The first Academy Awards ceremony was held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel in 1929. Other venues have included Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard (1944–46), the Marquis Theater in 1948, and the Los Angeles County Music Center in 1969. Since 2002, the ceremonies have occurred at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, previously known as the Kodak Theatre. On March 19, 1953,  the Oscars were broadcast live for the first time, hosted by the legendary Bob Hope, who was a regular master of ceremonies for the event. This historic moment allowed audiences across the U.S. and Canada to see their favorite stars on TV, expanding the ceremony's influence beyond Hollywood.

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Over time, additional award categories were introduced, including "Sound Recording and Editing," which played a crucial role in the introduction of talking pictures, also known as "talkies." Today, winners are selected from 24 categories, which include "Best" Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Directing, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Editing, Original Score, Original Song, Costume Design, Makeup, Hairstyling, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects, Foreign-language Film, Animated Feature Film, Animated Short, Live-action Short, Documentary Feature, and Documentary Short, and Scientific and Technical achievements in the previous year, as well as "Honorary Awards."

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In the early days, winners were announced three months before the ceremony. However, this changed soon after due to leaks about the winners being published before they were officially announced. 

The Oscars have had some memorable moments over the years. Greer Garson's acceptance speech in 1943, when she won "Best Actress" for Mrs. Miniver, was over six minutes long, making it the longest in Oscar history, while Patty Duke and Charlie Chaplin delivered the shortest. 

Once in a lifetime, the telecast ran short, forcing host Jerry Lewis to improvise for twenty minutes in 1958.

By 1972, Charlie Chaplin had already won two Oscars. Still, after twenty years in exile, his honorary award was marked by the most extended ovation in Oscar history, lasting almost twelve minutes. 

Marlon Brando's 1973 win for "Best Actor" in The Godfather turned into a protest against Hollywood’s treatment of Native Americans.

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The first time a naked man stole the show was when the ceremony was interrupted by Robert Opel, who streaked across the stage in 1974, a moment relived at the 2024 ceremony by actor John Cena. In the original stunt, host David Niven rose to the occasion with the impromptu comment, "The only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings."

1977 brought together Sylvester Stallone, also known as Rocky Balboa, who was presenting an award, and boxer Muhammad Ali. The two engaged in a playful argument and mock tussle, which Ali eventually won, to the audience's delight.

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In 1981, when Katharine Hepburn received an Academy Award for her role with Henry Fonda in On Golden Pond, she became the first woman to win four Oscars for "Best Actress,"  a record that remains to this day.

In 1985, Laurence Olivier received a standing ovation when he stepped on stage to present the "Best Picture" Award. He became so overwhelmed by the applause that he forgot the protocol of reading the nominees' names, went straight to opening the envelope, and announced the winner, Amadeus. 

Billy Crystal's opening gag in 1992, when he was wheeled onto the stage dressed as Hannibal Lecter from Silence Of The Lambs, was an instant crowd-pleaser. The film became one of only three to win all five major awards (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay), the other two being It Happened One Night and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

An emotional moment in Oscar's history took place when actor Christopher Reeve, who played Superman, made his first appearance at the 1996 Awards after his paralyzing horse-riding accident.

In 1999, Italian actor Roberto Benigni won "Best Actor" for Life Is Beautiful and leaped over chairs to accept the award. 

Halle Berry's "Best Actress" award for Monster's Ball in 2002 made her the first Black woman to win the prize, and she defined the moment as "so much bigger than me."  Two other Black actors had won the Oscars before 2002, Sidney Poitier for "Best Actor" for Lilies Of The Field, and Hattie McDaniel, the first Black actress to be nominated and win the award for her leading role in Gone with the Wind.  On that same night, Denzel Washington followed in Poitier's footsteps. Berry was in the center stage again in 2003 when she was surprised by "Best Actor" winner Adrien Brody's kiss after presenting him with the award. 

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The 2014 a selfie became a viral sensation, briefly breaking Twitter's retweet record. Ellen Degeneres and Twitter had rehearsed the moment when the host would take a selfie with Meryl Streep, however other celebrities joined in. 

