While Oscar categories such as Best Actor in a Leading Role and Best Director are well - known , there are a few special categories and awards that are a picayune more obscure . The Special Academy Awards — which are vote for by special committees and not by member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — aren’t presented on an annual basis like the major categories . Here are seven of these unfamiliar Oscars .
1. Academy Honorary Award
In 1948 , the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ( AMPAS ) instituted a particular honour for people who have had sinful career achievements or who have lend to the film manufacture as a whole . Before 1948 , the award was called the Special Award andthe Honorary Award . Interestingly , the honour is not define to just individuals , but also heart-to-heart to motion picture organizations such as the National Film Board of Canada , individual moving-picture show studios , and outstanding individual photographic film achievements likeRashomonandBicycle Thieves . retiring receiver of the Academy Honorary Award admit Robert Altman , Sophia Loren , and Steve Martin .
2. Gordon E. Sawyer Award
Gordon E. Sawyer was the legendary sound director for Samuel Goldwyn Productions . Throughout his career , Sawyer was nominate 13 time and won Academy Awards for Best Sound for theThe Bishop ’s Wife , The Alamo , andWest Side Story . He was also a member of the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee . After Sawyer ’s death in 1980 , a particular award was instituted to reward someone whose technological share to the film manufacture brought credibility to motion pictures . TheGordon E. Sawyer Awardhas only been given to 22 people since its inception in 1981 , let in Douglas Trumbull , Takuo Miyagishima , and Ray Harryhausen .
3. Academy Juvenile Award
In 1934 , the AMPAS base the Academy Juvenile Award — also sleep together as the Juvenile Oscar or the Oscarette . This honorary award was give to actor under the long time of 18 for their " great contributions to sort entertainment . " The dry pint - sized prize was a miniature Oscar figurine that stood 7 inches grandiloquent ( the full - sizing award stand up at 13 - and - a - half inches ) .
The Academy Juvenile Award was sporadically consecrate to child actors from 1934 until it was discontinued in 1961 . Now actors under the age of 18 are appoint with their adult counterparts in various category . recipient role of the Oscarette includedShirley Temple , Judy Garland , and Hayley Mills .
4. Academy Special Achievement Award
In 1972 , the AMPAS established the Academy Special Achievement Award for highly exceptional contributions to motion pictorial matter that were undefined by annual category . For example , L.B. Abbott and A.D. Flowers won theAcademy Special Achievement Awardfor Visual Effects forThe Poseidon Adventurein 1972 . At the time , the Best Visual Effects category that we know today was changed and modify under different deed of conveyance and specifications such as Best Engineering Effects or Best Special Effects .
The honorary award was break after 1995 , whenToy Storyanimator John Lasseter accepting the Academy Special Achievement Award for First Feature - Length Computer - Animated celluloid .
5. Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award
Danish - born Jean Pierre Hersholt was a prominent actor and theater director in Hollywood from the 1930s to the ' 50s . Hersholt served as the president of the Motion Picture Relief Fund , which stomach industriousness employees with health care . He later help start the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital in the 1940s . Upon his death in 1956 , the AMPAS issued theJean Hersholt Humanitarian Award , which is given to an " somebody in the movement pic manufacture whose humanitarian cause have brought quotation to the diligence . " Past honorees include Samuel Goldwyn , Bob Hope , Charlton Heston , Paul Newman , Oprah Winfrey and , most late , Angelina Jolie .
6. Academy Scientific and Technical Award
Since 1931 , the Academy has handed out honorary honor that keep pregnant milepost in movement picture technology . The award can be given to individual , organizations , and caller that advance expert , scientific , and technology achievements in the film industry . Although the Academy does n’t give out this award every twelvemonth , they have given the Scientific and Technical Awardto Eastman Kodak , Dolby Sound , and IMAX Entertainment .
7. Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award
Oscars
Irving Grant Thalberg was a film producer for MGM who develop the studio ’s firebrand of sophisticated moving-picture show throughout the 1920s and ' thirty . The award is give to film manufacturer whose dead body of work is of systematically gamey quality . While the honorary award is technically an Oscar , its receiver are given an laurels with a female chest ofIrving G. Thalberginstead of the Oscar figurine . Since the award was instituted in 1937 , only 38 Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Awards have been grant to film producers , who include David O. Selznick , Walt Disney , Alfred Hitchcock , Steven Spielberg , Warren Beatty , and George Lucas .
