Cabaret won eight Oscars in 1972, losing the Best Picture prize to The Godfather. The Bob Fosse musical took home Best Director, Best Actress for Liza Minnelli, Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Joel Grey, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation, and Best Sound. The only nominations it lost were Best Picture and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, which also went to The Godfather. The only other Oscar that The Godfather won was for Best Actor, which winner Marlon Brando famously refused to accept.

The high regard for The Godfather by contemporary audiences makes it something of a surprise that Cabaret actually did as well or better at pre-Oscar awards than the Francis Coppola mafia epic. The Bob Fosse musical received Best Picture honors from the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes (which separates its Best Picture into Musical/Comedy and Drama) whereas The Godfather was only named Best Picture by the Golden Globes (in the Drama category) prior to the Oscars (although it did win Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures from the DGA), despite its status as a social phenomenon and the top-grossing film of the era. The New York Film Critics named Cries and Whispers Best Picture (which wasn't eligible for the Oscars until the following year when it lost to The Sting), and National Society of Film Critics and The National Board of Review tapped The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film).

Posterity has a different view; The Godfather is listed as the second greatest film ever made by IMDb and the American Film Institute. Cabaret is not included on either the IMDB or AFI list.