The 49th Academy Awards were presented Monday, March 28, 1977, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, California. The ceremonies were presided over by Richard Pryor, Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda, and Warren Beatty. Network and All the President's Men were the two biggest winners of the ceremony, with four Oscars each, but Best Picture and Best Director, as well as Best Editing, were won by Rocky.
Network became the second film (after A Streetcar Named Desire) to win three acting Oscars, the last to do so until Everything Everywhere All at Once, and the last, as of the 94th Academy Awards, to receive five acting nominations. It was also the eleventh of fifteen films (to date) to receive nominations in all four acting categories. Best Actor winner Peter Finch became the first posthumous acting winner, having suffered a fatal heart attack in mid-January. With only five minutes and two seconds of screentime, Beatrice Straight set a record for the shortest performance ever to win an acting Oscar (Best Supporting Actress).
Piper Laurie was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for Carrie (1976), her first role since her Best Actress-nominated performance in The Hustler (1961), thus being nominated for two consecutive roles, fifteen years apart.
Lina Wertmüller became the first woman nominated for Best Director for Seven Beauties, which was also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. With her win for Best Original Song as the composer for the love theme "Evergreen" from A Star Is Born, Barbra Streisand became the first woman to be honored in the category, and, as of the 94th Academy Awards, the only person to have won Academy Awards for both acting, and songwriting (following her Best Actress win for Funny Girl at the 40th Academy Awards).
No honorary awards were given this year.
ABC held the rights to the Oscars from 1961 to 1970 and regained them for the 1976 event. For the second straight year, the ceremony was scheduled directly opposite the NCAA championship basketball game on NBC, won by Marquette in Al McGuire's final game as head coach.
Nominees were announced on February 10, 1977. Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface and indicated with a double dagger (‡).[1][2]
The following individuals, listed in order of appearance, presented awards or performed musical numbers: