40th Academy Awards — award ceremony presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for achievement in filmmaking in 1967
The 40th Academy Awards, delayed two days after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, honored 1967 films with In the Heat of the Night winning Best Picture.
Key Facts
- Ceremony date
- April 10, 1968 (postponed from April 8)
- Best Picture winner
- In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison)
- Host
- Bob Hope
- Films nominated for Big Five
- Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
- Edith Head nominations prior
- 30 nominations and 7 wins over 18 years before first snub
- Acting nominees present
- 18 of 20
By the Numbers
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
The assassination of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968 prompted Academy President Gregory Peck and the Academy to postpone the originally scheduled April 8 ceremony out of respect, pushing the date back two days.
The 40th Academy Awards were held on April 10, 1968, hosted by Bob Hope, honoring film achievements of 1967. In the Heat of the Night won Best Picture, while Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner each received Big Five nominations. Categories for Cinematography, Art Direction, and Costume Design were merged from separate color and monochrome awards into single categories.
In the Heat of the Night's Best Picture win elevated a film centered on racial tension at a historically charged moment in American civil rights history. The merging of color and monochrome Oscar categories reflected the industry's decisive shift away from black-and-white filmmaking, a structural change that persists in Academy Awards practice to the present day.