The upcoming 97th Academy Awards will honor the best achievements in film from 2024 through nominations in 23 categories, but some of those have not always been present at the ceremony. The 2025 Oscars is likely to have tough competition in all of its categories, especially considering that Golden Globe wins switched up some former predictions. The competition for Best Picture appears to be especially stiff and has been made even more tense by the revelation of The Brutalist‘s use of AI, which may ultimately prompt the Academy to change its rules in a similar way to changing its categories.
With the announcement of the 2025 Oscars nominees fast approaching, predictions of likely Oscars winners may be challenged. Additionally, given all the attention surrounding the Oscars hopefuls, past ceremonies, and their respective awards have also gained attention. While some categories, like Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Picture have remained largely unchanged throughout the ceremony’s history, some forgotten Oscars categories are interesting. It is pretty clear why some were dropped, but others actually make sense to be brought back considering their connection to 2024’s best films.
You are watching: All 13 Oscars Categories That The Academy Retired (& Which Ones Should Be Brought Back)
13
Academy Juvenile Award
This Award Was Included From 1934 To 1960
Close
The Academy Juvenile Award is one of the more well-known retired categories because it has some well-known winners. The first person to receive the award was Shirley Temple at the 7th Oscars in 1935 at the age of six. Decades later, she is still the youngest person to be honored by an Oscar award. Other notable child actors, such as Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland also received Juvenile Oscars. The 33rd Academy Awards in 1961 was the last ceremony to include the honorary award, with the miniature statue going to Hayley Mills for her performance in the 1960 film Pollyanna.
The Juvenile Award was phased out because it was never a full category to begin with and children could be nominated in other categories as well.
Despite being a category for 26 years, only 12 children received Juvenile Oscars because they were not given out every year. This is likely because it was honorary rather than a true competitive category. The Juvenile Award was phased out because it was never a full category to begin with and children could be nominated in other categories as well. While it is true that a few minors have won Oscars, the Juvenile Oscar is one award that it could actually make sense to bring back, with some alterations to make it a real award rather than an honorary one.
12
Best Assistant Director
The Award Was Included In The Ceremony From 1933 To 1937
Custom image by Debanjana Chowdhury
The Academy Awards’ Best Assistant Director category only existed for five years, and in its first year, it did not correspond to one particular film. Instead, the 1933 Best Assistant Director winners included one individual from each of the major production houses, meaning that there were seven winners. In the remaining four years, there were fewer nominees and each was connected to a specific film that had been released that year, making it slightly easier to keep track of.
Related
Women Win An Oscar A Record High 65% Of The Time In This Non-Gender Based Category
While women have historically been snubbed in many different Oscars categories, there is one category that women have absolutely dominated in.
Posts
While the directors and actors get the majority of attention going into the awards season, there are a lot of other crucial industry employees that the Oscars do not give much attention to, including assistant directors. It is unclear exactly why this category was removed in the first place — perhaps to keep the majority of attention focused on the director. However, Best Assistant Director is an award that definitely should make a comeback in the future as it helps give hardworking professionals the attention that they deserve.
11
Best Dance Direction
The Best Dance Direction Category Made Appearances in 1935, 1936, and 1937
Best Dance Direction is a very fun category that the Academy sadly chose to get rid of after only three years. The award focused on one particular song that was choreographed and filmed by a dedicated dance director. The three winners of Best Dance Director were Dave Gould, Seymour Felix, and Hermes Pan, who each had successful careers as choreographers.
Although it could be cool to see a Best Choreography category at the Oscars, it is true that dancing is just not as big of a part of most major films today as it was in the 1930s.
While the category is pretty interesting, it would not make as much sense to include it today, and even at the time, it received pushback. Best Dance Director was retired largely because members of the Directors Guild of America felt that it took attention away from the importance of directing the other scenes of the film. Although it could be cool to see a Best Choreography category at the Oscars, it is true that dancing is just not as big of a part of most major films today as it was in the 1930s.
10
Best Title Writing
Best Title Writing Was Retired After The First Oscars
Custom Image by Debanjana Chowdhury
Best Title Writing is one category that it would make absolutely no sense to bring back today, and it was only ever a part of the very first Academy Awards in 1929, which rewarded films from 1927 and 1928. The award was presented to Joseph Farmham, who also helped found the Academy, though he did not win for any specific film.
The end of the 1920s marked the beginning of talking pictures, so silent films, which would have needed title cards to explain what was going on, were falling quickly out of popularity.
The primary reason why Best Title Writing was retired after only one ceremony, and the reason that it would be unnecessary today, is that there was quite simply less need for title cards. The end of the 1920s marked the beginning of talking pictures, so silent films, which would have needed title cards to explain what was going on, were falling quickly out of popularity. Though the award ended up not being super practical due to changing technology, it is still a cool part of Oscars history.
