70 Fun Facts About Hard Movie

Which is the only X-rated film ever to win the Academy Award for Best Picture?

The 1969 drama's rating was later changed to R; no other X-rated film has won any Oscar at all.

What was the first sequel to win the Academy Award for Best Picture?

Robert De Niro won Best Supporting Actor for playing the young Vito Corleone, a role Marlon Brando had already won Best Actor for two years earlier.

Which 1977 ballet drama shares the record for the most Oscar nominations (11) without a single win?

It shares the unhappy record with The Color Purple, which went 0 for 11 in 1986.

Which film holds the record for the biggest Oscar clean sweep, winning all 11 categories it was nominated in?

Its 11-for-11 night in 2004 beat the nine-for-nine sweeps of Gigi and The Last Emperor.

Citizen Kane was expected to dominate the 1942 Oscars. What was the only award it actually won?

Orson Welles shared the writing prize with Herman J. Mankiewicz; the film lost Best Picture to How Green Was My Valley.

Which graphic designer storyboarded the shower scene in Psycho and created its title sequence?

Bass also designed the titles for Anatomy of a Murder and North by Northwest, and Bernard Herrmann's shrieking strings finished the job.

The mechanical sharks in Jaws were nicknamed 'Bruce' after whom?

Bruce Ramer was Steven Spielberg's attorney; the props broke down so often that the shark is barely seen for most of the film.

Who provided the voice of the computer HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Rain, a Canadian stage actor, was cast after Kubrick heard him narrate the National Film Board documentary Universe.

Which silent-era director plays Max, the devoted butler, in Sunset Boulevard?

Von Stroheim had actually directed Gloria Swanson in the unfinished Queen Kelly, a clip of which appears in the film.

In which year did the original Star Wars first carry the subtitle 'Episode IV – A New Hope' in theaters?

The film was simply called Star Wars on release; the episode number arrived with a reissue after The Empire Strikes Back had made the numbering scheme public.

Who directed The Empire Strikes Back?

Lucas handed over the director's chair to avoid the stress of the first film and to concentrate on building Industrial Light & Magic.

Why was Raiders' whip-versus-sword fight cut to Indiana Jones simply shooting the swordsman?

Stuntman Terry Richards had rehearsed for weeks; Ford's illness on the Tunisian shoot turned the scene into one of the film's biggest laughs.

Which actor shot several weeks of Back to the Future as Marty McFly before being replaced?

Recasting Michael J. Fox meant reshooting the completed scenes and added about $4 million to the budget.

Which real hotel provided the exterior establishing shots of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining?

The interiors were built at Elstree Studios in England, and the real lodge has no hedge maze.

Which Apocalypse Now cast member suffered a near-fatal heart attack during the Philippines shoot?

Sheen was 36; the production also lost sets to a typhoon and ran more than a year over schedule.

Which was the first horror film to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture?

The 1973 film received ten nominations in all and won two, for Adapted Screenplay and Sound.

Which 1934 film was the first to win the Oscar 'Big Five'?

The Big Five are Picture, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) is the only other film to take all five.

How long did Sylvester Stallone reportedly take to write the screenplay for Rocky?

He then refused to sell it unless he could star, and the film went on to win Best Picture for 1976.

Which was the first film to gross more than $1 billion worldwide?

It crossed the mark in March 1998 and later became the second film to pass $2 billion, during a 3D re-release timed for the ship's centenary.

Which musical holds the record for the most Academy Awards won by a film that did not win Best Picture?

It took eight Oscars in 1973, including Director for Bob Fosse and Actress for Liza Minnelli, but lost the top prize to Coppola's mafia epic.

Who is the youngest winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress?

She was 21 when she won for Children of a Lesser God, her screen debut, and was also the first deaf performer to win an Oscar.

Who is the youngest person ever to win a competitive Academy Award?

She was ten when she won Best Supporting Actress for Paper Moon, acting opposite her dad, Ryan O'Neal.

Who was the first performer to win an acting Oscar posthumously?

He died two months before the 1977 ceremony; his widow accepted the Best Actor award for Network.

