1956 Film Year: Oscar Winners & Nominees

The AwardWentTo archive contains 125 Academy Award records for the 1956 film year, covering 59 films and including 27 wins.

Years follow the source film eligibility/dataset year, which may differ from the ceremony calendar year. Counts describe film-linked archive records, including historical and special-award context where supplied.

1957 → ← 1955

Best Picture result

5 Best Picture award records for this film year. See the full result · Best Picture history

Acting category results

Leading winning films

Ranked by winning records in this film-year selection.

  1. The King and I

    5 wins from 9 award records

  2. Around the World in 80 Days

    5 wins from 8 award records

  3. Somebody Up There Likes Me

    2 wins from 3 award records

  4. Giant

    1 win from 10 award records

  5. The Ten Commandments

    1 win from 7 award records

  6. Lust for Life

    1 win from 4 award records

Category winners

Select a category to explore its history, or jump to this year's full records.

Nominations and award records by category

Showing 125 of 125 archive records. Gold stars mark winning records.

Best Picture

Best Actor

Best Supporting Actor

Best Actress

Best Supporting Actress

Art Direction (Black-and-White)

Art Direction (Color)

  • ★ The King and I IMDB — Art Direction: Lyle R. Wheeler, John DeCuir; Set Decoration: Walter M. Scott, Paul S. Fox
  • Around the World in 80 Days IMDB — Art Direction: James W. Sullivan, Ken Adam; Set Decoration: Ross J. Dowd
  • Giant IMDB — Art Direction: Boris Leven; Set Decoration: Ralph S. Hurst
  • Lust for Life IMDB — Art Direction: Cedric Gibbons, Hans Peters, Preston Ames; Set Decoration: Edwin B. Willis, F. Keogh Gleason
  • The Ten Commandments IMDB — Art Direction: Hal Pereira, Walter H. Tyler, Albert Nozaki; Set Decoration: Samuel M. Comer, Ray Moyer

Cinematography (Black-and-White)

Cinematography (Color)

Costume Design (Black-and-White)

Costume Design (Color)

Best Director

Documentary Feature

Documentary Short Subject

Film Editing

International Feature Film

  • ★ La Strada IMDB — Italy; Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti, Producers
    Source context

    NOTE: For the 29th Academy Awards, the name(s) of the producer(s) were included in the nomination for the Foreign Language Film category.

  • The Captain of Kopenick IMDB — Federal Republic of Germany - West; Gyula Trebitsch and Walter Koppel, Producers
    Source context

    NOTE: For the 29th Academy Awards, the name(s) of the producer(s) were included in the nomination for the Foreign Language Film category.

  • Gervaise IMDB — France; Annie Dorfmann, Producer
    Source context

    NOTE: For the 29th Academy Awards, the name(s) of the producer(s) were included in the nomination for the Foreign Language Film category.

  • Harp of Burma IMDB — Japan; Masayuki Takagi, Producer
    Source context

    NOTE: For the 29th Academy Awards, the name(s) of the producer(s) were included in the nomination for the Foreign Language Film category.

  • Qivitoq IMDB — Denmark; O. Dalsgaard-Olsen, Producer
    Source context

    NOTE: For the 29th Academy Awards, the name(s) of the producer(s) were included in the nomination for the Foreign Language Film category.

Original Score

Original Song

Music (Original Song Score or Adaptation Score)

Animated Short Film

Short Subject (One-Reel)

Short Subject (Two-Reel)

Sound Recording

Visual Effects

Adapted Screenplay

  • ★ Around the World in 80 Days IMDB — James Poe, John Farrow, S.J. Perelman
  • Baby Doll IMDB — Tennessee Williams
  • Friendly Persuasion IMDB — Michael Wilson
    Source context

    NOTE: Early in 1956, the name of blacklisted screenwriter Michael Wilson had been deleted from the screen credits of Friendly Persuasion by Allied Artists, the film's distributor, based on a 1952 agreement between the Screen Writers Guild and various production companies. That agreement gave studios the right to omit from the screen the name of any individual who had failed to clear himself before a duly constituted legislative committee of Congress if accused of Communist affiliations, as was the case with Wilson at the time. The Academy, in the awkward position of possibly conferring its highest honor on someone whose name had been omitted from screen credit, revised its bylaws at a special February 6, 1957, meeting. That revision, in essence, allowed that in such cases, the achievement itself could be eligible for nomination, but the specific writer would be ineligible. The following instructions were sent to Price Waterhouse & Co., Certified Public Accountants, who tabulated Academy ballots: \"...we ask that if, in tabulating the nominations ballots for Best Screenplay (adapted), Friendly Persuasion is one of the five nominations, you list the other four alphabetically by title and below: Friendly Persuasion - Achievement nominated, but writer ineligible for Award under Academy By-Laws.\" On February 17, 1957, the Academy's Board of Governors voted to instruct Price Waterhouse & Co. \"...to list five nominations, and in the event that one of these is declared ineligible under the By-Law provision, four nominations would appear on the final ballot.\" THIS NOMINATION WAS NOT INCLUDED ON THE FINAL BALLOT. (The bylaw was repealed by the Academy as \"unworkable\" on January 12, 1959.) On December 10, 2002, the Academy's Board of Governors voted to reinstate Mr. Wilson's nomination.

  • Giant IMDB — Fred Guiol, Ivan Moffat
  • Lust for Life IMDB — Norman Corwin

Original Screenplay

Writing (Original Story)

  • ★ The Brave One IMDB — Dalton Trumbo
    Source context

    NOTE: The name of the writer credited with authorship, Robert Rich, turned out to be an alias. Two decades later, the mystery was officially solved and the Academy statuette went (on May 2, 1975, presented by then Academy president Walter Mirisch) to its rightful owner, screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, blacklisted in 1956 by the industry for political affiliations. Robert Rich (who had nothing to do with the film industry) is a nephew of the King Brothers, producers of the film. They chose his name to be the alias for Dalton Trumbo on the screenplay.

  • The Eddy Duchin Story IMDB — Leo Katcher
  • High Society IMDB — Edward Bernds, Elwood Ullman
    Source context

    NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL NOMINATION. Edward Bernds and Elwood Ullman, the authors of this Bowery Boys quickie, respectfully withdrew their own names and the nomination, aware that voters had probably mistaken their film with a 1956 MGM release with the same title written by John Patrick and starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra. (Even so, MGM's High Society would only have been eligible for adapted screenplay.)

  • The Proud and the Beautiful IMDB — Jean Paul Sartre
  • Umberto D. IMDB — Cesare Zavattini

Nominated films and other recorded entries

59 films represented in the 1956 archive selection.

About these award records

This independent archive groups film-linked award records by film, credited name, category and eligibility year. The film year can differ from the year the ceremony took place. Ceremony numbers are shown where supplied by the records.

Each distinct performance, song or award credit remains a separate record, even when it belongs to the same film. Shared credits stay together. A person's page covers the name shown, without combining aliases or shared credits into a complete career total.

Totals can include honorary, special and historical awards alongside competitive nominations. Awards without a linked film are outside these page totals. Source notes and uncertain records are retained; category comparisons omit groups with unresolved notes, ties or conflicting identities.

For the official record, search the Academy Awards Database (opens in a new tab). Award Went To is an independent exploration tool and is not affiliated with the Academy.