If all Academy Award winners for Best Picture have one thing in common, it’s that they really don’t have very much in common. Some of them are major crowd-pleasers, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office while becoming pop culture phenomena in the process. Others are essentially art-house films that don’t enter the public consciousness until they’re announced as a Best Picture contender. Some have huge budgets, and some have tiny budgets. Some films with relatively small budgets actually have gone on to win the Best Picture Oscar, and we’ve rounded them up.
Over the years, film studios have increasingly devoted the bulk of their budget to the films that are expected to give them the highest return, unsurprisingly. To date, the highest-budgeted film in history was James Cameron’s 2022 “Avatar: The Way of Water,” with a $460,000,000 budget. Since it was one of just a handful of movies in history to break the 2 billion dollar mark at the international box office, we think we can say it was a pretty good investment. Those investments don’t always pan out, of course: the biggest box office bombs of all time include 1999’s “The 13th Warrior” (an estimated loss of $227 million), 2012’s “John Carter” ($255 million), and 2013’s “The Lone Ranger” ($239 million).
So it goes without saying that big budgets don’t necessarily translate to big returns either at the box office or during awards season, but when the gamble pays off, it can pay off big. On the other hand, some of the most beloved, well-reviewed, award-winning masterpieces of cinema had relatively small budgets. Many Oscar winners of budgets both big and small are available to stream on Netflix. (These are the best movies you can watch on Netflix right now.)
To determine the lowest budget movies that won the Oscar for Best Picture, 24/7 Tempo reviewed data on production budget from film industry site The Numbers. Films that won the Academy Award for Best Picture were ranked based on production budget, adjusted for inflation. Production budget figures were adjusted for inflation using historical ticket prices from the National Association of Theatre Owners. Data on Oscar wins is from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
25. 12 Years a Slave (2013)
- Production budget: $22.5 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $63.9 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Steve McQueen
24. Spotlight (2015)
- Production budget: $21.7 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $49.0 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Tom McCarthy
23. Ordinary People (1980)
- Production budget: $21.1 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $178.1 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Robert Redford
22. Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)
- Production budget: $20.2 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $47.5 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Alejandro G. Iñárritu
21. The Shape of Water (2017)
- Production budget: $19.9 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $65.2 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Guillermo del Toro
20. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
- Production budget: $19.9 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $491.8 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Milos Forman
19. The Hurt Locker (2008)
N/A
- Production budget: $19.1 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $21.7 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow
18. The Artist (2011)
- Production budget: $18.5 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $51.6 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Michel Hazanavicius
17. Chariots of Fire (1981)
- Production budget: $18.1 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $202.8 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Hugh Hudson
16. Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
- Production budget: $17.9 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $180.3 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Danny Boyle
15. The King’s Speech (2010)
- Production budget: $17.4 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $161.1 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Tom Hooper
14. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)
- Production budget: $17.2 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $244.7 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Bruce Beresford
13. On the Waterfront (1954)
- Production budget: $17.0 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $179.5 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Elia Kazan
12. Annie Hall (1977)
- Production budget: $16.4 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $157.1 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Woody Allen
11. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
- Production budget: $15.0 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $183.0 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Norman Jewison
10. It Happened One Night (1934)
- Production budget: $14.8 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $114.0 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Frank Capra
9. Platoon (1986)
- Production budget: $14.8 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $340.6 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Oliver Stone
8. The French Connection (1971)
- Production budget: $12.2 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $228.5 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: William Friedkin
7. Parasite (2019)
- Production budget: $11.8 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $53.4 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Bong Joon Ho
6. Crash (2004)
- Production budget: $10.8 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $81.6 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Paul Haggis
5. Tom Jones (1963)
- Production budget: $10.7 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $400.5 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Tony Richardson
4. CODA (2021)
- Production budget: $10.0 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $2.2 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Sian Heder
3. Nomadland (2020)
- Production budget: $5.0 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $2.2 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Chloé Zhao
2. Rocky (1976)
- Production budget: $4.3 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $504.2 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: John G. Avildsen
1. Moonlight (2016)
- Production budget: $1.6 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Domestic box office: $29.5 million (inflation-adjusted)
- Directed by: Barry Jenkins