Why are Oscar statuettes are only worth $1?

The 2026 Academy Awards are set to take place on Sunday (March 15).

Many of Hollywood’s top talent will be competing in the 98th Academy Awards for the statuette, nicknamed Oscar or the ‘little gold man’. Those who win the award, considered one of the highest honours in Hollywood, will go down in history.

But have you ever wondered how much those Oscar statuettes cost? The answer might surprise you.

Let’s take a closer look.

The history of the Oscars

First let’s look at the history of the Oscars. The award is officially known as the Academy Award of Merit. The statuette got its nickname, the Oscar, in 1939. But more on that later.

The Academy was founded in May 1927 by dozens of Hollywood luminaries. The founders of the organisation included big names such as movie mogul Louis B Mayer and leading man Douglas Fairbanks. The idea behind organising this event was to recognise excellence in cinematic achievement.

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However, according to Mayer, the goal was far less lofty. According to Open Magazine, Mayer came up with the award in order to stop Hollywood actors from unionising. “I found that the best way to handle [show folk] was to hang medals all over them… if I got them cups and awards, they’d kill themselves to produce what I wanted,” Mayer supposedly said.

The first Academy Awards

The first Academy Awards were held on May 16, 1929, at the Blossom Room of the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Wings, a silent war epic made in 1927, was bestowed the first-ever Academy Award for Best Picture. It also took home the Best Effects prize.

Emil Jannings became the first actor to ever win an Oscar for performances in The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh. Meanwhile Janet Gaynor became the first woman to win in the Best Actress category for three films: 7th Heaven, Street Angel and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans.

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Interestingly, there were two separate Best Director awards handed out – Frank Borzage as Best Director (Drama) for 7th Heaven and Lewis Milestone as Best Director (Comedy) for Two Arabian Knights.

Unlike today, there was little surprise or suspense. This is because all the winners were announced three months earlier. Also, the ceremony, which comprised a banquet with around 270 guests, lasted just 15 minutes.  Since 1929, the Oscars have been held every year.

The gold-plated bronze statuette stands 13.5 inches tall and weighs around 3.85 kg, according to the Academy. It is designed to resemble a knight holding a crusader’s sword standing on a reel of film. The reason the award got its moniker, the ‘Oscar’, remains unknown. However, one story chalks it up to the Academy librarian Margaret Herrick, who claimed the statuette looked like her Uncle Oscar.

The first such reference in the media to the nickname occurred in 1934. At the time, Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky, writing about the 6th Academy Awards, noted that Katharine Hepburn won an ‘Oscar’ in the Best Actress category for her performance in Morning Glory.

How much are Oscar statuettes worth?

According to CBS News, an Oscar statuette costs around $400 (about Rs 36,960) to make. However, the statuette itself isn’t worth much. This is by design. According to the rules of the Academy, winners of the Oscar cannot “sell or otherwise dispose of the Oscar statuette … without first offering to sell it to the Academy for the sum of $1 (about Rs 92.40).”

This also applies to the heirs of the persons who win the Oscar. The rules were introduced by the Academy in 1951 in order to “preserve the integrity of the Oscar symbol.”

However, winning the Oscar itself is no small thing. Other than the obvious prestige of winning the coveted prize, winners of a certain year – be they directors, actors, writers or cinematographers – can usually raise their already considerable fees in what is known as an ‘Oscar bump’. This can be as high as 20 or 30 per cent of their salaries.

However, those who do not win the Oscar need not fret. After all, some of the greatest movies in history including Citizen Kane, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Taxi Driver have lost out in the Best Picture category. On the other hand, you have a movie like Green Book which won in 2019 – which most people now consider a misjudgment by the Academy voters.

Similarly, the consensus is that the great directors like Martin Scorsese are never rewarded by the Academy at a time when they are making their best work. They are usually awarded for some of their ‘lesser’ movies years later, when the Academy decides it is time to ‘make up’ for overlooking them. Thus Scorsese won the Best Director Oscar for The Departed rather than any of his towering cinematic masterpieces such as Goodfellas and Raging Bull. Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, two of the greatest auteurs in the history of Hollywood, never won Best Director either.

How voting for Oscar works

The categories are voted on by members of the Academy. While this includes actors, directors and writers, it also comprises other groups such as producers, cinematographers, editors, those who work on music, in sound design, visual effects, and now in casting. The votes are cast via secret ballot and counted by an independent accounting firm.

The Academy has since expanded its outlook to include several different crafts and facets of filmmaking. The latest such craft, for the 2026 ceremony, is the category of Achievement in Casting. This is the first new category that has been added to the Oscars in decades. Prior to that, the category of Best Animated Feature was added in 2001, with Shrek being the inaugural winner.

The Academy in 2018 announced it was considering adding ‘Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film’ as a category. The idea behind this was to revive the ceremony’s flagging ratings by bestowing an award for films that have proved incredibly popular at the box office. However, the concept was canned after a fierce backlash from the industry.

The Academy has also announced that an award for Achievement in Stunt Design will be given out at the 2028 Academy Awards. This decision came after years of much back and forth within the Academy over the addition of stunt work as a category. Over 100 stunt professionals are members of the Academy. Incidentally, the 2028 ceremony will also be the landmark 100th Academy Awards.

FAQs

1) Why are Oscar statuettes worth only $1?

Oscar statuettes are technically worth only $1 (about Rs 92.40) because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences requires winners to offer the trophy back to the Academy for that amount before selling it. The rule, introduced in 1951, was designed to preserve the integrity and prestige of the Oscar symbol.

2) How much does it cost to make an Oscar statuette?

According to reports, it costs around $400 (about Rs 36,960) to manufacture an Oscar statuette. The trophy is 13.5 inches tall, weighs around 3.85 kg, and is made of gold-plated bronze.

3) What is the Oscar statuette officially called?

The Oscar trophy is officially known as the Academy Award of Merit. The nickname ‘Oscar’ became widely used in the 1930s and was officially adopted by the Academy in 1939.

With inputs from agencies