Academy Award Crime Movies: A Night at the Oscars with Winners & Nominees

Just in time for the Oscars: Academy Award Crime Movies: Winners and Nominees. This is an expanded post. Hope you enjoy it! Many of the following films are based on books which makes them all that much better in my opinion. And, just FYI, this is not a very organized post. Some movies are better annotated than others. Some films have nominations while others have wins. Feel free to fill in the blanks or add more titles. Also I need to add this year's nominations. If you haven't seen these movies, add them to your list.

Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock). 1940. Best Picture. Based on the book by Daphne du Maurier

On the Waterfront. 1954 Best Picture

In the Heat of the Night. 1967 Racial tensions in the South as an African-American detective is sent into Mississippi to solve a murder. Based on the novel by John Ball. The movie earned seven Oscar nominations.
Academy Award wins
Academy Award for Best Picture
Academy Award for Best Actor: Rod Steiger
Academy Award for Film Editing:  Hal Ashby
Academy Award for Best Sound: Samuel Goldwyn Studios
Academy Award for Writing Adapted Screenplay: Stirling Silliphant 
Academy Award nominations
Academy Award for Directing - Norman Jewison
Academy Award for Sound Editing - James Richard

Bonnie and Clyde.1967.
Academy Award wins:
Best Supporting Actress: Estelle Parsons
Best Cinematography: Burnett Guffey
Nominations:
Best Picture
Best Director: Arthur Penn
Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen: David Newman and Robert Benton
Best Actor in a Leading Role - Warren Beatty
Best Actress in a Leading Role - Faye Dunaway
Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Michael J. Pollard
Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Gene Hackman
Best Costume Design - Theadora Van Runkle

The French Connection. 1971.  Based on the book by Robin Moore. This was the first R-rated movie to win an Academy Award for Best Picture.
Academy Award wins
Best Actor: Gene Hackman
Best Director
Best Film Editing
Best Adapted Screenplay: Ernest Tidyman
Nominations:
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Roy Scheider
Best Cinematography and Best Sound

The Godfather.  1972. Based on the novel by Mario Puzo.
Academy Awards:
Best Picture
Best Writing (adapted screenplay) for Francis Coppola and Mario Puzo
Best Actor in a Leading Role for Marlon Brando

Serpico. 1973. Directed by Sidney Lumet, starring Al Pacino. Movie based on the true story of Serpico written by Peter Maas.
Academy Awards nominations:
Best Actor in a Leading Role: Al Pacino
Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.

The Godfather, Part II. 1974.

All the President’s Men. 1976. Based on the novel by Woodward and Bernstein.
Academy Awards
Best Picture
Best Art Direction: George Jenkins & George Gaines
Best Adapted Screenplay: William Goldman
Best Sound: Arthur Piantadosi, James E. Webb, Les Fresholtz, Dick Alexander
Nominated:
Best Director, Alan J. Pakula
Best Editing: Robert L. Wolfe,
Best Picture: Walter Coblenz
Best Supporting Actor: Jason Robards
Best Supporting Actress: Jane Alexander

The Sting. 1973. Robert Redford and Paul Newman-- caper movie. Two men play con artists who are inspired by the real-life con-game portrayed in the novel The Big Con: The Story of the Confidence Men by David Maurer.
Academy Awards:
Best Picture
Directing: George Roy Hill
Writing Original Screenplay: David S. Ward
Best Art Direction: Henry Bumstead and James W. Payne
Best Costume Design: Edith Head
Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation: Marvin HamlischNominations
Best Actor: Robert Redford
Best Cinematography: Robert Surtees
Sound: Ronald Pierce & Robert R. Bertrand

Chinatown. 1974. Roman Polanski directs. Jack Nicholson stars as a Los Angeles private detective who investigates a man accused of adultery. What he uncovers is based on the real-life water disputes in L.A. during the 1920s. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards.
Wins
Best Original Screenplay – Robert Towne
Nominations
Best Picture – Robert Evans
Best Director – Roman Polanski
Best Actor – Jack Nicholson
Best Actress – Faye Dunaway
Best Film Editing – Sam O'Steen
Best Art Direction – Richard Sylbert, W. Stewart Campbell, Ruby Levitt
Best Costume Design – Anthea Sylbert
Best Cinematography – John A. Alonzo
Best Sound Mixing – Bud Grenzbach, Larry Jost
Best Music Score – Jerry Goldsmith

