8th Academy Awards — award ceremony presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences for achievement in filmmaking in 1935
The 8th Academy Awards marked the first year the awards were publicly called 'Oscars' and introduced the short-lived Best Dance Direction category.
Key Facts
- Ceremony date
- March 5, 1936
- Venue
- Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles
- Host
- Frank Capra (AMPAS president)
- Best Picture winner
- Mutiny on the Bounty
- Best Actress
- Bette Davis for Dangerous
- First write-in Oscar winner
- A Midsummer Night's Dream (Best Cinematography)
Location
Cause → Event → Consequence
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences convened to recognize outstanding filmmaking achievements from 1935. Academy voters, feeling they had wrongly overlooked Bette Davis the prior year, sought to compensate her, while a new write-in voting rule and the debut of the Best Dance Direction category shaped the nominations landscape.
The 8th Academy Awards were held on March 5, 1936, at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, hosted by AMPAS president Frank Capra. For the first time, the awards were officially referred to as 'Oscars.' Mutiny on the Bounty won Best Picture without any other award, and Bette Davis received Best Actress for Dangerous despite her own misgivings about the choice.
The ceremony established lasting precedents: the 'Oscar' name became permanent, and Miriam Hopkins' nomination for Becky Sharp marked the first acting nod for a color film. The newly introduced Best Dance Direction category would survive only three years before being eliminated following lobbying by the Directors Guild of America.