Rybczyński has won numerous prestigious awards at international film festivals including Oberhausen (1981), Tampere (1982), Kraków (1981), and the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival (1993). He won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1983 for his film "Tango" was the first-ever Oscar awarded to a Polish artist. (The awards ceremony was notable for Rybczyński, as after he left the ceremony to step outside for a smoke, he was barred entry by a security guard even though he was holding an Oscar statuette. A scuffle ensued, and Rybczyński was arrested. His summation of the event was that "success and failure are quite intertwined.")