The 32nd Academy Awards honored film achievements of 1959 on 4 April 1960.
MGM's (producer Sam Zimbalist) and director William Wyler's three and a half-hour long epic drama Ben-Hur (with a spectacular sea battle and eleven minute chariot race choreographed by Yakima Canutt) won 11 Oscars in 1959, breaking the previous year's all-time record of nine (Gigi (1958)). With its record-breaking eleven Oscar wins out of twelve nominations, it was the most honored motion picture in Academy Award history until Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King both equaled the feat in 1997 and 2003, respectively.
Ben-Hur was a re-make of MGM's own 1926 silent film of the same name, and it was the most expensive film of its time, budgeted at $15 million. Both films were based on or inspired by General Lew Wallace's novel (first published in 1880) about the rise of Christianity.
Ben-Hur was also the 3rd film to win both Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, and was the last to do that until 2004 when Mystic River did it.
Read more about 32nd Academy Awards: Awards
Famous quotes containing the word academy:
“When the State wishes to endow an academy or university, it grants it a tract of forest land: one saw represents an academy, a gang, a university.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)