Random movie trivia of the day.

The American ratings system was created in 1968. Since then, 40 films have won the Oscar for Best Picture. And of those 40 films, precisely half have had some sort of restrictive rating, while the other half have had a purely advisory rating.

The first film of this era to win Best Picture — Oliver! — is also the only G-rated film to have ever won that prize.

The second film to win Best Picture — Midnight Cowboy — is also the only X-rated film to have ever won that prize. (It has since been re-rated R.)

Since then, there have been 11 winners that were rated PG — the last of which came out 20 years ago:

Patton, The Sting, Rocky, Annie Hall, Kramer Vs Kramer, Chariots of Fire, Gandhi, Terms of Endearment, Amadeus, Out of Africa, Driving Miss Daisy

And there have been 8 winners that were rated PG-13 — a rating that didn’t even exist until 25 years ago:

The Last Emperor, Dances with Wolves, Forrest Gump, Titanic, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Million Dollar Baby

And there have been 19 winners that were rated R:

The French Connection, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Deer Hunter, Ordinary People, Platoon, Rain Man, Silence of the Lambs, Unforgiven, Schindler’s List, Braveheart, The English Patient, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, Gladiator, Crash, The Departed, No Country for Old Men

So if you group the R and X films together on the one hand, and the G and PG and PG-13 films together on the other hand, the Best Picture winners have been evenly divided over the last 40 years, with 20 winners coming from one camp and 20 coming from the other camp.

Looking closer, we can also see that the ’60s, ’70s and ’00s (so far) were all evenly balanced between the two camps. However, in the ’80s, there were seven PG or PG-13 winners and only three R-rated winners, while in the ’90s the figures were reversed, with seven R-rated winners and only three PG-13 winners.

Some of the Best Picture winners that came out before 1968 have since received ratings of one sort or another as well (e.g., Casablanca came out in 1942 but was rated PG in 1992), but many have not. In any case, prior to the 1960s, movies simply weren’t allowed to do a lot of the things that would earn an R rating, so to count that earlier era would seriously skew the stats.