11th Academy Awards

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

The 11th Academy Awards were held on February 23, 1939, at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles and hosted by Frank Capra. Best Picture went to You Can't Take It with You, while The Adventures of Robin Hood won the most awards (three). You Can't Take It with You also had the most nominations (seven).

This ceremony featured La Grande Illusion as the first non-English language film nominated for Best Picture. It was one of only two times in Oscar history when three of the four acting winners had won before; Fay Bainter was the only first-time winner that year, a situation not repeated until 1994. Bainter also received two acting nominations in the same year. Spencer Tracy became the first actor to win Best Actor in two consecutive years, a feat later matched by Tom Hanks in 1994.

George Bernard Shaw won Best Original Screenplay for Pygmalion, becoming the first—and for more than 77 years, the only—person to win both a Nobel Prize and an Academy Award until Bob Dylan in 2016. Shaw protested his win, saying it was an insult.

Radio coverage of the ceremony was banned. Reporter George Fischer locked himself in a booth and broadcast for about 12 minutes before security broke in. Partial radio coverage resumed with the 1942 ceremony. Nominees were announced on February 5, 1939.