The Movie Studio That's Won The Most Best Picture Oscars

"Oppenheimer" taking home Best Picture at the 2024 Oscars ceremony was more unusual than you might realize. As much as a WWII-era biopic about a bunch of white guys talking solemnly about Very Important Things qualifies as the ultimate dad movie, Christopher Nolan's film was also the first dyed-in-the-wool blockbuster to win Best Picture in two decades. Just as notably (but more relevant to our purposes here), "Oppenheimer" marked only the second time in that same period that Universal snagged the top prize at the Academy's annual awards show. (Not to mention, the first time that didn't end with Spike Lee being profoundly cheesed off, so far as we know.)

Take a step back and you'll notice that the biggest and oldest Hollywood studios, in general, began to win fewer and fewer Best Picture Oscars as the first quarter of the 21st century rolled along. Rather, this was the era in which the likes of indie-style producers and distributors such as Searchlight Pictures (which, yes, was founded by Fox and now belongs to Disney), A24, and Neon emerged as major players in the sometimes fun, sometimes just exhausting rat race that is Oscar season. Even streaming services began getting in on the action, with the Apple-backed "CODA" netting the Best Picture Oscar in 2022 and Netflix coming precariously close to landing that particular golden statuette on several occasions.

Unless you've got a crystal ball handy, though, all bets are off when it comes to the next 25 years of Oscars bedlam. So, in the lead-up to the 2025 Academy Awards, which studio has won the most Best Picture trophies?

Walt Disney might have the most Oscar wins personally, but the Mouse House itself has proven far less lucky with respect to Best Picture. Again, if we disclude both Searchlight Pictures and 20th Century Studios (née Fox), Walt Disney Studios has amassed 13 Best Picture Oscar nods but no wins between movies it's released through Walt Disney Pictures (four nods), Touchstone Pictures (six nods), Hollywood Pictures (two nods), and Marvel Studios (one nod). Thankfully, the Oscar mathing gets a little less convoluted when it comes to the rest of the Hollywood "Big Five," with Universal and Warner Bros. having both won Best Picture nine times (the same total as MGM), 20th Century Studios having 10 wins, and Paramount sitting pretty with 11 victories.

That leaves Columbia Pictures as the current reigning champion with 12 Best Picture Oscars to its name. Funny as it is to realize that record belongs to the same studio that released "Madame Web," "Harold and the Purple Crayon," and "Kraven the Hunter" over the span of 10 months in 2024 (low blow, I know, but them's the facts), you also have to remember that Columbia Pictures was an Oscar-winning machine around the middle of the 20th century. Between "All the King's Men," "From Here to Eternity," "On the Waterfront," "The Bridge on the River Kwai," "Lawrence of Arabia," "A Man for All Seasons," and "Oliver!," the studio added seven Best Picture Oscars to its belt from 1950-1969 alone. It was only after that Columbia slowed down; it had to wait 11 years for its next win (for "Kramer vs. Kramer" in 1980), followed by "Gandhi" miraculously beating "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial" for Best Picture in 1983 (which even its director, Richard Attenborough, felt was nonsense), and, most recently, "The Last Emperor" being granted that same honor back in 1988.

Will Columbia find a way to defend its title in the foreseeable future? It's not impossible. Lest we forget, the studio was still a Best Picture Oscar nomination magnet in the early 2010s, releasing "The Social Network," "Moneyball," Zero Dark Thirty," "Django Unchained," "Captain Phillips," and "American Hustle" in the span of three years. Not to put more pressure on it than it already has, but all eyes are on you now, "Anaconda" reboot.