Top 50 moments of the Oscars from the past 50 years
50.
The Moment: The ceremony producers go mad as Sheena Easton performs Best Song nominee For Your Eyes Only at the 54th Academy Awards - Jaws! Oddjob! Lasers!
Why It's Great: A contender for the most (literally) Jaws-dropping performance of a Best Song nominee.
49.
The Moment: Jeff Bridges accepts his Best Actor Oscar at the 82nd Academy Awards in the style of Jeff Lebowski: "Mom and dad, yeah, look! Whoo! Thank you, Mom and Dad, for turning me on to such a groovy profession."
Why It's Great: Because Oscar speeches don't have to be boring, you know.
48.
The Moment: Ellen DeGeneres takes time out from hosting the 79th Academy Awards to ask Steven Spielberg to take a snap of her with Clint Eastwood.
Why It's Great: She actually posted the photo online on her MySpace page. (This was before Facebook had really taken off.)
47.
The Moment: Awards specialist Neil Patrick Harris steals the show at the 82nd Academy Awards with a lavish Broadway-style musical number.
Why It's Great: Harris is regarded at the best in the business at awards hosting, and it can only be a matter of time before he does the Oscars, despite his protestations to the contrary.
46.
The Moment: Twentysomething up-and-coming movie stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck win an Oscar at the 70th Academy Awards… for writing.
Why It's Great: Their boyish delight is a reminder of how big a deal it can be to win an Oscar.
45.
The Moment: One of the weirdest and most memorable pieces of interpretive dance occurred at the 79th Academy Awards, where Pilobolus re-enacted the year's films in shadow dance.
Why It's Great: Host Ellen DeGeneres' quip that the performers were naked behind the screen made it that bit more interesting to watch.
44.
The Moment: In a unique event, the 41st Academy Awards saw two performers - Katharine Hepburn and Barbara Streisand - share Best Actress.
Why It's Great: The unlikeliness of the combo, all the more so because Funny Girl was Streisand's film debut.
43.
The Moment: Walt Disney is rewarded with an honorary Oscar at the 11th Academy Awards for producing cinema's first animated movie, Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs.
Why It's Great: In a unique moment of wit, the Academy also made seven mini-Oscars to accompany the real one.
42.
The Moment: Sandra Bullock completed cinema's quickest ever comeback by winning Best Actress at the 82nd Academy Awards only 24 hours after winning Worst Actress at the Razzies. For different performances, admittedly.
Why It's Great: Only in Hollywood could this happen.
41.
The Moment: Host Hugh Jackman does the opening routine at the 81st Academy Awards as a musical spoof about the nominees, complete with cardboard sets.
Why It's Great: An ironic acknowledgement of the credit crunch that actually shows up how much money is usually wasted on glitzy show-stoppers.
40.
The Moment: Heath Ledger's family takes to the stage to accept the late star's posthumous Best Support Actor award for The Dark Knight, at the 81st Academy Awards.
Why It's Great: A fitting send-off for a talent who died too soon, all the more so because this wasn't a sentimental award - he would have won, anyway.
39.
The Moment: Producer Elinor Burkett interrupts director Roger Ross Williams as he attempts to accept Best Short Documentary at the 82nd Academy Awards.
Why It's Great: A surreal, very public bust-up that reveals the tensions behind the smiles - the two filmmakers were engaged in a bitter court case at the time.
38.
The Moment: The honorary Oscar - aka, "Quick, before they die!" - is the Academy's guilty apology to the ones they missed. When Alfred Hitchcock received one at the 40th Academy Awards, he knew he was being fobbed off.
Why It's Great: Hitchcock's brief, deadpan speech, "Thank you very much indeed," which translates as something unprintable.
37.
The Moment: Oscar protocol says that, when the music starts, the winner cuts short their speech. But Best Actress Julia Roberts was having none of it, ordering conductor Bill Conti to stop the music.
Why It's Great: Except Roberts got his name wrong, calling him Tom Conti (as in the Shirley Valentine actor). She wryly acknowledged the mistake the next year when presenting Best Actor.
36.
The Moment: Cuba Gooding Jr can't contain his excitement at the 69th Academy Awards after winning Best Supporting Actor for Jerry Maguire.
Why It's Great: His sheer exuberance. When most winners start to wind down in their acceptance speech, Cuba cranks it up by shouting, "I love you, I love you all, I'm gonna keep going!"
35.
The Moment: Chris Rock's piss-taking of Jude Law at the 77th Academy Awards for being in every film released in 2004. "If you want Tom Cruise and all you can get is Jude Law, wait!"
Why It's Great: Sean Penn later took the stage to remonstrate with Rock, proving that the comedian was spot-on in puncturing Hollywood pomposity.
34.
The Moment: Woody Allen famously shunned the Oscars, preferring to stay in New York. But he made an exception at the 74th Academy Awards to introduce a celebration of his city in the wake of 9/11.
