RKO Pictures

RKO Pictures is an American film production and distribution company. As RKO Radio Pictures Inc., it was one of the Big Five studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chains and Joseph P. Kennedy's Film Booking Offices of America studio were brought together under the control of the Radio Corporation of America in October 1928. RCA chief David Sarnoff engineered the merger to create a market for the company's sound-on-film technology, RCA Photophone. By the mid-1940s, the studio was under the control of investor Floyd Odlum. RKO has long been celebrated for its series of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the mid-to-late 1930s. Actors Katharine Hepburn and, later, Robert Mitchum had their first major successes at the studio. Cary Grant was a mainstay for years. The work of producer Val Lewton's low-budget horror unit and RKO's many ventures into the field now known as film noir have been acclaimed, largely after the fact, by film critics and historians. The studio produced two of the most famous films in motion picture history: King Kong and Citizen Kane. Maverick industrialist Howard Hughes took over RKO in 1948. After years of decline under his control, the studio was acquired by the General Tire and Rubber Company in 1955. The original RKO Pictures ceased production in 1957 and was effectively dissolved two years later. In 1981, broadcaster RKO General, the corporate heir, revived it as a production subsidiary, RKO Pictures Inc. In 1989, this business with its few remaining assets, the trademarks and remake rights to many classic RKO films, was sold to new owners, who now operate the small independent company RKO Pictures LLC.

Awards by RKO Pictures

Check all the awards nominated and won by RKO Pictures.

1947

Nominations 1947 »

Award Nominated	Nominated Work
Academy Award for Best Picture	Crossfire

1945

Academy Honorary Award

Honored for : The House I Live In, The House I Live In

(tolerance short subject; produced by Frank Ross and Mervyn LeRoy; directed by Mervyn LeRoy; screenplay by Albert Maltz; song The House I Live In, music by Earl Robinson, lyrics by Lewis Allan; starring Frank Sinatra; released by RKO Radio)

Nominations 1945 »

Award Nominated	Nominated Work
Academy Award for Best Picture	The Bells of St. Mary's

1942

Nominations 1942 »

Award Nominated	Nominated Work
Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Two-reel	Private Smith of the U.S.A.

1941

Nominations 1941 »

Award Nominated	Nominated Work
Academy Award for Best Picture	Suspicion

1940

Nominations 1940 »

Award Nominated	Nominated Work
Academy Award for Best Picture	Kitty Foyle: The Natural History of a Woman

1939

Nominations 1939 »

Award Nominated	Nominated Work
Academy Award for Best Picture	Love Affair
Academy Award for Best Short Subject, One-reel	Information Please: Series 1, No. 1
Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Two-reel	Five Times Five

1937

Nominations 1937 »

Award Nominated	Nominated Work
Academy Award for Best Picture	Stage Door

1936

Nominations 1936 »

Award Nominated	Nominated Work
Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Two-reel	Dummy Ache

1935

Nominations 1935 »

Award Nominated	Nominated Work
Academy Award for Best Picture	Top Hat
Academy Award for Best Picture	The Informer came in 2nd
Academy Award for Best Picture	Alice Adams

1934

Nominations 1934 »

Award Nominated	Nominated Work
Academy Award for Best Picture	The Gay Divorcee

1933

Nominations 1933 »

Award Nominated	Nominated Work
Academy Award for Best Picture	Little Women came in 3rd

1932

Nominations 1932 »

Award Nominated	Nominated Work
Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing	RKO Radio Studio Sound Department","This nomination was not associated with any specific film title.
Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Comedy	Stout Hearts and Willing Hands The film was originally announced as a nominee, but before the final voting, it was disqualified and replaced by Scratch-As-Catch-Can.
Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Comedy	Scratch-As-Catch-Can

Honored for : Cimarron

Nominations 1931 »

Award Nominated	Nominated Work
Academy Award for Best Picture	Cimarron
Academy Award for Best Sound Mixing	RKO Radio Studio Sound Department","This nomination was not associated with any specific film title.