The 1959 American spy thriller film North by Northwest, produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, is a film that did not win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. The 1950 American black comedy film noir "Sunset Boulevard", the 1951 American musical comedy film "An American in Paris", and the 1958 American adventure drama "The Defiant Ones", which tells the story of two escaped prisoners, one white and one black, who are shackled together, are all films that won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Respectively, Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D. M. Marshman Jr. won in 1950, Alan Jay Lerner in 1951, and Nedrick Young and Harold Jacob Smith in 1958.

"North by Northwest" is a movie that focuses on a tale of mistaken identity, with an innocent man pursued across the United States by agents of a mysterious organization trying to prevent him from blocking their plan to smuggle microfilm with government secrets out of the country. The screenplay was by Ernest Lehman, the music score by Bernard Herrmann, cinematography by Robert Burks, and editing by George Tomasini. The production company that did filming of the movie and required initial distribution was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

The film "North by Northwest" was nominated for 3 Oscar Awards at the 32nd Academy Awards ceremony—Best Film Editing, Best Art Direction and Color, and Best Original Screenplay (Lehman). Two of the three awards went to "Ben-Hur" (1959), and the other went to "Pillow Talk" (1959), respectively.

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