There are obvious biases in the selection of Best Picture winners by the Academy. (Biases related to acting roles or characters are discussed in the Best Actor and Best Actress sections.) Films not considered to have the stature of a Best Picture are often not nominated. And in addition, most foreign-made or foreign-language potential nominees for Best Picture have been relegated to the sole Best Foreign Language Film category. [Note: Since 1973, only two foreign films - as of 2010 - earned a Best Picture nomination: Life Is Beautiful (1997), and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000).]

Most Likely to Be Nominated (or Win) For Best Picture: Serious dramas or social-problem films with weighty themes, biopics (inspired by real-life individuals or events), or films with literary pretensions are much more likely to be nominated (and win). Glossy, large-scale epic productions with big budgets (of various genres) often take the Best Picture prize.

Least Likely to Be Nominated (or Win) For Best Picture: Action-adventures, family-oriented animation, "popcorn" movies, suspense-thrillers, science-fiction, superhero films, horror, comedies (including teen comedies), Westerns, foreign-language films, and spy thrillers are mostly overlooked, as are independent productions and children's films (although there have been a few exceptions).

Major Genre Categories	Description	Title Screen
Silent Films	The only silent film to win 'Best Picture' was Wings (1927/28). The nominated The Artist (2011) was also a modern-day silent film.	Silents
Science-Fiction Films	Science-fiction films don't win the Best Picture award, although they have often dominated in the Visual and Special Effects technical categories in recent years. Unheard of, two science-fiction films were nominated for Best Picture in 2009 (although there were 10 nominees): District 9 (2009) and Avatar (2009), and Inception (2010) was nominated the following year. There were only a few nominated science-fiction films before 2009, such as A Clockwork Orange (1971), Star Wars (1977) or E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982).
Drama Films	The most frequent Best Picture nominee and winner category is the category of drama, with just a few pure examples noted here: Grand Hotel (1931/2), How Green Was My Valley (1941), The Lost Weekend (1945), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), Hamlet (1948), All the King's Men (1949), All About Eve (1950), Midnight Cowboy (1969), and Kramer vs. Kramer (1979).	Dramas
Comedy Films	It has been rare that light comedy films win the Best Picture Oscar. The following have been the only 'comedies' that have won Best Picture: It Happened One Night (1934), You Can't Take It With You (1938), the musical comedy Going My Way (1944), Tom Jones (1963), The Sting (1973), and Annie Hall (1977). There are other borderline or hybrid comedies, including The Apartment (1960), Terms of Endearment (1983), Driving Miss Daisy (1989), Shakespeare in Love (1998) and the dark comedy American Beauty (1999).	Comedies
Biopics	Films inspired by real-life individuals (especially when they face adversity) usually do very well in terms of nominations, and often win - especially if they are of epic proportion or are intense character studies. Often they are combined with other genre categories: there are musical biopics, epic biopics, dramatic biopics, war biopics, etc. Winners have included: The Great Ziegfeld (1936), the first true biopic The Life of Emile Zola (1937), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), A Man for All Seasons (1966), Patton (1970), Chariots of Fire (1981), Gandhi (1982), Amadeus (1984), The Last Emperor (1987), A Beautiful Mind (2001), and The King's Speech (2010).	Biopics
Epics Films / Blockbusters	Long (well over 120 minutes), historical epics with big budgets and grand, large-scale production values have often been chosen: e.g., Wings (1927/28), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Gone With the Wind (1939), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Ben-Hur (1959), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), The Godfather (1972), and The Godfather Part II (1974), and the recent winners Gandhi (1982), Amadeus (1984), Out of Africa (1985), The Last Emperor (1987), Dances With Wolves (1990), Forrest Gump (1994), The English Patient (1996), Titanic (1997), and Gladiator (2000).	Epics
Epics (War Films)	War films, either epics or intimate dramas related to war-time, have done very well in Academy history. The Best Picture war-themed winners include: Wings (1927/28), All Quiet on the Western Front (1929/30), Gone With the Wind (1939), Mrs. Miniver (1942), Casablanca (1942/43), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), From Here to Eternity (1953), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Patton (1970), The Deer Hunter (1978), Platoon (1986), Dances With Wolves (1990), Schindler's List (1993), Braveheart (1995), The English Patient (1996), and The Hurt Locker (2009).	War Epic War Drama
Musicals	Musical Best Pictures are semi-rare and include the following: The Broadway Melody (1928/29), The Great Ziegfeld (1936), possibly Going My Way (1944), An American in Paris (1951), Gigi (1958), West Side Story (1961), My Fair Lady (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), Oliver! (1968) and Chicago (2002). There were five musical Best Picture winners between 1958 and 1968. Four of the ten Best Pictures in the 1960s were musicals (all based on previous Broadway hits). The only musical to receive 13 nominations was Chicago (2002) -- with six wins, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress.	Musicals
Action-Adventure Films	A very small number of pure adventure (or action) films have ever been voted Best Picture, including: Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Dances With Wolves (1990). [Titanic (1997) is an action-adventure epic, as well as a disaster film and historical romance.] Conversely, losers in the Best Picture category include lots of action-adventure film nominees, including: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Airport (1970), The Towering Inferno (1974), Jaws (1975), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Right Stuff (1983), and The Fugitive (1993).	Adventure
Horror/Thriller Films	Only one true 'horror' film has won Best Picture, The Silence of the Lambs (1991). Also, Hitchcock's first US film and Best Picture winner Rebecca (1940) may be counted as the only winning suspense-thriller. [Best Picture nominees in this suspense-thriller genre have included Suspicion (1941), Gaslight (1944), Spellbound (1945), and The Sixth Sense (1999).] The Exorcist (1973) was the only horror film to be nominated for Best Picture in Academy Award history - until 1991.	Horror Suspense/Thrillers
