29th Academy Awards

For the 29th Academy Awards, the Best International Feature Film was introduced as a competitive category, instead of only a Special Achievement Award. The first winner in this new category was Federico Fellini's La Strada with Anthony Quinn, receiving a further nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

This was the first year that all of the five Best Picture nominees were in color, and the first Oscar telecast to be videotaped for later broadcast, for those network affiliates that didn't want to broadcast the event live.

All of the Best Picture nominees were large-scale epics: The King and I, George Stevens' Giant, Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (the highest-grossing film of the year), William Wyler's Friendly Persuasion, and the winner, Around the World in 80 Days. The trend toward blockbusters and colorful spectaculars was established for years to come, as The Bridge on the River Kwai, Gigi, and Ben-Hur followed as Best Picture winners.

The Best Original Story category had two interesting quirks this year. First, the Oscar for The Brave One was awarded to Robert Rich, a pseudonym of Dalton Trumbo, who was blacklisted at the time and thus unable to receive credit under his own name. Second, Edward Bernds and Elwood Ullman withdrew their names from consideration for their work on High Society, as the nomination had been intended for the musical starring Grace Kelly, while Bernds and Ullman had instead written a Bowery Boys film of the same name. In fact, the nomination was a double mistake, as High Society was based on the play and film The Philadelphia Story and would not have qualified as an original story.

James Dean became the only actor to receive a second posthumous nomination for acting. Ingrid Bergman was not present to collect her award for Best Actress: Cary Grant accepted on her behalf. She did, however, list the nominees for Best Director via a pre-recorded segment from Paris, while the winner was announced by host Jerry Lewis.

Director John Ford's classic western The Searchers, widely seen as one of the best American films of all time, failed to receive a single nomination.

This was the second time since the introduction of the Supporting Actor and Actress awards that Best Picture, Best Director, and all four acting Oscars were given to different films. This would not happen again until the 78th Academy Awards. Around the World in 80 Days became the sixth film to win Best Picture without any acting nominations.