Davis, in preparing a history of the awards for his book "The Academy and the Award", found that the term "Oscar" had come from Eleanore Lilleberg, a secretary within the Academy when the award was first introduced, as she had been in charge of pre-ceremony handling of the awards. Davis found in an autobiography of Einar Lilleberg, Eleanore's brother, that Einar had referenced a Norwegian army veteran named Oscar the two knew in Chicago, who Einar described as "stood straight and tall".


title: Academy Awards

text: In 2021, Brazilian researcher Dr. Waldemar Dalenogare Neto found the likely first public mention of the name "Oscar", in journalist Relman Morin's column "Cinematters" in the "Los Angeles Evening Post-Record" on December 5, 1933. As the award did not take place that year, Relman Morin wrote: "What's happened to the annual Academy banquet? As a rule, the banquet and the awarding of "Oscar" the bronze statuette given for best performances, is all over long before this." This information changes the question of Sidney Skolsky as the first to publicly name the name.


title: Academy Awards

text: To prevent information identifying the Oscar winners from leaking ahead of the ceremony, Oscar statuettes presented at the ceremony have blank baseplates. Until 2010, winners returned their statuettes to the Academy and had to wait several weeks to have their names inscribed on their respective Oscars. Since 2010, winners have had the option of having engraved nameplates applied to their statuettes at an inscription-processing station at the Governor's Ball, a party held immediately after the Oscar ceremony. The R.S. Owens company has engraved nameplates made before the ceremony, bearing the name of every potential winner. The nameplates for the non-winning nominees are later recycled.


title: Academy Awards

text: Prior to 1950, Oscar statuettes were (and remain) the property of the recipient. Since then the statuettes have been legally encumbered by the requirement that the statuette be first offered for sale back to the Academy for US$1. If a winner refuses to agree to this stipulation, then the Academy keeps the statuette. Academy Awards predating this agreement have been sold in public auctions and private deals for six-figure sums.


title: Academy Awards

text: In 1989, Michael Todd's grandson tried to sell Todd's Best Picture Oscar for his 1956 production of "Around the World in 80 Days" to a movie prop collector. The Academy earned enforcement of its statuette contract by gaining a permanent injunction against the sale.


title: Academy Awards

text: In 1992, Harold Russell consigned his 1946 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for "The Best Years of Our Lives" to auction to raise money for his wife's medical expenses. Though his decision caused controversy, the first-ever Oscar to be sold passed to a private collector on August 6, 1992 for $60,500 ($ today). Russell defended his action, saying, "I don't know why anybody would be critical. My wife's health is much more important than sentimental reasons. The movie will be here, even if Oscar isn't."


title: Academy Awards

text: In December 2011, Orson Welles' 1941 Oscar for "Citizen Kane" (Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay) was put up for auction, after his heirs won a 2004 court decision contending that Welles did not sign any agreement to return the statue to the Academy. On December 20, 2011, it sold in an online auction for US$861,542 ($ today).


title: Academy Awards

text: Some buyers have subsequently returned the statuettes to the Academy, which keeps them in its treasury.


title: Academy Awards

text: In addition to the Academy Award of Merit (Oscar award), there are nine honorary (non-competitive) awards presented by the Academy from time to time (except for the Academy Honorary Award, the Technical Achievement Award, and the Student Academy Awards, which are presented annually):


title: Academy Awards

text: From 2004 to 2020, the Academy Award nomination results were announced to the public in mid-January. Prior to that, the results were announced in early February. In 2021, the nominees were announced in March. In 2022, the nominees were announced in early February for the first time since 2003.


title: Academy Awards

text: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), a professional honorary organization, maintains a voting membership of over 7,000 .