With whom did Katharine Hepburn share the Best Actress Oscar in the only tie in that category's history?

Hepburn won for The Lion in Winter and Streisand for Funny Girl at the 1969 ceremony.

Who holds the record for the most Academy Awards won by an individual, with 22?

Disney also holds the record for nominations, with 59, most of them for animated and documentary shorts.

Who was the first actor to decline an Academy Award, refusing his Best Actor Oscar for Patton?

He had warned the Academy months in advance, arguing that performances cannot be compared with one another.

Which is the only Alfred Hitchcock film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture?

The 1940 film won just two Oscars, Picture and Cinematography, and Hitchcock himself lost Best Director.

Which film topped the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll of the greatest films ever made?

It received mixed reviews on release in 1958 and finished second when the poll was run again in 2022.

The Wilhelm scream stock sound effect was first recorded for which 1951 film?

The scream was allegedly voiced by singer-actor Sheb Wooley and named after a character shot by an arrow in a 1953 western.

Who coined the term 'MacGuffin', which Alfred Hitchcock later made famous?

Hitchcock popularised the device with The 39 Steps in 1935, in which the MacGuffin is a set of incidental military secrets.

The score for The Third Man was performed entirely on which instrument?

Anton Karas's theme topped charts around the world in 1950 and made the previously unknown Viennese musician famous.

In the unauthorised 1922 adaptation Nosferatu, the vampire is not called Dracula. What is his name?

The name changes did not save the studio; the German intertitles openly acknowledged Bram Stoker's novel as the source.

Which 1935 film was the first feature shot entirely in three-strip Technicolor?

Rouben Mamoulian's adaptation of Vanity Fair opened the door to the colour boom that followed in Britain and Hollywood.

Which actor played James Bond in only one official film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service?

The Australian model had no acting experience when cast in 1969 and later cited his age and family as reasons for walking away.

Die Hard was adapted from which 1979 novel by Roderick Thorp?

The novel was itself a sequel to The Detective, which had been filmed with Frank Sinatra in 1968.

Who wrote the 1972 novel First Blood on which the first Rambo film was based?

In the novel Rambo dies; the film's happier ending made four sequels possible.

12 Angry Men (1957) was the feature directorial debut of which filmmaker?

Reginald Rose adapted his own teleplay, and Henry Fonda co-produced as well as starred.

Which Kurosawa film won the 1951 Golden Lion at Venice and opened the West to Japanese cinema?

Japanese studios were so uninterested in festivals that an Italian distributor had to push for the screening.

Where was a print of Dreyer's original cut of The Passion of Joan of Arc rediscovered in 1981?

The master negative had burned in a Berlin fire; a janitor found three canisters in a closet at Dikemark Hospital near Oslo.

Which lost 1927 Lon Chaney film had its last known copy destroyed in the 1965 MGM vault fire?

Directed by Tod Browning under the working title The Hypnotist, it is among the most sought-after lost silents.

How long did the first Academy Awards ceremony, held in 1929, last?

Tickets cost $5, 270 people attended, and the winners had been announced three months earlier.

Which was the only fully silent film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture?

The 1927 aviation epic won the inaugural 'Outstanding Picture' award; Sunrise took a separate, one-time prize for 'Unique and Artistic Picture'.

What is the Oscar statuette's official name?

The Academy also hands out nine honorary awards from time to time, including the Thalberg and Hersholt awards.

Which actress won Best Actress Oscars for Fargo, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and Nomadland?

She is only the second woman to win Best Actress three times, after Katharine Hepburn's four.

Which actor holds the record of three Academy Awards for Best Actor?

His wins were for My Left Foot, There Will Be Blood and Lincoln, and he announced his retirement after Phantom Thread.

Which artist co-wrote the surrealist short Un Chien Andalou with Luis Buñuel?

Buñuel's 1929 debut, famous for its razor-and-eyeball opening, ran for eight months in Paris.

Which film was Charlie Chaplin's first true sound film?

Chaplin had kept making silents long after the talkies arrived; his 1940 satire of Hitler finally let audiences hear the Tramp's voice.

Buster Keaton's The General (1926) was inspired by a real locomotive chase during which conflict?

