By Tara McGarry

We analyzed every movie (57,960 data points, to be exact) that has ever been nominated by these five prestigious awarding bodies:

• Oscars
• Golden Globes
• BAFTA
• Critics’ Choice Awards
• SAG Awards

Roll out the red carpet. Get those tuxedos rented. Block out your evenings. For movie enthusiasts, movie awards shows deliver thrills, triumphs, and disappointments when it comes to the year’s most innovative and artistic filmmaking.

Awards season is about so much more than glamorous gowns and memorable acceptance speeches. It’s about the films that resonate with audiences long after they’ve seen them; films that inspire, films that, from script to cinematography to acting, leave an impression. After all, iconic lines such as, “I’ll never let go, Jack,” and songs like “City of Stars” and “My Heart Will Go On” have cemented themselves in the hearts of movie lovers and will arguably live on forever.

We at USDish have a strong appreciation for good cinema, so much so that we provide showings of classic critical darlings and new nominees with a satellite TV package and an On Demand selection of more than 80,000 titles.

In anticipation of the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony, our team identified the most nominated movies of all time. Can you guess any in the top 10? Did your favorites make the cut? It’s time to test your true Movie Buff status.

And the award noms go to…

Methodology

In order to figure out which films received the most nominations, the USDish team gathered data from five different awards organizations: the Academy Awards (Oscars), the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), and the Critics Choice Awards. The information and conclusions in this article are based solely on data from only these five organizations.

Here’s how that data came into play: 

• Our researchers analyzed a total of 57,960 data points to determine which films received the most award nominations up to the year 2019.
• After cleaning the data up a bit, we separated it by category (Movies, Awards, Total Nominations, Total Wins, Percent of Awards Won), then made an overall count of which films had gathered the most award nominations based on our criteria.
• Note: It is possible that certain films on the list may have accumulated more award nominations, as there exist several more prestigious awards organizations outside of the ones we chose.

  However, these organizations often have different types of movies in their nomination pools than those honored by our core five (e.g. Sundance awards small budget, independent films before they’re acquired by a production company). Inconsistencies in the data may have resulted, which is why we gathered data from only five major organizations.

Interesting Findings

• From our initial list of award-nominated movies, 749 of them won 100% of the awards they were nominated for.
• The Academy Awards are the final awards ceremony of the season, and we noticed a positive trend of total awards received before the Oscars to the total number of Oscars the film received.
  • In other words, an Oscar-winning film most likely previously won awards from other organizations, increasing their overall award total.
• The best way to anticipate which movies have the best chance for winning an Academy Award are considering those that win one or more Golden Globe, BAFTA, or SAG Award.