★ = recommended, ♥ = personal favorite

Green Book (2018)

• starring Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali, Linda Cardellini
• directed by Peter Farrelly
• 130 minutes, color
• Won 3/5 Oscars, including Best Supporting Actor (Ali) and Best Screenplay
  • Mahershala Ali became the first black actor to win twice in the supporting category. He is also the second black actor to win two competitive Oscars, the first being Denzel Washington, who won in both the lead and supporting categories.
  • Ali is also the first Muslim to win in an acting category twice.

Parasite (2019) ♥

• starring Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Lee Jung-eun, Jang Hye-jin
• directed by Bong Joon-ho
• 132 minutes, color
• Won 4/6 Oscars, including Best Director and Best Screenplay
  • This is the first film not in the English language to win the Oscar for Best Picture.
  • First film to win Oscars for both Best Picture and Best International Feature Film (formerly Best Foreign Language Film).
  • Director Bong Joon-ho's win of four Academy Awards in one ceremony ties him with Walt Disney, who also won four Oscars in one ceremony in 1954. However, since Disney won those awards for four separate movies, Bong still holds the record for most Oscar wins by a single person for a single film.
  • The third film to win both the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Award for Best Picture, after The Lost Weekend (1945) and Marty (1955).

Nomadland (2020) ♥

• starring Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Linda May, Swankie
• directed by Chloé Zhao
• 108 minutes, color
• Won 3/6 Oscars, including Best Actress (McDormand) and Best Director
  • Chloé Zhao became the first Asian woman (and woman of color) to be nominated for and win the Academy Award for Best Director.
  • Chloé Zhao is the second woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director after Kathryn Bigelow won in 2010 for The Hurt Locker (2008).
  • Chloé Zhao and Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman (2020) are the second and third women to be nominated for Academy Awards for writing, directing, and producing in the same year, the first being Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation (2003).
  • Chloé Zhao receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Director, along with Emerald Fennell for Promising Young Woman (2020), marked the first time two women have been nominated in the category in the same year.
  • Chloé Zhao receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Director, along with Lee Isaac Chung for Minari (2020), marked the first time two directors of East Asian descent have been nominated in the category in the same year.
  • Chloé Zhao became the third person and first woman to be Oscar-nominated for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Film Editing in the same year, the first two being Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men (2007). Coincidentally, Joel is the husband of Frances McDormand, the lead of the film.
  • Chloé Zhao is the ninth person (and first woman) to receive an Oscar nomination for editing a film they also directed, after Sir David Lean (A Passage to India (1984)), Steve James (Hoop Dreams (1994)), the Coen brothers (Fargo (1996) and No Country for Old Men (2007)), James Cameron (Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009)), Alfonso Cuarón (Children of Men (2006) and Gravity (2013)), Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist (2011)), and Jean-Marc Vallée (Dallas Buyers Club (2013)). Of these nine, Cameron (for Titanic (1997)) and Cuarón (for Gravity (2013)) are the only ones to win.
  • Frances McDormand is the eighth person (and first woman) to receive Oscar nominations in producing and acting categories for the same film, after Warren Beatty (Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Heaven Can Wait (1978), Reds (1981), and Bugsy (1991)), Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves (1990)), Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004)), Brad Pitt (Moneyball (2011)), Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)), Bradley Cooper (American Sniper (2014) and A Star Is Born (2018)), and Denzel Washington (Fences (2016)).
  • With the exception of Frances McDormand and David Strathairn, most of the cast of the film are actual nomads and local people, listing their real first names for their characters.

CODA (2021) ♥

• starring Emilia Jones, Eugenio Derbez, Troy Kotsur, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Daniel Durant, Marlee Matlin
• directed by Sian Heder
• 111 minutes, color
• Won 3/3 Oscars, including Best Supporting Actor (Kotsur) and Best Screenplay
  • The first film distributed primarily by a streaming service (Apple TV+) to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It is also the first Sundance film, and the first film featuring predominantly deaf actors in leading roles to win the Academy Award.
  • One of only six films to win the Academy Award for Best Picture without being nominated for Best Director. The other films include Green Book (2018), Argo (2012), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Grand Hotel (1932) and Wings (1927).
  • With its three Oscar nominations, this is the film with the least amount of nominations to win the Academy Award for Best Picture since Grand Hotel (1932), which only had one nomination. This makes it the first film with less than four Oscar nominations to win Best Picture in 89 years. The only other films to win Best Picture with less than four nominations are The Broadway Melody (1929) at three and Wings (1927) at two.
  • The first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture without being nominated for either Best Director or Best Film Editing. The Best Film Editing category was first introduced in 1935.
  • The first film since Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014) to win the Academy Award for Best Picture without being nominated for Best Film Editing. It is also only the second film to do so since Ordinary People (1980).
  • Troy Kotsur is the first deaf male actor to win an Oscar. His wife in the movie, Marlee Matlin, was the first deaf female actress to win an Oscar for Children of a Lesser God (1986).
  • One of three films with the shortest title (four letters) to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, along with Gigi (1958) and Argo (2012).

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) ♥

• starring Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Jenny Slate, Harry Shum Jr., James Hong, Jamie Lee Curtis
• directed by Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
• 139 minutes, color
• Won 7/11 Oscars, including Best Actress (Yeoh), Best Supporting Actor (Quan), Best Supporting Actress (Curtis), Best Director and Best Screenplay
  • Michelle Yeoh is the first Asian woman to win Best Actress at the Academy Awards. Merle Oberon was the first Asian actress to be nominated in the category, but she hid her mixed heritage out of fear of discrimination and the impact it would have had on her career.
  • Michelle Yeoh is the second woman of color to win the Oscar for Best Actress.
  • The third film in Academy Awards history to win three Oscars for acting (none at the time of this movie has won all four acting categories). The first two films to achieve this were A Streetcar Named Desire and Network.
  • Jamie Lee Curtis followed Laura Dern and Liza Minnelli in having both her parents being previous Academy Award nominees. Her father, Tony Curtis, was nominated for Best Actor for The Defiant Ones, and her mother, Janet Leigh, was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Psycho.
  • Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert were the ninth and tenth people to win Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay for the same film, after: Billy Wilder for The Apartment, Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather Part II, James L. Brooks for Terms of Endearment, Peter Jackson for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men, Alejandro G. Iñárritu for Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), and Bong Joon-ho for Parasite.
  • With Daniel Kwan being nominated for Best Director, this represents the fourth successive year that an Asian filmmaker has been recognized in the category, following Bong Joon-ho (Parasite), Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) and Lee Isaac Chung (Minari), and Ryûsuke Hamaguchi (Drive My Car).
  • The third movie where two people won Best Director, following Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story, and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men.
  • With its seven Oscar wins, including Best Picture, this became the most awarded Best Picture winner since Slumdog Millionaire 14 years earlier.
  • First science fiction film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.
  • Ke Huy Quan's first major role in 20 years.