title: Academy Awards

text: Academy membership is divided into different branches, with each representing a different discipline in film production. Actors constitute the largest voting bloc, numbering 1,311 members (22 percent) of the Academy's composition. Votes have been certified by the auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (and its predecessor Price Waterhouse) since the 7th Academy Awards in 1935. The firm mails the ballots of eligible nominees to members of the Academy in December to reflect the previous eligible year with a due date sometime in January of the next year, then tabulates the votes in a process that takes thousands of hours.


title: Academy Awards

text: All AMPAS members must be invited to join by the Board of Governors, on behalf of Academy Branch Executive Committees. Membership eligibility may be achieved by a competitive nomination or a member may submit a name based on other significant contributions to the field of motion pictures.


title: Academy Awards

text: New membership proposals are considered annually. The Academy does not publicly disclose its membership, although as recently as 2007 press releases have announced the names of those who have been invited to join. The 2007 release also stated that it has just under 6,000 voting members. While the membership had been growing, stricter policies have kept its size steady since then.


title: Academy Awards

text: In 2012, the results of a study conducted by the "Los Angeles Times" were published describing the demographic breakdown of approximately 88% of AMPAS' voting membership. Of the 5,100+ active voters confirmed, 94% were Caucasian, 77% were male, and 54% were found to be over the age of 60. 33% of voting members are former nominees (14%) and winners (19%).


title: Academy Awards

text: In May 2011, the Academy sent a letter advising its 6,000 or so voting members that an online system for Oscar voting would be implemented in 2013.


title: Academy Awards

text: According to Rules 2 and 3 of the official Academy Awards Rules, a film must open in the previous calendar year, from midnight at the start of January 1 to midnight at the end of December 31, in Los Angeles County, California, and play for seven consecutive days, to qualify (except for the Best International Feature Film, Best Documentary Feature, and awards in short film categories). Additionally, the film must be shown at least three times on each day of its qualifying run, with at least one of the daily showings starting between 6 pm and 10 pm local time.


title: Academy Awards

text: For example, the 2009 Best Picture winner, "The Hurt Locker", was originally first released in 2008, but did not qualify for the 2008 awards, as it did not play its Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles until mid-2009, thus qualifying for the 2009 awards. Foreign films must include English subtitles, and each country can submit only one film for consideration in the International Feature Film category per year.


title: Academy Awards

text: Rule 2 states that a film must be feature-length, defined as a minimum of 40 minutes, except for short-subject awards, and it must exist either on a 35 mm or 70 mm film print or in 24 frame/s or 48 frame/s progressive scan digital cinema format with a minimum projector resolution of 2048 by 1080 pixels. Since the 90th Academy Awards, presented in 2018, multi-part and limited series have been ineligible for the Best Documentary Feature award. This followed the win of "", an eight-hour presentation that was screened in a limited release before being broadcast in five parts on ABC and ESPN, in that category in 2017. The Academy's announcement of the new rule made no direct mention of that film.


title: Academy Awards

text: The Best International Feature Film award does not require a U.S. release. It requires the film to be submitted as its country's official selection.


title: Academy Awards

text: The Best Documentary Feature award requires either week-long releases in both Los Angeles County and New York City during the previous calendar year, or a qualifying award at a competitive film festival from the Documentary Feature Qualifying Festival list (regardless of any public exhibition or distribution), or submission in the International Feature Film category as its country's official selection. The qualifying theatrical runs must meet the same requirements as those for non-documentary films regarding numbers and times of screenings. Additionally, a film must have been reviewed by a critic from "The New York Times", "Time Out New York", the "Los Angeles Times", or "LA Weekly".


title: Academy Awards

text: Producers must submit an Official Screen Credits online form before the deadline; in case it is not submitted by the defined deadline, the film will be ineligible for Academy Awards in any year. The form includes the production credits for all related categories. Then, each form is checked and put in a Reminder List of Eligible Releases.