9
Best Engineering Effects
Roy Pomeroy Won The Award In 1929
Close
Best Engineering Effects is another category that only appeared at the first Oscars in 1929, though this one could have stuck around as a different version of the award ultimately came back. The 1929 award went to Roy Pomeroy for his creation of the effects in the 1927 movie Wings. While Best Engineering Effects was scrapped after the first ceremony, 10 years later a similar category appeared.
Related
It’s Over For Denis Villeneuve’s Best Director Oscar Hopes For Dune 2
See more : 5 Actors Who Would Have Been A Better Fit For Alien: Romulus’ Rook
Dune 2 was expected to put Denis Villeneuve in contention for a Best Director Oscar win, but the latest developments in awards season end those hopes.
Posts
2
At the 11th Academy Awards, an honorary award for Outstanding Photographic and Sound Effects was given to the production of Spawn of the North, and the next year Best Special Effects became a full category. It is unclear why the Academy got rid of the category for 10 years, but the altered version, which went on to become Best Visual Effects, still exists today. Some of 2024’s best films, including Dune: Part Two, Gladiator II, Mufasa: The Lion King, and more are frontrunners for the 2025 race.
8
Best Original Musical Or Comedy Score
This Genre-Divided Score Award Ran From 1995-1998
Close
For the 1996 Oscars, which celebrated the best films of 1995, the Academy divided the Best Original Score category into two; Musical or Comedy and Drama. This split allowed several great films from both sides of the divide a better chance at winning an award for their scores. For example, while Emma won the Best Musical or Comedy Score Oscar in 1996, The English Patient won for Best Drama Score.
The four Best Original Musical or Comedy Score winners were Pocahontas, Emma, Shakespeare in Love, and The Full Monty.
While the two categories were ultimately combined again, the four years when multiple scores were recognized by the Oscars helped award several of the best 1990s movies with Oscars that they may have missed out on otherwise. Best Musical or Comedy score as its own category is an interesting idea, but it is also a bit redundant, as the Academy decided in 2000. Because of the overall Best Score category, there’s not really any reason to bring this one back.
7
Best Unique And Artistic Picture
This Award Was Only Given Out At The First Oscars
Custom image by Debanjana Chowdhury
Best Unique and Artistic Picture only appeared at the first Oscars ceremony in 1929, and the winner was Sunrise, directed by F. W. Murnau. The award was meant to highlight the high artistic quality of the film and its general cultural significance. Since Sunrise is still considered to be one of the best films ever made, it certainly lives up to its award. However, it also makes sense that the Best Unique and Artistic Picture Award was retired following that year given the existence of a very similar category.
Related
10 Greatest Best Picture Oscar Nominees That Didn’t Win
Though the Oscars can be a good indicator of the best movies of the year, plenty of fantastic films shouldn’t have lost for Best Picture.
Posts
9
It is somewhat confusing that the Academy would have included Best Unique and Artistic Picture in the first place because of the category’s similarity to the Outstanding Picture category. While there was a level of distinction that made sense at the time, for the 2nd Academy Awards, they opted to forgo the Best Unique and Artistic Picture award and only do Outstanding Picture, which is now referred to as the Best Picture Award.
6
Best Short Subject – Novelty
The Novelty Short Films Category Existed From 1932 To 1935
The 1932 Academy Awards were the first Oscars to include categories focused on short films. This addition was a major step forward in the representation of different types of filmmaking since the Oscars included both Best Short Subject Cartoon and two live-action categories. While short films have continued being awarded at the Oscars since 1932 under various names, the Best Short Subject — Novelty category only existed for four years.
The Novelty category served as a combination of all the short film genres aside from cartoon and comedy. This meant that an adventure film could win one year and a documentary could win Best Short Subject the next.
While the Best Short Subject category made sense in general, the decision to define it with the term novelty makes slightly less sense. The Novelty category served as a combination of all the short film genres aside from cartoon and comedy. This meant that an adventure film could win one year and a documentary could win Best Short Subject the next. While it seems strange now that a narrative film and a documentary would compete in the same category, this practice actually continued even after Best Short Subject — Novelty was retired.
5
Best Short Subject – Comedy
Best Short Comedy Existed At The Same Time As Its Novelty Counterpart
Custom Image by Debanjana Chowdhury
Along with Best Short Subject — Novelty, the Academy Awards also introduced Best Short Subject — Comedy during the same year. The categories both ran from 1932 to 1935, which is understandable considering they ultimately combined the two into one category that was no longer defined by genre. The combined category is much more similar to the modern Oscars category for Best Short Film, so there would not really be any need for this one to make a comeback.
