The 53rd Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1980, were presented March 31, 1981, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, Los Angeles. The ceremonies, which were presided over by Johnny Carson, were originally scheduled for the previous day but were postponed due to the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

David Lynch's The Elephant Man and Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull, with 8 nominations each, had the most nominations of this year's films. Their nominations included Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director. Michael Apted's Coal Miner's Daughter received 7 nominations while Ordinary People and The Stunt Man were also nominated.

The year's winner of acting categories also marked as the closest span ever between the four winners, all of whom were under 40 when they won the award. Robert De Niro was aged 37 when awarded Best Actor, Sissy Spacek was aged 31 when awarded Best Actress, Timothy Hutton was aged 20 when awarded Best Supporting Actor, and Mary Steenburgen was aged 28 when awarded Best Supporting Actress. In addition, Hutton was the youngest ever Best Supporting Actor winner.

An Academy Award is an award bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors and writers. The Oscar statuette is officially named the Academy Award of Merit and is one of nine types of Academy Awards.

The formal ceremony at which the Awards of Merit are presented is one of the most prominent award ceremonies in the world, and is televised live in more than 100 countries annually. It is also the oldest award ceremony in the media; its equivalents, the Grammy Awards (for music), Emmy Awards (for television), and Tony Awards (for theatre) are modeled after the Academy.

The AMPAS was originally conceived by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio boss Louis B. Mayer as a professional honorary organization to help improve the film industry’s image and help mediate labor disputes. The Oscar itself was later initiated by the Academy as an award "of merit for distinctive achievement" in the industry.

Raging Bull is a 1980 American biographical sports drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, and adapted by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin from Jake LaMotta's memoir Raging Bull: My Story. It stars Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta, a middleweight boxer whose sadomasochistic rage, sexual jealousy, and animalistic appetite destroyed his relationship with his wife and family. Also featured in the film are Joe Pesci as Joey, La Motta's well-intentioned brother and manager who tries to help Jake battle his inner demons; and Cathy Moriarty as his abused wife. The film features supporting roles from Nicholas Colasanto, Theresa Saldana, and Frank Vincent.

Scorsese was initially reluctant to develop the project, though he eventually came to relate to La Motta's story. Schrader re-wrote Martin's first screenplay, and Scorsese and De Niro together made uncredited contributions thereafter. Pesci was an unknown actor prior to the film, as was Moriarty, who was suggested for her role by Pesci. During principal photography, each of the boxing scenes was choreographed for a specific visual style and De Niro gained approximately 60 pounds (27 kg) to portray La Motta in his early post-boxing years. Scorsese was exacting in the process of editing and mixing the film, expecting it to be his last major feature.

Timothy Tarquin Hutton (born August 16, 1960) is an American actor and director.

He is the youngest actor to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at the age of 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People (1980). Hutton has since appeared regularly in feature films and on television, with featured roles in Taps, The Falcon and the Snowman, and The Dark Half, among others.

Since 2008 he has starred as Nathan "Nate" Ford on the TNT drama series Leverage.

Timothy Hutton was born in Malibu, California. His father was actor Jim Hutton; his mother, Maryline Adams (née Poole), was a teacher. His parents' marriage dissolved when Hutton was three years old, and his mother took him and his older sister with her to Boston. The family returned to California when Hutton was 12.

"A lot of people think that because my father was an actor, I come from this big show-business background," Hutton told Bruce Cook of American Film magazine in 1981. "But that's not how I grew up at all. My mother took us to Cambridge because she wanted to get her M.A. She wound up teaching in Connecticut, but the way she saw it, after a while, if we all stayed there, my sister and I would just wind up as the proprietors of the local drugstore or something, so that was why she took us to Berkeley – to get us into the world, I guess. Now she's given up teaching and she's into printing miniature books."

Sissy Spacek (born Mary Elizabeth Spacek; December 25, 1949) is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie (based on the first novel by Stephen King) for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role as country star Loretta Lynn in the 1980 film Coal Miner's Daughter. She has been nominated for an Oscar a total of six times, and is also known for her role as Holly Sargis in Terrence Malick's 1973 film Badlands.

Spacek is mainly a dramatic actress, but also has made comedies. The films that Spacek has starred in have earned more than $1 billion worldwide.

Spacek was born on Christmas Day, 1949, in Quitman, Texas. She is the daughter of Virginia Frances (née Spilman) and Edwin Arnold Spacek, Sr., a county agricultural agent. Spacek's paternal grandparents, Mary Červenka and Arnold A. Špaček (who served as Mayor of Granger, Texas in Williamson County), were of Czech (Moravian) and German ancestry. Her mother, of English and Irish descent, was from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.