And the Award-Winning Movie Is...? Quiz

Answer: Sunset Boulevard

Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder and D.M. Marshman Jr collected the 1950 Screenwriting Oscar for the black comedy/film noir "Sunset Boulevard". The film tells the story of an unsuccessful screenwriter and a faded silent movie star dreaming of a successful return to the screen.

Widely acknowledged as a classic, it received nominations in all four acting categories although won in none. The film also featured appearances by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper and silent film legend Buster Keaton.

Answer: A Streetcar Named Desire

Elia Kazan directed "A Streetcar Named Desire" and Tennessee Williams wrote the screen adaptation from his own play, although neither won in their respective Oscar categories. The only acting category in which it failed to win was Best Actor, where Marlon Brando lost out to Humphrey Bogart ("The African Queen").

The film follows aristocrat Blanche Dubois when she is forced to move in with her sister and brother-in-law in a dilapidated New Orleans ghetto.

Having previously won for "Gone with the Wind", Vivien Leigh won her second Best Actress award for her performance as Blanche DuBois. Kim Hunter, who two decades later would star as Zira in the "Planet of the Apes" series, won her only Oscar playing Stella Kowalski. Karl Malden, later nominated for "On the Waterfront", also won the only Oscar in his long and distinguished career.

Answer: Moulin Rouge

Set in Paris in the late 19th century, "Moulin Rouge" following the life of artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and his involvement with the burlesque palace after which the film is named.

Co-writers John Huston and Anthony Veiller were nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written American Drama for "Moulin Rouge" but did not make the Oscar screenwriters' list. Not that Huston was short of Oscar nominations -- he received 15 in his illustrious career as actor, writer and director, winning twice (both writing and directing awards for the 1948 adventure movie "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre"). He became the oldest nominee for Best Director for "Prizzi's Honor", at the age of 79.

"Moulin Rouge" collected two Oscars (for Art Direction and Costume Design) from its seven nominations. That year's Best Picture award went to Cecil b. de Mille's "The Greatest Show on Earth".

Answer: Roman Holiday

Shot on location in the Italian capital, "Roman Holiday" follows a reporter as he tracks a princess's adventures around the city on her own. The film won three Oscars (Writing, Costume and Best Actress) from its nine nominations. It lost out to "From Here to Eternity" in the Best Picture category.

The 24-year old Brussels-born Audrey Hepburn not only won that year's Oscar for "Roman Holiday", but also the Golden Globe and BAFTA, making her the first actress ever to win all three awards for a single performance. She was subsequently nominated four more times for Best Actress (without winning again). She was also nominated for a BAFTA for each of those four other performances, winning twice. In 1993, she was posthumously honoured by the Academy with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

Answer: The Caine Mutiny

Based on the novel by the New York-born author Herman Wouk, who celebrated his 100th birthday in 2015, "The Caine Mutiny" tells the story of life aboard a destroyer/minesweeper during WWII along with the court-martial for mutiny.

Humphrey Bogart earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance as Lieutenant Commander Philip Francis Queeg, later voted as one of the 100 most memorable movie villains, but lost out to Marlon Brando ("On the Waterfront").

Answer: Mister Roberts

Set in the final days of WWII, "Mister Roberts" had begun as a 1946 novel before being adapted for a Broadway play starring Henry Fonda when it opened in 1948. The film centres on the crew of a United States Navy cargo ship in the latter days of WWII.

Three-time Oscar nominee William Powell retired at the age of 63 after making "Mister Roberts", although he would live almost another three decades. (He died aged 91 in 1984.) For Jack Lemmon, this was the first of his eight Oscar nominations. He would later win a second statuette, this time in the Best Actor category, for "Save the Tiger" (1973).

Answer: The Ten Commandments

"The Ten Commandments" was directed by Cecil B. de Mille, who in more than 40 years as a filmmaker had produced more than 70 films, silent and sound, as actor, director and producer. He won the Best Picture Oscar for "The Greatest Show on Earth", was awarded an honorary Oscar in 1950 and received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1953. Already in his mid-70s when "The Ten Commandments" was made, it was de Mille's last film: he died aged 77 in 1959.

Filmed on location in and around Egypt, "The Ten Commandments" tells the biblical story of the life of Moses, played by a relatively young (33 year old) Charlton Heston, who earned his first Golden Globe nomination for his performance. Heston would go on to win a Best Actor Oscar (for "Ben-Hur") three years later. Although nominated for Best Picture, "The Ten Commandments" (and the other two alternative options above) lost out to "Around the World in 80 Days".

Answer: Witness for the Prosecution

The 1957 film adaptation of Agatha Christie's "Witness for the Prosecution" follows the story of an Old Bailey murder trial. It was directed by Billy Wilder, who earned an Oscar nomination for this film (his sixth) and would, three years later, become the first person to win the producer, director and screenwriter Oscars for the same film (for "The Apartment").

The real-life married couple who were both nominated for their performances in "Witness for the Prosecution" are Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester. For Laughton, this was his third nomination for Best Actor: he had won 25 years earlier for "The Private Life of Henry VIII". For Lanchester, perhaps best known for playing the title role in the 1935 horror film "The Bride of Frankenstein", this was her second nomination for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. It was also the couple's last (of twelve) film together: Laughton died aged 63 in 1962 and Lanchester returned to the screen in roles such as Katie Nanna (the nanny replaced by the title character) in "Mary Poppins" (1964).

Answer: The Defiant Ones

"The Defiant Ones" follows two escaped prisoners whose fates are, quite literally, bound together (or, at any rate, shackled). The white man and the black man are forced to co-operate in order to survive.

The film earned eight Oscar nominations, but won only two (screenwriting and cinematography), losing out to that's year's Best Picture winner ("Gigi") in most of the other categories. In addition to Bet Actor nominations for both Curtis and Poitier, there were nominations in both Supporting categories, for Theodore Bikel and Cara Williams.

Director Stanley Kramer would earn later directing nominations for "Judgement at Nuremberg" and "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner". He also received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1962.

Answer: The Nun's Story

The Oscars for 1959 were dominated by "Ben-Hur", which was not only the most expensive film ever made at that time but also became the first film in Oscar history to win awards in 11 different categories. "The Nun's Story" is a tale based on real life experiences working with refugees in Europe following the end of the WWII.

It was nominated in eight categories but failed to collect a statuette, although Audrey Hepburn was beaten in the Best Actress category not by the "Ben-Hur" avalanche but by Simone Signoret (for "Room at the Top", another of the unsuccessful Best Picture nominees that year).

Hepburn was just one of 19 actors and actresses to receive Oscar nominations for their roles in films directed by Polish-born Fred Zinnemann. Zinnemann himself won four Oscars, two for directing, for "From Here to Eternity" and for "A Man for All Seasons". He earned the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director for "the Nun's Story".