The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization composed of over 6,500 filmmakers whose achievements have placed them at the top of their craft.

The purposes of the Academy are to advance the arts and sciences of motion pictures; foster cooperation among creative leaders for cultural, educational and technological progress; recognize outstanding achievements; cooperate on technical research and improvement of methods and equipment; provide a common forum and meeting ground for various film-related crafts; represent the viewpoint of actual creators of the motion picture; and foster educational activities between the professional community and the public.

The Academy’s field of activity does not include economic, labor or political matters.

The Academy was organized in May 1927 as a nonprofit corporation. Its original 36 members included production executives and film luminaries of the time.

Douglas Fairbanks Sr. was the first president. Others presidents include William de Mille, M.C. Levee, Conrad Nagel, J. Theodore Reed, Frank Lloyd, Frank Capra, Walter Wanger, Bette Davis, Jean Hersholt, Charles Brackett, George Seaton, George Stevens, B.B. Kahane, Valentine Davies, Wendell Corey, Arthur Freed, Gregory Peck, Daniel Taradash, Walter Mirisch, Howard W. Koch, Fay Kanin, Gene Allen, Robert E. Wise, Richard Kahn, Karl Malden, Arthur Hiller, Robert Rehme, Frank Pierson and Sid Ganis, who has been president since August 2005.

From its founding until 1946, when it moved into a building at 9038 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood, the Academy occupied a number of rented offices. In December of 1975, the Academy dedicated a seven-story headquarters at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. For the first time in the organization’s history, its administrative offices, the Academy Players Directory, the Margaret Herrick Library, the Samuel Goldwyn Theater and other facilities were all located under one roof.

Within a decade, however, the rapid growth of the holdings of both the Herrick Library and the Academy Film Archive necessitated the search for a new, separate facility. In 1988 a 55-year lease was arranged with the City of Beverly Hills for the conversion of its historic Waterworks building in La Cienega Park into the new home of the Academy’s library and film archive, to be called the Center for Motion Picture Study. The library and film archive occupied the structure in 1991, but by 1997 the crush of growing collections resulted once more in the need for additional off-site storage. In May of 2001 the Academy bought the former Don Lee-Mutual Broadcasting studios on Vine Street in Hollywood and began converting them into the new home of the Academy Film Archive and the Academy Players Directory. In 2006 the Academy Players Directory published its final edition, and the Directory was sold to a private concern. The building currently houses offices for the Academy Film Archive, the Academy’s Science and Technology Council, the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting program, and the planning staff for the proposed Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, as well as four temperature- and humidity-controlled vaults (three for film, one for photos and documents) and the 286-seat Linwood Dunn Theater.