Photoplay Award / Best Film

Photoplay Award : Best Film

Winner in the Best Film category . From 1921 to 1969 the "Photoplay Medal" ("Photoplay Medal of Honor", also called "Photoplay Gold Medal") honored the best film of the year. The winners were voted on by the readers of the film magazine Photoplay until 1940 and from 1954; from 1945 to 1953 the winners were determined by an opinion poll by Audience Research Inc.

The years given below indicate the film years evaluated. The awards took place in the following year.

Prize winner 1920–1968

year	Award winners	German distribution title	Director
1920	Humoresque	not known	Frank Borzage
1921	Tol'able David	The attack on the Apostle of Virginia	Henry King
1922	Robin Hood	Robin Hood	Allan Dwan
1923	The Covered Wagon	The covered wagon	James Cruze
1924	The Dramatic Life of Abraham Lincoln	not known	Phil Rosen
1925	The Big Parade	The big parade	King Vidor
1926	Beau gesture	Blood brotherhood	Herbert Brenon
1927	Seventh Heaven	The happiness in the attic	Frank Borzage
1928	Four Sons	not known	John Ford
1929	Disraeli	not known	Alfred E. Green
1930	All Quiet on the Western Front	nothing new in the West	Lewis Milestone
1931	Cimarron	Wild West pioneers	Wesley Ruggles
1932	Smilin 'through	Love affliction	Sidney Franklin
1933	Little Women	Four sisters	George Cukor
1934	The Barretts of Wimpole Street	not known	Sidney Franklin
1935	Naughty Marietta	Great Marietta	Robert Z. Leonard W.S. Van Dyke
1936	San Francisco	San Francisco	WS Van Dyke
1937	Captains Courageous	Manuel	Victor Fleming
1938	Sweethearts	not known	WS Van Dyke
1939	Gone with the Wind	Blown by the wind	Victor Fleming
1940-1943	Prize not awarded
1944	Going my way	The way to luck	Leo McCarey
1945	The Valley of Decision	The decision	Tay Garnett
1946	The Bells of St. Mary's	The bells of St. Mary	Leo McCarey
1947	The Jolson Story	The jazz singer	Alfred E. Green
1948	Sitting Pretty	Belvedere is cleaning up	Walter Lang
1949	The Stratton Story	not known	Sam Wood
1950	Battleground	Cauldron battle	William A. Wellman
1951	Show boat	Mississippi tune	George Sidney
1952	With a song in my heart	With a song in my heart	Walter Lang
1953	From Here to Eternity	Damn to all eternity	Fred Zinnemann
1954	Magnificent obsession	The wonderful power	Douglas Sirk
1955	Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing	All glory on earth	Henry King
1956	Giant	Giants	George Stevens
1957	An affair to remember	The great love of my life	Leo McCarey
1958	Gigi	Gigi	Vincente Minnelli
1959	Pillow talk	Bed whispers	Michael Gordon
1960	Prize not awarded
1961	Splendor in the Grass	Fever in the blood	Elia Kazan
1962	The Miracle Worker	Light in the dark	Arthur Penn
1963	How the West Was Won	That was the wild west	John Ford Henry Hathaway George Marshall Richard Thorpe
1964	The Unsinkable Molly Brown	Gold digger Molly	Charles Walters
1965	The Sound of Music	My songs, my dreams	Robert Wise
1966	The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming	The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!	Norman Jewison
1967	The Dirty Dozen	The dirty dozen	Robert Aldrich
1968	Rosemary's baby	Rosemary's baby	Roman Polanski