title: Academy Awards

text: Awards in short film categories (Best Documentary Short Subject, Best Animated Short Film, and Best Live Action Short Film) have noticeably different eligibility rules from most other competitive awards. First, the qualifying period for release does not coincide with a calendar year, instead of covering one year starting on October 1 and ending on September 30 of the calendar year before the ceremony. Second, there are multiple methods of qualification. The main method is a week-long theatrical release in "either" Los Angeles County "or" New York City during the eligibility period. Films also can qualify by winning specified awards at one of several competitive film festivals designated by the Academy, also without regard to prior public distribution. Finally, a film that is selected as a gold, silver, or bronze medal winner in an appropriate category of the immediately previous Student Academy Awards is also eligible (Documentary category for that award, and Animation, Narrative, Alternative, or International for the other awards). The requirements for the qualifying theatrical run are also different from those for other awards. Only one screening per day is required. For the Documentary award, the screening must start between noon and 10 pm local time; for other awards, no specific start time is required, but the film must appear in regular theater listings with dates and screening times.


title: Academy Awards

text: In late December, ballots, and copies of the Reminder List of Eligible Releases are mailed to around 6,000 active members. For most categories, members from each of the branches vote to determine the nominees only in their respective categories (i.e. only directors vote for directors, writers for writers, actors for actors, etc.). In the special case of Best Picture, all voting members are eligible to select the nominees. In all major categories, a variant of the single transferable vote is used, with each member casting a ballot with up to five nominees (ten for Best Picture) ranked preferentially. In certain categories, including International Feature Film, Documentary and Animated Feature, nominees are selected by special screening committees made up of members from all branches.


title: Academy Awards

text: In most categories, the winner is selected from among the nominees by plurality voting of all members. Since 2009, the Best Picture winner has been chosen by instant runoff voting. Since 2013, re-weighted range voting has been used to select the nominees for the Best Visual Effects.


title: Academy Awards

text: Film companies will spend as much as several million dollars on marketing to awards voters for a movie in the running for Best Picture, in attempts to improve chances of receiving Oscars and other movie awards conferred in Oscar season. The Academy enforces rules to limit overt campaigning by its members to try to eliminate excesses and prevent the process from becoming undignified. It has an awards czar on staff who advises members on allowed practices and levies penalties on offenders. For example, a producer of the 2009 Best Picture nominee "The Hurt Locker" was disqualified as a producer in the category when he contacted associates urging them to vote for his film and not another that was seen as the front-runner ("The Hurt Locker" eventually won).


title: Academy Awards

text: The Academy Screening Room or Academy Digital Screening Room is a secure streaming platform which allows voting members of the Academy to view all eligible films (except, initially, those in the International category) in one place. It was introduced in 2019, for the 2020 Oscars, though DVD screeners and Academy in-person screenings were still provided. For films to be included on the platform, the North American distributor must pay $12,500, including a watermarking fee, and a digital copy of the film to be prepared for streaming by the Academy. The platform can be accessed via Apple TV and Roku players. The watermarking process involved several video security firms, creating a forensic watermark and restricting the ability to take screenshots or screen recordings.


title: Academy Awards

text: In 2021, for the 2022 Oscars, the Academy banned all physical screeners and in-person screenings, restricting official membership viewing to the Academy Screening Room. Films eligible in the Documentary and International categories were made available in different sections of the platform. Distributors can also pay an extra fee to add video featurettes to promote their films on the platform. The in-person screenings were said to be cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Eligible films do not have to be added to the platform, but the Academy advertises them to voting members when they are.


title: Academy Awards

text: The major awards are presented at a live televised ceremony, commonly in late February or early March following the relevant calendar year, and six weeks after the announcement of the nominees. It is the culmination of the film awards season, which usually begins during November or December of the previous year. This is an elaborate extravaganza, with the invited guests walking up the red carpet in the creations of the most prominent fashion designers of the day. Black tie dress is the most common outfit for men, although fashion may dictate not wearing a bow-tie, and musical performers sometimes do not adhere to this. (The artists who recorded the nominees for Best Original Song quite often perform those songs live at the awards ceremony, and the fact that they are performing is often used to promote the television broadcast.)


