Which 1934 film was the first to win all five top Academy Awards (Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Screenplay)?

It Happened One Night was the 1934 film that first won all five top Academy Awards. Frank Capra's romantic comedy took Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Adapted Screenplay at the 7th Academy Awards, making it the first film to achieve the “Big Five” sweep.

The film stars Clark Gable as Peter Warne, a roguish newspaper reporter, and Claudette Colbert as Ellie Andrews, a wealthy heiress running away from her controlling father. Their journey by bus across the United States gradually turns into a romance. The screenplay was adapted by Robert Riskin from Samuel Hopkins Adams's story “Night Bus.”

The achievement is often confused with later Oscar records. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest matched the feat in 1975, followed by The Silence of the Lambs in 1991; those films did not precede Capra's picture. It Happened One Night was also a pre-Code production, released shortly before Hollywood began enforcing the Motion Picture Production Code much more strictly.