The Silence of the Lambs. Based on the book by Thomas Harris. 
1991 Best Picture

Fargo. 1996
The film earned seven Academy Award nominations
Academy Award for Best Actress – Frances McDormand
Academy Award for Writing Original Screenplay – Joel and Ethan Coen

The Departed. 2006

And more..

Best Picture-nominated crime films include The Racket (1928), Dead End (1937),  Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Midnight Express (1978), Atlantic City (1981), Prizzi's Honor (1985), The Godfather: Part III (1990), GoodFellas (1990), Bugsy (1991), The Crying Game (1992), and Pulp Fiction (1994), Chicago (one of my favorites)


More Mysteries and film noir nominated for Best Picture: The Thin Man (1934), Citizen Kane (1941), The Maltese Falcon (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), Z (1969), Chinatown (1974), JFK (1991), The Fugitive (1993), L.A. Confidential (1997), Traffic (2000), Gosford Park (2001), Mystic River (2003)


And a few other favorites:  Suspicion (1941), Gaslight (1944), Spellbound (1945). Mysteries and film noir often tend to do exceedingly well in the artistic performance categories (acting, writing, and directing) despite not earning Best Picture nominations. Examples:  Laura (1944), Rear Window (1954), and Murder on the Orient Express (1974).

Oscar Nominated or Winners Based on True Crime:  

The French Connection (1971)
Inspired by the taking of an international heroin smuggling ring by real-life NYPD detectives Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, The French Connection stars Gene Hackman as Ed “Popeye Doyle” and Roy Scheider as Buddy “Cloudy” Russo, relentless cops who hunt down Fernando Rey as France-based narcotics kingpin Alain Charnier (inspired by real smuggler Jean Jehan).

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
On the hot morning of August 22, 1972, John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturale attempted to rob a bank in Brooklyn to finance gender-reassignment surgery for Wojtowicz’s lover. Absolutely nothing went according to plan.

Midnight Express (1978)
October 7, 1970, is the date that forever transformed the life of American student — and would-be hashish smuggler — Billy Hayes. It was then, just as he boarding a flight from Istanbul to the U.S. with two bricks of the drug strapped to his chest, that Turkish authorities arrested Billy and set off the living nightmare he would write about in his memoir, Midnight Express.

Goodfellas (1990)
Goodfellas recounts the life-and-crimes of actual gangster Henry Hill throughout the years leading up to a local New York crew’s record-setting 1978 heist of Lufthansa Airlines — and its deadly aftermath.

Dead Man Walking (1995)
American crime drama starring Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn, co-produced and directed by Tim Robbins, who adapted the screenplay from the non-fiction book of the same name. Based on real-life murderers Elmo Patrick Sonnier and Robert Lee Willie – a prisoner on death row in Louisiana, acting as his spiritual adviser after carrying on correspondence with him.

Boys Don't Cry (1999)
Brandon Teena was an American trans man who was raped and murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska. His life and death were the subject of the Academy Award-winning 1999 film Boys Don't Cry, which was partially based on the 1998 documentary film The Brandon Teena Story.

Monster (2003)
Aileen Wuornos is America’s most famous female serial killer, a fact due, in no small part, to Charlize Theron’s Oscar-winning performance as the executed murderess in Monster.

MILK (2008)
In one of the craziest moments in U.S. politics, on November 27, 1978, former San Francisco Supervisor Dan White assassinated the city’s mayor, George Moscone, and the current supervisor, Harvey Milk. Afterward, White’s attorneys blamed the homicidal outburst on their client’s excess sugar intake, a gambit mockingly nicknamed “the Twinkie defense.” What a sad time in San Francisco history!


Which are your favorites? I'm sure I missed a few.