title: Academy Awards

text: The Academy Awards is the world's longest-running awards show televised live from the U.S. to all-time zones in North America and worldwide, and gathers billions of viewers elsewhere throughout the world. The Oscars were first televised in 1953 by NBC, which continued to broadcast the event until 1960, when ABC took over, televising the festivities (including the first color broadcast of the event in 1966) through 1970. NBC regained the rights for five years then ABC resumed broadcast duties in 1976 and its current contract with the Academy runs through 2028. The Academy has also produced condensed versions of the ceremony for broadcast in international markets (especially those outside of the Americas) in more desirable local timeslots. The ceremony was broadcast live internationally for the first time via satellite since 1970, but only two South American countries, Chile and Brazil, purchased the rights to air the broadcast. By that time, the television rights to the Academy Awards had been sold in 50 countries. A decade later, the rights were already being sold to 60 countries, and by 1984, the TV rights to the Awards were licensed in 76 countries.


title: Academy Awards

text: The ceremonies were moved up from late March/early April to late February, since 2004, to help disrupt and shorten the intense lobbying and ad campaigns associated with Oscar season in the film industry. Another reason was because of the growing TV ratings success coinciding with the NCAA basketball tournament, which would cut into the Academy Awards audience. (In 1976 and 1977, ABC's regained Oscars were moved from Tuesday to Monday and went directly opposite NBC's NCAA title game.) The earlier date is also to the advantage of ABC, as it now usually occurs during the highly profitable and important February sweeps period. Some years, the ceremony is moved into the first Sunday of March to avoid a clash with the Winter Olympic Games. Another reason for the move to late February and early March is also to avoid the awards ceremony occurring so close to the religious holidays of Passover and Easter, which for decades had been a grievance from members and the general public. Advertising is somewhat restricted, however, as traditionally no movie studios or competitors of official Academy Award sponsors may advertise during the telecast. The production of the Academy Awards telecast currently holds the distinction of winning the most Emmys in history, with 47 wins and 195 nominations overall since that award's own launch in 1949.


title: Academy Awards

text: After many years of being held on Mondays at 9:00 pm Eastern/6:00 p.m Pacific, since the 1999 ceremonies, it was moved to Sundays at 8:30 pm ET/5:30 pm PT. The reasons given for the move were that more viewers would tune in on Sundays, that Los Angeles rush-hour traffic jams could be avoided, and an earlier start time would allow viewers on the East Coast to go to bed earlier. For many years the film industry opposed a Sunday broadcast because it would cut into the weekend box office. In 2010, the Academy contemplated moving the ceremony even further back into January, citing TV viewers' fatigue with the film industry's long awards season. However, such an accelerated schedule would dramatically decrease the voting period for its members, to the point where some voters would only have time to view the contending films streamed on their computers (as opposed to traditionally receiving the films and ballots in the mail). Furthermore, a January ceremony on Sunday would clash with National Football League playoff games. In 2018, the Academy announced that the ceremony would be moved from late February to mid February beginning with the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020.


title: Academy Awards

text: Originally scheduled for April 8, 1968, the 40th Academy Awards ceremony was postponed for two days, because of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On March 30, 1981, the 53rd Academy Awards was postponed for one day, after the shooting of President Ronald Reagan and others in Washington, D.C.


title: Academy Awards

text: In 1993, an "In Memoriam" segment was introduced, honoring those who had made a significant contribution to cinema who had died in the preceding 12 months, a selection compiled by a small committee of Academy members. This segment has drawn criticism over the years for the omission of some names. Criticism was also levied for many years regarding another aspect, with the segment having a "popularity contest" feel as the audience varied their applause to those who had died by the subject's cultural impact; the applause has since been muted during the telecast, and the audience is discouraged from clapping during the segment and giving silent reflection instead. This segment was later followed by a commercial break.