Crime Films	There are a few hybrid crime films that have won Best Picture, including On the Waterfront (1954) - a crime drama, The French Connection (1971) - both a crime film and action-thriller, the two Francis Ford Coppola crime/drama sagas: The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather, Part II (1974), and Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006). Notable Best Picture-nominated crime films include The Racket (1928), Dead End (1937), Bonnie And Clyde (1967), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Midnight Express (1978), Atlantic City (1981), Prizzi's Honor (1985), The Godfather: Part III (1990), GoodFellas (1990), Bugsy (1991), The Crying Game (1992), and Pulp Fiction (1994).	Crime Epics
Mystery and Film Noir Films	Mysteries, and especially the nihistic subgenre of film noir, seldom win Best Picture. Only one pure mystery has ever won Best Picture: In the Heat of the Night (1967). Many mysteries and film noirs have been nominated for Best Picture, including: The Thin Man (1934), Citizen Kane (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Z (1969), Chinatown (1974), JFK (1991), The Fugitive (1993), L.A. Confidential (1997), and Gosford Park (2001). Genre-hybrid mysteries include Lost Horizon (1937) (fantasy), Rebecca (1940) (thriller), Suspicion (1941) (thriller), Gaslight (1944) (thriller), Spellbound (1945) (thriller), and The Sixth Sense (1999) (horror). Mysteries and film noir often tend to do exceedingly well in the artistic performance categories (acting, writing, and directing) despite not earning Best Picture nominations. [Three prime examples of this are Laura (1944), Rear Window (1954), and Murder on the Orient Express (1974).]	Mystery
Western Films	Although by the end of the 20th century, there were eleven Westerns nominated for Best Picture, only three have won the highest honor - Cimarron (1930/31), Dances With Wolves (1990), and Unforgiven (1992). There have only been nine other nominated Westerns (in addition to the winners): In Old Arizona (1928/29), Stagecoach (1939), The Ox-Bow Incident (1943), High Noon (1952), Shane (1953), Giant (1956), How the West Was Won (1963), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and True Grit (2010).	Westerns
Fantasy Films	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) was the first (and only) fantasy film to win Best Picture. Fantasy-adventure also rarely win the Best Picture award, although they have often dominated in the Visual and Special Effects technical categories in recent years. (For example, fantasy nominees have all lost, including The Wizard of Oz (1939), Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), Heaven Can Wait (1943), It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Dr. Strangelove, Or: (1964), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Heaven Can Wait (1978), E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008).)	Fantasy
Animated Films	Before 2001, the only animated film nominated for Best Picture was Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991). Because of the creation of the Best Animated Feature category in 2001, Beauty and the Beast (1991) was thought to be the ONLY animated film ever nominated for Best Picture, until Up (2009) and Toy Story 3 (2010) were also nominated. Up (2009) was also the first computer (or CG)-animated film to be Best Picture-nominated and the first animated film to receive a Best Picture nomination since animated films received their own category in 2001. Winning films in this category are often huge blockbusters.	Animated
Children's Films (not including any animated films)	These are G-rated films specifically made for young kids (they are often appropriate for families and adults too). They are rarely taken seriously, and therefore not often nominated for Best Picture, with the following exceptions: The Wizard of Oz (1939), The Yearling (1946), Mary Poppins (1964), Doctor Dolittle (1967), E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Babe (1995). Often, they are nominated (or win) for various music-related categories.	Children's
Sports Films	Only a small number of sports - drama films have even received a nomination for Best Picture, let alone a Best Picture Oscar. Only three have won Best Picture in Oscar history: Rocky (1976), Chariots of Fire (1981), and Million Dollar Baby (2004). Others that have received nominations include: The Champ (1931), The Pride of the Yankees (1942), The Hustler (1961), Heaven Can Wait (1978), Breaking Away (1979), Raging Bull (1980), Field of Dreams (1989), Jerry Maguire (1996), Seabiscuit (2003), and The Fighter (2010).	Sports
Romance Films	Pure love stories (not including musicals) which often have strong romantic subplots are popular Best Picture winners and nominees during escapist periods in American history, such as the Depression Era and World War II, the 50's, and the turn of the modern century. Romance films (often hybrids) that have won Best Picture include: Gone With the Wind (1939), Casablanca (1942), Marty (1955), Out of Africa (1985), The English Patient (1996), Titanic (1997), and Shakespeare in Love (1998). Light romantic comedies that have won Best Picture include It Happened One Night (1934) and Annie Hall (1977). There are many examples of both romances and romantic comedies that have been nominated for Best Picture.	Romances
R-rated Films	The first R-rated film to win Best Picture was The French Connection (1971) since the institution of the MPAA ratings system. There were five consecutive R-rated Best Picture winners beginning in 2005, Crash (2005), The Departed (2006), No Country for Old Men (2007), Slumdog Millionaire (2008), and The Hurt Locker (2009).
X-rated Films	The only X-rated film (later reduced to R in the following decade) to win Best Picture was Midnight Cowboy (1969). A Clockwork Orange (1971) was the only other X-rated film (since re-rated) nominated for Best Picture. Actor Marlon Brando and director Bernard Bertolucci were also Oscar nominees for an X-rated film (not re-rated since its release): Last Tango in Paris (1972).
British (UK) Films	Films with a British perspective, or with British/US production have done fairly well in the Best Picture category, such as Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Tom Jones (1963), Chariots of Fire (1981), Gandhi (1982) and The King's Speech (2010). Hamlet (1948) was both the first British production and the first non-American or non-Hollywood (foreign-made) film to be presented with the industry's top honor.