Cimarron (1931 film) being "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?") to receive nominations in every eligible category. It won for three of them, including Best Picture. It would win the first of only two Best Picture Oscars for the studio, the other being awarded to 1946's "The Best Years of Our Lives". It was the first Western to win the Best Picture award, and it would not be until 1990 when "Dances with Wolves" won, that another Western would garner that honor. Cimarron (1931 film) Cimarron is a 1931 Pre-Code Western film directed by Wesley Ruggles, starring Richard Dix and Irene Dunne, and featuring
Academy Award for Best Picture by nominee. Until 1950, the Best Picture award was given to the production company; from 1951 on, it has gone to the producer or producers. The Academy used the producer credits of the Producers Guild of America (PGA) until 1998, when all five producers of "Shakespeare in Love" made speeches after its win. A three-producer limit has been applied some years since. There was controversy over the exclusion of some PGA-credited producers of "Crash" and "Little Miss Sunshine". The Academy can make exceptions to the limit, as when Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack were posthumously among the four nominated for