title: Academy Awards

text: In terms of broadcast length, the ceremony generally averages three and a half hours. The first Oscars, in 1929, lasted 15 minutes. At the other end of the spectrum, the 2002 ceremony lasted four hours and twenty-three minutes. In 2010, the organizers of the Academy Awards announced winners' acceptance speeches must not run past 45 seconds. This, according to organizer Bill Mechanic, was to ensure the elimination of what he termed "the single most hated thing on the show" – overly long and embarrassing displays of emotion. In 2016, in a further effort to streamline speeches, winners' dedications were displayed on an on-screen ticker. During the 2018 ceremony, host Jimmy Kimmel acknowledged how long the ceremony had become, by announcing that he would give a brand-new jet ski to whoever gave the shortest speech of the night (a reward won by Mark Bridges when accepting his Best Costume Design award for "Phantom Thread"). "The Wall Street Journal" analyzed the average minutes spent across the 2014–2018 telecasts as follows: 14 on song performances; 25 on the hosts' speeches; 38 on prerecorded clips; and 78 on the awards themselves, broken into 24 on the introduction and announcement, 24 on winners walking to the stage, and 30 on their acceptance speeches.


title: Academy Awards

text: Although still dominant in ratings, the viewership of the Academy Awards has steadily dropped; the 88th Academy Awards were the lowest-rated in the past eight years (although with increases in male and 18–49 viewership), while the show itself also faced mixed reception. Following the show, "Variety" reported that ABC was, in negotiating an extension to its contract to broadcast the Oscars, seeking to have more creative control over the broadcast itself. Currently and nominally, AMPAS is responsible for most aspects of the telecast, including the choice of production staff and hosting, although ABC is allowed to have some input on their decisions. In August 2016, AMPAS extended its contract with ABC through 2028: the contract neither contains any notable changes nor gives ABC any further creative control over the telecast.


title: Academy Awards

text: Historically, the telecast's viewership is higher when box-office hits are favored to win the Best Picture award. More than 57.25 million viewers tuned to the telecast for the 70th Academy Awards in 1998, the year of "Titanic", which generated a box office haul during its initial 1997–98 run of US$600.8 million in the US, a box office record that would remain unsurpassed for years. The 76th Academy Awards ceremony, in which "" (pre-telecast box office earnings of US$368 million) received 11 Awards including Best Picture, drew 43.56 million viewers. The most watched ceremony based on Nielsen ratings to date, however, was the 42nd Academy Awards (Best Picture "Midnight Cowboy") which drew a 43.4% household rating on April 7, 1970.


title: Academy Awards

text: By contrast, ceremonies honoring films that have not performed well at the box office tend to show weaker ratings, despite how much critical acclaim those films have received. The 78th Academy Awards which awarded low-budget independent film "Crash" (with a pre-Oscar gross of US$53.4 million) generated an audience of 38.64 million with a household rating of 22.91%. In 2008, the 80th Academy Awards telecast was watched by 31.76 million viewers on average with an 18.66% household rating, the lowest-rated and least-watched ceremony at the time, in spite of celebrating 80 years of the Academy Awards. The Best Picture winner of that particular ceremony was another independent film ("No Country for Old Men").


title: Academy Awards

text: Whereas the 92nd Academy Awards drew an average of 23.6 million viewers, the 93rd Academy Awards drew an even lower viewership of 10.4 million. That is the lowest viewership recorded by Nielsen since it started recording audience totals in 1974.


title: Academy Awards

text: The Academy Film Archive holds copies of every Academy Awards ceremony since the 1949 Oscars and material on many prior ceremonies, along with ancillary material related to more recent shows. Copies are held in a variety of film, video, and digital formats.


title: Academy Awards

text: In 1929, the first Academy Awards were presented at a banquet dinner at The Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. From 1930 to 1943, the ceremony alternated between two venues: the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard and the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.


