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    The first Oscars lasted 15 minutes — plus other surprises from 95 years of awards

    A lot can happen in 95 years. Ahead of the Academy Awards on Sunday, we take a look back at the surprises, the scandals, the slap and — yes — even the streaker.
    by Mandalit del Barco Mar 09, 2023 5 minutes
    The first Oscar presentation and banquet was held in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood, Calif., in May 1929.

    You read that right – just 15 minutes. The first Academy Awards ceremony was held on May 1929, in the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. At the end of a private black-tie banquet, leading man Douglas Fairbanks announced the first ever winners of the golden statuettes.

    All the recipients that year were silent movies, except one: The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson. The top prize in 1929 went to Wings, an airplane film similar to one of this year's best picture nominees, Top Gun: Maverick.

    The following year, the Academy Award for Outstanding Production went to a war movie, (a remake of that film is also a contender this year). captured the head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer, solemnly congratulating the movie's producer Carl Laemmle, saying, "Sorry I didn't win it,

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