Why It's Great: That rarity at an Oscar ceremony - an understated and noble appearance.
33.
The Moment: There's a madman clambering over the seats and invading the stage at the 71st Academy Awards. A gatecrasher? No! It's Best Foreign Language Film winner Roberto Benigni.
Why It's Great: The punchline a year later, when Benigni returned to present Best Actress and host Billy Crystal stood behind him with a net, just in case.
32.
The Moment: Weird enough that South Park boys Trey Parker and Matt Stone should be nominated for an Oscar at the 72nd Academy Awards… but then they turn up in drag.
Why It's Great: Parker and Stone's costumes are replicas of designs made famous at previous Oscar ceremonies by Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Lopez.
31.
The Moment: Best Documentary winner Jon Blair takes to the stage at the 68th Academy Awards with Miep Gies, the Dutch woman who helped harbour Anne Frank.
Why It's Great: A reminder that sometimes something more than movie glamour reaches the Oscars' worldwide audience.
30.
The Moment: Dolphin activist and star of The Cove Ric O'Barry unfurls a banner saying Text Dolphin to 44144 to raise awareness at the 82nd Academy Awards.
Why It's Great: A modern update on acceptance speech protest: fast, memorable and (despite efforts by the TV producers to cut away) viral.
29.
The Moment: A generation weeps as John Hughes' stars (including Matthew Broderick, Molly Ringwald and Macauley Culkin) present a special memorial to the late writer/director at the 82nd Academy Awards.
Why It's Great: A lovely tribute that, unusually, falls outside the traditional In Memoriam section.
28.
The Moment: Jennifer Garner has the moment all celebs dread, as she tripped walking the steps to present at the 79th Academy Awards.
Why It's Great: Garner's unflappable response - "I do all my own stunts!" - made it look like a gag rather than an accident.
27.
The Moment: Melissa Leo forgets she's on primetime when accepting Best Supporting Actress at the 83rd Academy Awards. "When I watched Kate [Winslet] two years ago, it looked so fucking easy!"
Why It's Great: Despite ABC bleeping the offending word thanks to a live delay, there's no mistaking the look of shock when Leo realises what she's done.
26.
The Moment: Cancer-stricken John Wayne's appearance at the 51st Academy Awards to present Best Picture allowed Hollywood to give the Duke a rousing send-off a mere two months before his death.
Why It's Great: A genuinely emotional moment, not least for Wayne's characteristically defiant promise to "stick around for a whole lot longer."
25.
The Moment: Tom Hanks takes to the stage at the 66th Academy Awards to accept Best Actor for Philadelphia and, in his rush to show his understanding of gay rights, accidentally outs his high school teacher.
Why It's Great: The only moment on this list to inspire its own movie, the Kevin Kline comedy In And Out.
24.
The Moment: At the 79th Academy Awards, Will Ferrell and Jack Black sing a song bemoaning the lack of recognition for comedians. Basically, it's them having a go at the dramatic actors - threatening to break Ryan Gosling's hip, that sort of thing.
Why It's Great: The punchline, as John C. Reilly breaks things up by advising Ferrell and Black to do both drama and comedy.
23.
The Moment: Colin Welland gets carried away at the 54th Academy Awards as he wins Best Screenplay for Chariots Of Fire and announces, "The British Are Coming!"
Why It's Great: It's the perfect soundbite that can be dusted off and reused every time a British film does well (Slumdog Millionaire, The King's Speech, yada yada).
22.
The Moment: The Return Of The King storms the 76th Academy Awards, with a record equalling 11 wins. Ben-Hur and Titanic were the others.
Why It's Great: Peter Jackson's metaphorical coronation crowned a superb three years at the Oscars, in which the Academy finally ditched its aversion to fantasy cinema.
21.
The Moment: Presenter Will Rogers leaves it ambiguous at the 6th Academy Awards when he announces Best Director by shouting, "Come and get it, Frank!" Shame that two Franks have been nominated.
Why It's Great: Frank Capra dashes onto stage, only to find that the winner was actually Frank Lloyd.
20.
The Moment: By the end of the night, Rocky would win Best Picture at the 49th Academy Awards, but while presenting the award for Best Supporting Actress Sylvester Stallone faces the real deal in Muhammad Ali.
Why It's Great: The two iconic boxers square off as Ali insists with mock anger that Stallone "stole my script."
19.
The Moment: Cher steps out at the 58th Academy Awards looking like a Disney villainess.
Why It's Great: This is the costume that set the bar for outrageous Oscar fashion. It's never been beaten.
18.
The Moment: Steven Spielberg wins a belated Best Director award forSchindler's List at the 66th Academy Awards.
Why It's Great: Steven Spielberg had been shunned both for his 5* blockbusters and his less-than-5* serious dramas. But when he directed a 5* serious drama, there was no ignoring him.
17.
The Moment: Vanessa Redgrave learns that it's a tough crowd at the 50th Academy Awards when she uses her Best Supporting Actress acceptance speech to rail against "Zionist hoodlums."