title: Academy Awards

text: Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood then hosted the awards from 1944 to 1946, followed by the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles from 1947 to 1948. The 21st Academy Awards in 1949 were held at the Academy Award Theatre at what had been the Academy's headquarters on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.


title: Academy Awards

text: From 1950 to 1960, the awards were presented at Hollywood's Pantages Theatre. With the advent of television, the awards from 1953 to 1957 took place simultaneously in Hollywood and New York, first at the NBC International Theatre (1953) and then at the NBC Century Theatre, after which the ceremony took place solely in Los Angeles. The Oscars moved to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California, in 1961. By 1969, the Academy decided to move the ceremonies back to Downtown Los Angeles, this time to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion at the Los Angeles County Music Center. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the ceremony returned to the Shrine.


title: Academy Awards

text: In 2002, Hollywood's Dolby Theatre (previously known as the Kodak Theatre) became the presentation's current venue.


title: Academy Awards

text: In the first year of the awards, the Best Directing award was split into two categories (Drama and Comedy). At times, the Best Original Score award has also been split into separate categories (Drama and Comedy/Musical). From the 1930s through the 1960s, the Art Direction (now Production Design), Cinematography, and Costume Design awards were likewise split into two categories (black-and-white films and color films). Prior to 2012, the Production Design award was called Art Direction, while the Makeup and Hairstyling award was called Makeup.


title: Academy Awards

text: In August 2018, the Academy announced that several categories would not be televised live, but rather be recorded during commercial breaks and aired later in the ceremony.


title: Academy Awards

text: Following dissent from Academy members, they announced that they would indeed air all 24 categories live. This followed several proposals (among them, the introduction of a Popular Film category) that the Academy had announced but did not implement.


title: Academy Awards

text: The Board of Governors meets each year and considers new award categories. To date, the following categories have been proposed:


title: Academy Awards

text: The Special Academy Awards are voted on by special committees, rather than by the Academy membership as a whole. They are not always presented on an annual basis.


title: Academy Awards

text: Due to the positive exposure and prestige of the Academy Awards, many studios spend millions of dollars and hire publicists specifically to promote their films during what is typically called the "Oscar season". This has generated accusations of the Academy Awards being influenced more by marketing than by quality. William Friedkin, an Academy Award-winning film director and former producer of the ceremony, expressed this sentiment at a conference in New York in 2009, describing it as "the greatest promotion scheme that any industry ever devised for itself".


title: Academy Awards

text: A recent technique that has been claimed to be used during the Oscar season is the whisper campaign. These campaigns are intended to spread negative perceptions of other movies nominated and are believed to be perpetrated by those that were involved in creating the movie. Examples of whisper campaigns include the allegations against "Zero Dark Thirty" suggesting that it justifies torture and the claim that "Lincoln" distorts history.


title: Academy Awards

text: Typical criticism of the Academy Awards for Best Picture is that among the winners and nominees there is an over-representation of romantic historical epics, biographical dramas, romantic dramedies and family melodramas, most of which are released in the U.S. in the last three months of the calendar year. The Oscars have been infamously known for selecting specific genres of movies to be awarded. The term "Oscar bait" was coined to describe such movies. This has led, at times, to more specific criticisms that the Academy is disconnected from the audience, e.g., by favoring "Oscar bait" over audience favorites or favoring historical melodramas over critically acclaimed movies that depict current life issues.


title: Academy Awards

text: The Academy Awards have long received criticism over its lack of diversity among the nominees. This criticism is based on the statistics from every Academy Awards since 1929, which shows us that only 6.4% of academy award nominees have been non-white and since 1991, 11.2% of nominees have been non-white, with the rate of winners being even more polarizing. Due to a variety of reasons, including marketability and historical bans on interracial couples, a number of high-profile Oscars have been given to yellowface portrayals, as well as performances of Asian characters rewritten for white characters. The 88th awards ceremony became the target of a boycott, popularized on social media with the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, based on activists' perception that its all-white acting nominee list reflected bias. In response, the Academy initiated "historic" changes in membership by 2020. Media critics find the Academy's efforts to address its racial, gender, and national biases are merely distractions. Some question whether the Academy's definition of "merit" is unjust and disempowering for BIPOC and non-Americans.