The film draws on William Pittenger's memoir of the 1862 raid, and Keaton did his own dangerous stunts.

Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars was an unauthorised remake of which Kurosawa film?

Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name took over from Toshiro Mifune's wandering ronin.

Which actor asked to be left out of Se7en's opening credits to keep the killer secret?

He reasoned that a third-billed star who does not appear until the last reel would give the game away.

Fargo opens with the words 'This is a true story'. What was the truth?

Snopes later called the claim a typical Coen brothers prank.

For which film did Anthony Hopkins become the oldest person ever to win an acting Oscar?

He was 83 and did not attend the 2021 ceremony, which had been rearranged so Best Actor was presented last.

A damaged print of Lang's original cut of Metropolis was found in 2008 in a museum in which country?

Combined with a second print from New Zealand, the footage brought the film to within five minutes of its 1927 running time.

Adjusted for inflation, which film remains the highest-grossing of all time?

It won ten Oscars in 1940, including a Best Supporting Actress award for Hattie McDaniel, the first African American to win an Academy Award.

At which film festival did Pulp Fiction premiere and win the top prize in 1994?

The Palme d'Or went to a film that had cost about $8 million and would gross more than $200 million.

Who did Marlon Brando send to the 1973 Oscars to decline his Best Actor award on his behalf?

She appeared in Plains Indian regalia and spoke about Hollywood's treatment of Native Americans.

The famous 'Odessa Steps' massacre sequence comes from which Soviet silent film?

Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 film is a textbook of Soviet montage editing, and the runaway pram has been copied countless times.

Which actor plays Death, the knight's chess opponent, in Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal?

Max von Sydow's crusader knight challenges him to a game to delay his fate, ending in the film's silhouetted Dance of Death.

What was the name of the male collie who played the title role in Lassie Come Home (1943)?

A female collie had reportedly been chosen first but shed too much in the summer heat, so trainer Rudd Weatherwax substituted his male dog.

Which film topped the 2022 Sight & Sound critics' poll, the first directed by a woman to do so?

Chantal Akerman's 1975 film received the most votes from 1,639 critics; 2001: A Space Odyssey topped the separate directors' poll.

In which film did Alfred Hitchcock make his first cameo appearance?

He sat in a newsroom in the 1927 thriller, a piece of self-publicity that became a lifelong trademark.

Blade Runner screenwriter Hampton Fancher wrote Deckard's dialogue with which actor in mind?

Fancher envisioned Mitchum; the studio also considered Connery, Nicholson, Newman, Eastwood, Schwarzenegger and others before Harrison Ford.

How many different versions of Blade Runner exist as a result of studio-requested changes?

Seven versions exist; a director's cut followed strong test screenings of a workprint in 1992.

Which then-unknown actor was David Lean's first choice for T. E. Lawrence but turned the part down?

Finney passed a screen test but refused to sign a long-term contract with producer Sam Spiegel; O'Toole got the role.

Which Lawrence of Arabia actor got $25,000 plus a Porsche for five minutes on screen as the Turkish Bey?

Ferrer demanded $25,000 and a Porsche to play the Turkish Bey and later called it his best film performance.

Which Lawrence of Arabia role was meant for Laurence Olivier before Alec Guinness took it?

Guinness, a Lean regular, stepped in as Faisal when Olivier dropped out.

How much did Paramount pay for the film rights to Puzo's The Godfather before it became a hit?

Paramount got the rights for $80,000; the book then spent 67 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list.

Which mobster-led group demanded that 'mafia' and 'Cosa Nostra' be removed from The Godfather's script?

Joseph Colombo's league objected to stereotypes; Coppola said the script used 'mafia' only twice and 'Cosa Nostra' not at all.

Robert Towne turned down $175,000 to adapt which novel, asking instead for $25,000 to write Chinatown?

Towne felt he could not better Fitzgerald's Gatsby, so he pitched Evans his own story instead.

In how many days did Jerry Goldsmith compose and record the Chinatown score?

Evans rejected Phillip Lambro's score at the last minute; Goldsmith's ten-day replacement earned an Oscar nomination.