The Philadelphia Story (film) - Awards and Honors

Awards and Honors

At the 1940 Academy Awards The Philadelphia Story received 6 nominations:

• Outstanding Production – MGM (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Producer)
• Best Director – George Cukor
• Best Actor – James Stewart
• Best Actress – Katharine Hepburn
• Best Writing, Screenplay – Donald Ogden Stewart
• Best Supporting Actress – Ruth Hussey

James Stewart and Donald Ogden Stewart won Academy Awards.

James Stewart was not expecting to win and was not planning to attend the awards ceremony. He was called and "advised" to show up in a dinner jacket. Stewart himself said he had voted for Henry Fonda for his performance in The Grapes of Wrath, and always felt the award had been given to him as compensation for not winning the Academy Award for his portrayal of Jeff Smith in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Donald Ogden Stewart, on the other hand, declared upon winning his Oscar: "I have no one to thank but myself!"

Hepburn won a 1940 New York Film Critics Circle Award for her performance, and the film was named one of the ten best of the year by Film Daily.

In 1995, The Philadelphia Story film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress and was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

American Film Institute Lists

• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies - #51
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Laughs - #15
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Passions - #44
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
  • "You're lit from within, Tracy. You've got fires banked down in you, hearth-fires and holocausts." - Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores - Nominated
• AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) - #44
• AFI's 10 Top 10 - #5 Romantic Comedy