There’s no denying Everything Everywhere All at Once‘s status as not only an awards season darling, but as one of the champions of modern cinema as a whole. Indeed, with its delightfully groundbreaking creativity, incisive emotional edge by way of placing love at the top of its many big ideas, and powerhouse performances from Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, and Stephanie Hsu, the film has undoubtedly etched itself into the best side of history.
In fact, just two days from the 95th Academy Awards no less, Everything Everywhere All at Once has already laid claim to a remarkable achievement in the vein of trophy-hunting, having surpassed The Return of the King, the third and perhaps most influential of Peter Jackson’s legendary The Lord of the Rings trilogy, as the single most-awarded movie ever.
Per IGN, the proof is right there in the numbers; when taking every major film award body into account, Everything Everywhere‘s 158 awards beats out Return of the King‘s 101 awards by quite a comfortable margin. The same is true if smaller organizations are included as well, bringing Everything Everywhere to a whopping 336 awards compared to Return of the King‘s 213.
The math even accounts for the many awards bodies that have sprung up in the 20 years since Return of the King‘s release. As far as these organizations go, only 45 of the 110 that exist nominated both Everything Everywhere and Return of the King, and the former still beat out the latter by an admittedly less-comfortable margin of 138 to 127.
A record is a record at the end of the day, and with the world cheering on the A24 heavyweight as the Oscars draw near, we can’t think of a single more deserving recipient.