Which wartime romance Best Picture winner stars Humphrey Bogart as Rick Blaine? Casablanca is the 1943 Best Picture winner featuring Bogart as Rick Blaine.
Directed by Michael Curtiz, Casablanca is set in the Moroccan city during World War II, where American expatriate Rick runs Rick’s Café Américain. His carefully maintained neutrality is challenged when Ilsa Lund, his former lover, arrives with her husband, resistance leader Victor Laszlo. The romance is therefore inseparable from the film’s wartime moral conflict and its question of personal sacrifice.
Casablanca was released in 1942 but competed for films of 1943 because of Academy eligibility and release timing. At the 16th Academy Awards, held in 1944, it won three Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director for Curtiz, and Best Adapted Screenplay for Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein, and Howard Koch. A common mix-up is the film’s award year: “1942” identifies its release, while “1943” identifies the Oscar eligibility year.