The two categories, Best Short Subject – Comedy and Best Short Subject – Novelty, were removed in favor of categories that divided the films by one reel or two.
For each year, only three films were nominated, meaning that only 12 comedy shorts were included in the history of the category. The two categories, Best Short Subject — Comedy and Best Short Subject — Novelty, were removed in favor of categories that divided the films by one reel or two. Since comedy continues to be an underrated genre at the Oscars today, it is interesting to note that several forgotten Oscars categories actually separated out comedy films to bring more attention to them.
4
Best Short Subject – Live Action 2 Reels
The Oscars Distinguished Between 1 And 2 Reel Short Films For 20 Years
Following the retirement of the Comedy and Novelty categories, the Academy Awards instead opted for a distinction between one-reel and two-reel short films, starting in 1936. This means that the award was separated by the runtime of the film so that films of very different lengths would not compete against each other.
See more : Fuufu Ijou Koibito Miman Chapter 64 Spoilers, Release Date, and More
A singular 1,000-foot reel of film can run for around 11 minutes, meaning that a two-reel film could run for over 20 minutes.
The differentiation between one-reel and two-reel short films at the Academy Awards lasted for 20 years, with the separation finally being retired in 1957. Perhaps because films were becoming longer and filmmaking technology was advancing in general, the category was no longer necessary. Today any film under 40 minutes can be considered in the Best Short Film categories.
3
Best Short Subject – Color
This Short Film Category Separated Color Movies From Black And White Movies For Just 2 Years
Close
Out of all the categories that still exist at the Oscars today, those representing Short Films have undergone the most changes through the years. One of those changes is the existence of a separate award for color films for just two years: 1936 and 1937. While the Best Short Subject — Cartoon category had included films with color for several years, live-action films with color were still very new, so the category reflected their updated use of technology.
By 1938, color short films had become more common, so there was no reason to separate them into their own group anymore.
However, because color films gained popularity so quickly and eventually overpowered black and white films, this category was very short-lived. By 1938, color short films had become more common, so there was no reason to separate them into their own group anymore. From that point, only the one-reel and two-reel categories remained for Best Short Subject.
2
Best Director – Comedy
The Separate Comedy Director Category Did Not Last Long
Custom Image by Yailin Chacon
During the very first Oscars Awards Ceremony, Best Director — Comedy was its own category. Director Lewis Milestone took home the unique award for his film Two Arabian Knights. There were only two other nominees: Charlie Chaplin and Ted Wilde. While the category is definitely an interesting reflection on what the Academy thought was important during that year, by 1930, Best Director — Comedy had been scrapped.
Related
What The Golden Globes 2025 Winners Mean For The Oscars
The 2025 Golden Globes winners have all been revealed, and each winner – and loser – impacts the state of the 2025 Oscars race in various categories.
Posts
The Best Director — Comedy award was unnecessary given that the larger Best Director category could certainly also include the comedy genre. Though historically, the Oscars tend to lean more toward drama than comedy for Best Picture, there is no real chance, or need, for this category to make a comeback when other genres do not have their own Best Picture awards. Interestingly, however, the division of different genres is still present for other awards ceremonies, such as the Golden Globes, meaning there is some precedence for that.
1
Best Scoring Of Music – Adaptation or Treatment
The Category Allowed Adapted Musicals To Take Home A Scoring Win
Close
From 1962 to 1967, the Oscars included a separate category that distinguished between an original score and an adapted score in the same way that screenplay is divided into two distinct categories today. Not all the films were adapted from musicals, though many of the nominees were. Thus, the category referred to any movie that would have had music previously accompanying the story, such as a play with an existing score. Both My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music were winners in the category.
Related
Ariana Grande Will Break A 51 Year Old Oscars Record If She Wins Best Supporting Actress
If Ariana Grande wins the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance as Glinda in Wicked, she will break a half-century-old record.
Posts
16
Best Scoring of Music — Adaptation or Treatment is one retired Oscars category that could actually make sense to incorporate today. The restoration could allow adapted musical scores to get more attention, especially given the success of Wicked. While not all musical adaptations have been quite so successful, having a Best Adapted Score category would allow more films to gain nominations and highlight the work of those composers. While not every forgotten category needs to make a comeback at the Academy Awards, some still have the potential to be interesting in the future.
Oscars
The Oscars, also known as The Academy Awards, is an annual awards show celebrating workers in the film industry for their artistic and technical abilities. The Oscars are often considered the most prestigious awards show in the industry and date back to 1929. The 96th Academy Awards will be held on March 10, 2024, and be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel on ABC.
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Network
ABC
Source: https://dinhtienhoang.edu.vn
Category: Entertainment