Why It's Great: The retort from writer Paddy Chayefsky later that night: "I'm sick and tired of people exploiting the Academy Awards for the propagation of their own personal propaganda."
16.
The Moment: 73-year-old Jack Palance feels the need to prove his manhood doing one-armed push-ups, after winning Best Supporting Actor at the 64th Academy Awards.
Why It's Great: Host Billy Crystal spends the rest of the ceremony making wisecracks about Palance's strength.
15.
The Moment: Ben Stiller arrives on stage in a green leotard at the 78th Academy Awards believing he's been green-screened out by the FX bods. Trouble is, he hasn't been.
Why It's Great: It's the finest example of Ben Stiller's one-man mission to make presenting more interesting than reading a bunch of names off an envelope.
14.
The Moment: Bob Hope is interrupted by superfan Stan Berman, a New York cabbie who gatecrashes the 34th Academy Awards to hand Hope a homemade Oscar.
Why It's Great: It's the kind of watercooler moment it'd take Will Ferrell, a crack team of comic writers and endless rehearsals to come up with nowadays.
13.
The Moment: Host Billy Crystal captures the Zeitgeist at the 64th Academy Awards by being wheeled on stage in Hannibal Lecter-style mask and restraints.
Why It's Great: Crystal clocks Anthony Hopkins in the crowd and asks him, "I'm having some of the Academy over for dinner. Will you join me?"
12.
The Moment: Not content with becoming the youngest ever winner of the Best Actor Oscar at the 75th Academy Awards, Adrien Brody decided to give presenter Halle Berry a lingering snog.
Why It's Great: Sometimes, you just gotta celebrate. Plus Brody was witty enough to play on his rep by showing up to present the Best Actress prize the next year with a breath spray.
11.
The Moment: Michael Moore wins Best Documentary at the 75th Academy Awards, the month the Iraq War began, and proceeds to use his acceptance speech to blast "fictitious President" George W. Bush to mixed boos and cheers.
Why It's Great: The kind of tension-with-a-knife controversy that you hardly ever get at the well-behaved, media-managed Oscars of contemporary times.
10.
The Moment: All is forgiven as Charlie Chaplin, hounded from America two decades earlier for alleged Communist sympathies, returns to Hollywood to receive a Lifetime Achievement award.
Why It's Great: Proof that it's never too late for a comeback, and the 12-minute standing ovation set a record that has never been broken.
9.
The Moment: The Hurt Locker helmer Kathryn Bigelow becomes the first woman to be awarded Best Director. About time! It took until the 82nd Academy Awards.
Why It's Great: In her acceptance speech, Bigelow staunchly - and rightly - refuses to make a big deal out of being a woman, and concentrates on talking about the film she won for.
8.
The Moment: Until 2002, only one black actor - Sidney Poitier - had won an Oscar in a leading role. It took until the 74th Academy Awards to triple that figure in a single night, with Denzel Washington and Halle Berry both winning.
Why It's Great: A welcome, if belated sign of the times. Since then, Jamie Foxx and Forest Whitaker have joined Denzel, although Halle remains the only black woman in her category.
7.
The Moment: George C. Scott wins Best Actor at the 43rd Academy Awards, despite advising the Academy in advance he would refuse his nomination.
Why It's Great: Scott's memorable summation of the ceremony as "a two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons."
6.
The Moment: The dominant host of modern times made his name with a regular running gag in which he's inserted into footage from nominated films.
Why It's Great: New hosts often struggle to find their identity but Crystal succeeds by imposing his on the films. They're only around for a year; Crystal is for life.
5.
The Moment: It Happened One Night storms the 7th Academy Awards by claiming the Big Five: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay.
Why It's Great: The Big Five is a rare elite - to date, only two other films (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and The Silence Of The Lambs) have equalled the achievement.
4.
The Moment: Samuel L. Jackson breaks protocol to whisper "Aww, shit!" when he learns he's been beaten (by Martin Landau) to the Best Supporting Actor Oscar at the 67th Academy Awards.
Why It's Great: Because it's so in character.
3.
The Moment: 34-year-old streaker Robert Opel flashes the peace sign and a whole lot more as he runs across the stage at the 46th Academy Awards.
Why It's Great: The immortal put-down from co-host David Niven, "The only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping and showing off his shortcomings."
2.
The Moment: At last! The Departed finally wins Martin Scorsese his Best Director Oscar.
Why It's Great: Even with pals Coppola, Spielberg and Lucas on hand, Scorsese can't quite believe the Academy has honoured him. "Check the envelope," he quips.
1.
The Moment: Native American Sacheen Littlefeather turns up at the 45th Academy Awards on behalf of Marlon Brando, to announce he's not accepting Best Actor for The Godfather because of Hollywood's mistreatment of Native Americans.
Why It's Great: Brando in the 1970s was a one-man war on orthodoxy, but he achieves his most eccentric moment by not even showing up.
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