Academy Award Winners First 50 Years

The first installment in this engrossing series on the history of the first half-century in cinematic arts, beginning back in 1928. It chronicles the transition of the awards from a discreet dinner party to a fully broadcast spectacle.

The Golden Age of Hollywood was a pivotal period for a film industry expanding and taking a significant cultural role. The lavish award ceremonies that are now a staple of Hollywood began to emerge.

1939 was a pivotal year for Hollywood as an industry. As the trajectory of cinema and its grasp expanded and segued from phase to phase, it served as a visible barrier year.

World War II served as a turning point for virtually all American industries throughout the long and grueling conflict. The American film industry was forced to respond to the international war's costs on every element of its livelihood.

The postwar years affected Hollywood as much as it did any other American industry during those pivotal transition years as America worked to return to its former normalcy.

A new wave of ideas and techniques took hold of the perpetually transforming film industry in the years following the war, with a new generation of fresh and hungry stars finding their own places in the vacuum of reconstruction the industry faced.