In 2017, the year of the "Envelopegate," Gary Coe and his fiancée were part of a group strolling on Hollywood Boulevard, where they were invited to the Oscars by host Jimmy Kimmel. They immediately became a meme, with the hashtag #GaryFromChicago gaining 15 minutes of fame. After the media unraveled his past, however, Coe was exposed as a two-day released felon who had been sentenced to life in prison for stealing perfume from a department store in 1997, his third strike, which under California's law carries a mandated sentence of 25 years to life. One of Coe’s prior convictions was for attempted rape, committed when he was 18, in 1975. 

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In 2022, Michelle Yeoh was the first Asian woman nominated for "Best Actress" in over 85 years for her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once. She followed biracial actress Merle Oberon, who was nominated for the 1935 drama The Dark Angel.

The Oscars remain a significant event in the film industry, attracting millions of viewers worldwide. However, the show has not been free of controversies. 

A few marked the 2000s Red Carpet. Angelina Jolie's kiss with her brother was perceived by many as inappropriate. Additionally, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, were high on LSD and donned replicas of J.Lo's iconic Grammys and Gwyneth Paltrow's Oscars dresses.

When Billy Crystal hosted the Oscars in 2012, his opening included a pre-filmed skit parodying the "Best Picture" nominees, where he had played Sammy Davis Jr. in blackface, which he had done several times on Saturday Night Live in the '80s. Still, that year, he received criticism on social media.

In 2013, Seth MacFarlane's opening number "I Saw Your Boobs," outraged viewers who noted on social media that many of the women named in the song, from Jodie Foster in The Accused and Halle Berry in Monster's Ball to Angelina Jolie in Gia and Charlize Theron in Monster were in movies related to rape.

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The lack of diversity among nominees for significant acting categories at the Oscars became more evident in 2015 and 2016. The realization sparked the social media campaign #OscarsSoWhite, which led many actors and filmmakers to boycott or criticize the Academy. ​Spike Lee, interviewed shortly after the all-white nominee list was published, pointed to Hollywood leadership as the root problem, saying 'We (Black actors) are not in the room.'

The Academy has made apparent efforts to diversify its pool of voters in response to the #OscarsSoWhite controversy. Since then, membership has become younger and more diverse, with an increase in the number of people of color and women. However, in 2018, the Oscars' telecast viewership plummeted 19% from the previous year, making it the least-viewed Oscars broadcast in history. This was due to the shift towards subscription streaming services and the impact of the #MeToo and #Time’sUp movements, which led to the publication of allegations against disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein, including three accusations of rape, and his subsequent sentencing to 20 years in prison. In a statement, the Academy said governors voted to expel Weinstein, "not simply to separate ourselves from someone who does not merit the respect of his colleagues, but also to send a message that the era of willful ignorance and shameful complicity in sexually predatory behavior and workplace harassment in our industry is over." Bill Cosby, Roman Polanski in 2018, and Adam Kimmel in 2021 also got banned from the Academy when found guilty of sexual crimes and sentenced to prison. In addition to the movements, the conversation that started in 2016 has expanded to include salary inequality. When accepting her Oscar, actress Frances McDormand ended her speech with a practical suggestion that could lead to real money for people of color, women of all races, and other underrepresented groups in Hollywood: "I have two words to leave with you tonight: inclusion rider."

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In 2021, the Oscars attracted only about 10 million viewers, less than half of the 23.6 million from the previous year and only a quarter of the 40 million from the 2010s. Five days after his onstage slap of comedian Chris Rock, actor Will Smith, one of the 94th Academy Awards presenters, announced his resignation from the Academy on April 1, 2022.  

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For the first time since 1961, the 2023 event rolled out a champagne-colored carpet instead of the traditional red, which returned to its world-recognized color in 2024. Additionally, the Board of Governors made a few changes to some categories, including "Documentary," "Music (Original Song)," and "Sound."