Brad Grey, the head of Paramount Studios, argued that he deserved credit for his role in putting the film together, but the producers' branch of the academy, which decides who can accept the Oscar as the producer of the best-picture winner, determined on Thursday night that only Graham King was eligible.

It's true that 40 percent of the circle's best-picture winners since 1935 have subsequently been crowned by the Oscar voters, including "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" last year.

The warm and fuzzy glow of an Oscar night surprise quickly faded as a top executive of the movie academy described one of the producing team behind the best-picture winner, "Crash," as throwing a tantrum in suing over credit for the film.

Titanic , with its 14 nominations (more than any movie since All About Eve ), is pegged as the likely best-picture winner.

The two groups have so far prevailed against a lawsuit by the financier Bob Yari, who last year was excluded from honors for "Crash," the best-picture winner, of which he was a credited producer.

The big Hollywood news for 1956 was the best-picture winner "Around the World in 80 Days," a bloated spectacle from an increasingly moribund industry.

The best-picture winner is often a movie with a marshmallow soul and a brain to match.

In the post-"Chariots of Fire" period, marked by best-picture winners like "Gandhi" and "Amadeus," as well as the more understandable "Out of Africa" and "Platoon," this gap has grown exceptionally wide.

"But by the time you get to the Academy Awards now, they're almost anticlimactic," said Ms. Press, whose studio has had a hand in the making or distribution of each of the last three best-picture winners.

The best-picture winners "Out of Africa," "The English Patient" and "Dances With Wolves" were as mawkish and messianic and overlong as the Oscar ceremony itself.