Review: Academy Award Winning Movies 1928-2020 by Diane Holloway Cheney

Author Diane Holloway Cheney celebrates her clear passion for cinematic history and keen skill as a researcher in Academy Award Winning Movies 1928-2020: How Movies Have Changed Through the Years. With a confident and knowledgeable pen, Cheney hosts a historic rundown of the legendary Academy Awards ceremonies, overflowing with backstage insights that will pull in any lover of the silver screen.

Ideal for movie lovers who like to have a bit more background info or even Hollywood gossip to inform the cinematic experience, this book connects the dots in movie history, without getting bogged down in too many of the name-dropping and technical details. An event that seems to now take 5+ hours to unroll in real life, is neatly summarized in a handful of pages. Each chapter gives the highlights, top winners, and notable moments from each Academy Awards over the past century or so, as well as some cultural and historical context for the more controversial, seminal, or unexpected wins.

Some of the more interesting Awards shows offer even more in-depth explorations to how the world at large affects the movies we love, and vice-versa, such as the 1943 Oscars, when “Mrs. Miniver,” a character-driven drama of a British family enmeshed in World War II, won Best Picture. Some consider it to be the most patriotic movie of all time, and it had a significant impact on American sentiment towards the conflict in Europe and their English Allies. Other chapters, however, are more noticeably brief, giving the author breathing room to expound on the more memorable awards shows. The book covers monumental years in history, as well as those vaguely forgettable ones, yet each chapter reveals remarkably interesting details.

Whether you love an old classic like “Casablanca,” are a sucker for “West Side Story,” or like a bit of neurotic romance like “Annie Hall,” Cheney has likely dug out some rare little gem of backstory, gossip, or insight. The thematic focus and approach of the author shifts with every year and era – some Best Pictures set new bars in a given genre, while others simplify exemplify an actor at the height of their career. Reading through 92 years of cinematic reflections and history probably shouldn’t be done in one sitting, but there is still enough variety in the succinct prose to keep the pattern fresh. As a piece of narrative history, there are clear arcs that can be identified throughout the decades, landmark moments and long-term trajectories, epic wins, and shocking losses, which genuinely makes for a fascinating read.

On a technical level, the details on each ceremony set the stage neatly for each chapter, and the tidy editing is obvious from the start. There are very few proofreading errors, though a few of the movie descriptions fall a bit flat, as though the author simply hadn’t been a huge fan and didn’t have much to say. These minor moments are rare, however, and as a whole, this is an entertaining and insightful collection of history, culture, celebrity, and cinema.

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