12th Academy Awards

The 12th Academy Awards ceremony, held on February 29, 1940, by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), honored the best in film for 1939 at a banquet in the Coconut Grove at The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. It was hosted by Bob Hope, in his first of nineteen turns as host. David O. Selznick's Gone with the Wind received the most nominations of the year with thirteen, winning eight Oscars (both records at the time). It became the first film in color that won Best Picture.