54th Academy Awards

The 54th Academy Awards were presented March 29, 1982, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles. The ceremonies were presided over by Johnny Carson.

54th Academy Awards
Date	March 29, 1982
Site	Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Hosted by	Johnny Carson
Produced by	Howard W. Koch Melvin Frank
Directed by	Marty Pasetta
Highlights
Best Picture	Chariots of Fire
Most awards	Raiders of the Lost Ark (5, one uncompetitive)
Most nominations	Reds (12)
TV in the United States
Network	ABC
Duration	3 hours, 44 minutes

Chariots of Fire was the surprise winner (with a leading 12 nominations, Reds had been expected to win) of the Best Picture Oscar. It was the first time in 13 years that a British film won the Academy's top honor. The next year's winner, Gandhi, was also a British production.

Henry Fonda won his only competitive Oscar this year, as Best Actor for On Golden Pond. At 76 years of age, Fonda became the oldest winner in the Best Actor category in Academy history. The only other nomination he received in his career was Best Actor for his performance in The Grapes of Wrath 41 years earlier – a record gap between acting nominations. His co-star, Katharine Hepburn, won her fourth Best Actress award, extending her own record for the most Best Actress wins by any actress.

This year's nominations also marked the second time (after 1967) that three different films were nominated for the "Big Five" Academy Awards: Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay. The three films were On Golden Pond, Atlantic City and Reds. However, none of them won the Best Picture prize, losing to Chariots of Fire. This also marked the first year that the award for Best Makeup was presented; the winner was Rick Baker for his work on An American Werewolf in London.

This was the last year until the 2005 Oscars where all five Best Picture nominations were also nominated for Best Director. Reds was the last film to gain nominations in all four acting categories until Silver Linings Playbook matched that feat at the 85th Academy Awards ceremony in 2013. Facilitated in part by their advanced ages at the time (77, 76, 74 and a "young" 56), this is also the most recent ceremony (as of the 2017 presentation of the 89th Academy Awards) for which the four acting award winners are all now deceased – though two of the four did live into their late 90s.

Chariots of Fire became the last film to win Best Picture and not win for directing until Driving Miss Daisy in 1990.

Similar to 1976 and 1977, these Oscars were scheduled directly opposite the NCAA basketball championship game, which this year was broadcast on CBS. Beginning in 1983, the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Game would take place on the Monday following the Academy Awards.