title: Academy Awards

text: Acting prizes in certain years have been criticized for not recognizing superior performances so much as being awarded for personal popularity, to make up for a "snub" for a work that proved in time to be more popular or renowned than the one awarded, or presented as a "career honor" to recognize a distinguished nominee's entire body of work.


title: Academy Awards

text: Following the 91st Academy Awards in February 2019 in which the Netflix-broadcast film "Roma" had been nominated for ten awards including the Best Picture category, Steven Spielberg and other members of the Academy discussed changing the requirements through the Board of Governors for films as to exclude those from Netflix and other media streaming services. Spielberg had been concerned that Netflix as a movie production and distribution studio could spend much more than typical Oscar-winning films and have much wider and earlier distribution than other Best Picture-nominated films, while still being able to meet the minimal theatrical-run status to qualify for an Oscar. The United States Department of Justice, having heard of this potential rule change, wrote a letter to the Academy in March 2019, cautioning them that placing additional restrictions on films that originate from streaming media services without proper justification could raise anti-trust concerns against the Academy. Following its April 2019 board meeting, the Academy Board of Governors agreed to retain the current rules that allow for streaming media films to be eligible for Oscars as long as they enjoy limited theatrical runs.


title: Academy Awards

text: During the 94th Academy Awards on March 27, 2022, Chris Rock joked about Jada Pinkett Smith's shaved head, with a "G.I. Jane" reference. Will Smith walked onstage and slapped Rock across the face, then returned to his seat and told Rock, twice, to "Keep my wife's name out [of] your fucking mouth!" While later accepting the Best Actor award for "King Richard", Smith apologized to the Academy and the other nominees, but not to Rock. Rock decided not to press charges against Smith. On April 8, 2022, the Academy made an announcement on a letter sent by president David Rubin and CEO Dawn Hudson informing the public that Will Smith is banned from the Oscars for 10 years in result from the slap.


title: Academy Awards

text: Some winners critical of the Academy Awards have boycotted the ceremonies and refused to accept their Oscars. The first to do so was screenwriter Dudley Nichols (Best Writing in 1935 for "The Informer"). Nichols boycotted the 8th Academy Awards ceremony because of conflicts between the Academy and the Writers' Guild. Nichols eventually accepted the 1935 award three years later, at the 1938 ceremony. Nichols was nominated for three further Academy Awards during his career.


title: Academy Awards

text: George C. Scott became the second person to refuse his award (Best Actor in 1970 for "Patton") at the 43rd Academy Awards ceremony. Scott described it as a "meat parade", saying, "I don't want any part of it."


title: Academy Awards

text: The third person to refuse the award was Marlon Brando, who refused his award (Best Actor for 1972's "The Godfather"), citing the film industry's discrimination and mistreatment of Native Americans. At the 45th Academy Awards ceremony, Brando asked actress and civil rights activist Sacheen Littlefeather to read a 15-page speech in his place, detailing his criticisms, for which there was booing and cheering by the audience.


title: Academy Awards

text: Some advocates of gender equality and non-binary people have criticized the separation of male and female acting categories in the Academy Awards, Emmy Awards and Tony Awards. Though some commentators worry that gender discrimination would cause men to dominate unsegregated categories, other categories are unsegregated.


title: Academy Awards

text: It has become a tradition to give out gift bags to the presenters and performers at the Oscars. In recent years, these gifts have also been extended to award nominees and winners. The value of each of these gift bags can reach into the tens of thousands of dollars. In 2014, the value was reported to be as high as US$80,000. The value has risen to the point where the U.S. Internal Revenue Service issued a statement regarding the gifts and their taxable status.