The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award is awarded periodically at the Academy Awards ceremonies to "Creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production." The award is named for Irving Thalberg, legendary head of the Production Division of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, who developed the company's reputation for sophisticated films. Recipients of the Thalberg Award include:
- 1937 Darryl F. Zanuck
- 1938 Hal B. Wallis
- 1939 David O. Selznick
- 1941 Walt Disney
- 1942 Sidney Franklin
- 1943 Hal B. Wallis
- 1944 Darryl F. Zanuck
- 1946 Samuel Goldwyn
- 1948 Jerry Wald
- 1950 Darryl F. Zanuck
- 1951 Arthur Freed
- 1952 Cecil B. DeMille
- 1953 George Stevens
- 1956 Buddy Adler
- 1958 Jack L. Warner
- 1961 Stanley Kramer
- 1963 Sam Spiegel
- 1965 William Wyler
- 1966 Robert Wise
- 1967 Alfred Hitchcock
- 1970 Ingmar Bergman
- 1973 Lawrence Weingarten
- 1975 Mervyn LeRoy
- 1976 Pandro S. Berman
- 1977 Walter Mirisch
- 1979 Ray Stark
- 1981 Albert R. Broccoli
- 1986 Steven Spielberg
- 1987 Billy Wilder
- 1990 David Brown and Richard D. Zanuck
- 1991 George Lucas
- 1994 Clint Eastwood
- 1996 Saul Zaentz
- 1998 Norman Jewison
- 1999 Warren Beatty
- 2000 Dino de Laurentiis
- 2001 none awarded