Academy Awards are presented annually for outstanding achievements in filmmaking. Winners of an Academy Award receive a gold-plated statue commonly called an Oscar, shown here. Credit: © Richard Levine, Alamy Images

On Sunday, March 12, the 95th Academy Awards—commonly known as the Oscars—were held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. The Oscars celebrate the past year’s achievements in filmmaking. In 2023, late night talk show host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel hosted the show. A variety of celebrities introduced and handed out the awards.

Michelle Yeoh stars as a woman who suddenly develops the power to leap between parallel universes in the action-adventure-fantasy Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Credit: A24

Everything Everywhere All at Once swept the Oscars, picking up awards in 7 of its 11 nominated categories, the most of any film nominations this year. Among those was the most coveted Best Picture award going to the directing pair Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, affectionately called the Daniels, and Jonathan Wang. Best Film Editing went to Paul Rogers. The Daniels also share the Best Director and Best Original Screenplay trophies. Kwan became the second Asian director to win best picture, director, and screenplay at the Academy Awards. The first was Joon Ho for Parasite (2019).

The sci-fi, multiverse-traveling, action adventure truly covered everything and everywhere. Michelle Yeoh won Best Actress for her role as Evelyn Wang in Everything Everywhere All at Once. The film beautifully portrayed the connection between Evelyn and her daughter Joy, and Joy’s powerful alter-ego Jobu Tupaki. Stephanie Hsu portrayed Joy and Jobu as they hopped realities. Ke Huy Quan won Best Supporting Actor as Waymond Wang, Evelyn’s goofy husband. Jamie Lee Curtis won Best Supporting Actress as the IRS auditor threatening to shut down the Wang’s laundromat.

Yeoh became the first Asian woman to win Best Actress. Quan made his return to acting after 30 years and became the second Asian actor to win Best Supporting Actor. As a child actor, he worked with legendary director Steven Spielberg on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and was cast by Spielberg for The Goonies (1985). This year, Spielberg became the first person nominated for Best Director in six different decades. Both with their first Oscars, Yeoh and Quan became the first actors to win the award portraying a character speaking Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese.

In another standout film, Brendan Fraser took home Best Actor for the psychological drama The Whale. It also won for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. The German-language film All Quiet on the Western Front, adapted from the book by Erich Maria Remarque, had nine nominations, winning four Academy Awards. The film took home Best International Film, Best Cinematography, Best Original Score, and Best Production Design.

“Naatu Naatu” from the adventure film RRR became the first Indian film song to win an Oscar with Best Original Song. The upbeat, Telugu-language song was composed by M. M. Keeravani and written by Chandrabose. The Elephant Whisperers became the first Indian film to win Best Documentary Short.

Navalny, about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, won Best Documentary Feature. Women Talking won Best Adapted Screenplay. Best Animated Feature went to Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.

Jennifer Hudson is a popular American singer and actress. She gained fame in 2004 as a finalist on the singing competition television show “American Idol.” In 2007, Hudson won an Academy Award as best supporting actress for her motion-picture debut in the musical Dreamgirls, based on a hit Broadway musical.
Credit: © Shutterstock

Jennifer Hudson hit that high note and reached EGOT status. Only 16 other people have the honor of being called an EGOT, the elite group of artists who have won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony awards. Hudson is a popular singer and actress and the second Black woman to collect all four prestigious awards. She completed her award collection after winning a Tony award for co-producing the musical A Strange Loop.

Hudson gained fame in 2004 as a finalist on the singing competition television show “American Idol.” In 2007, Hudson won an Academy Award as best supporting actress for her motion-picture debut in the musical motion picture Dreamgirls (2006), based on a hit Broadway musical. In the film, Hudson portrayed a singer in a 1960’s female vocal group. The film was based on the story of the popular vocal group the Supremes. In 2009, Hudson won a Grammy Award for her best-selling debut album, Jennifer Hudson (2008).

Jennifer Kate Hudson was born on Sept. 12, 1981, in Chicago, Illinois. She sang in gospel choirs as a child. She also acted in community theater and performed on cruise ships. Community theater is a type of nonprofessional, local theater.

Hudson’s second album, I Remember Me, was released in 2011. It also became a hit. Her other films include the crime drama Fragments and the drama The Secret Life of Bees (both 2008); the comedy The Three Stooges (2012); the musical drama Black Nativity (2013); and the drama Chi-Raq (2015). In the biographical film Winnie (2011), she portrayed the South African politician and political activist Winnie Mandela. Hudson has also acted on a number of television shows. In 2013, she portrayed a Broadway star on the musical drama “Smash.” She wrote an autobiography, I Got This (2012). In 2021, Hudson won a Daytime Emmy award for producing Baba Yaga (2020), a virtual reality animated and interactive film.

Hudson has joked about reaching EGOT status after she won an Oscar award after naming a pet dog Oscar, and she won a Grammy award after naming a dog Grammy. She now needs to bring two more dogs into her home and name them Emmy and Tony!

Hudson joins the ranks of Mel Brooks, John Gielgud, Whoopi Goldberg, Marvin Hamlisch, Helen Hayes, Audrey Hepburn, John Legend, Robert Lopez, Alan Menken, Rita Moreno, Mike Nichols, Tim Rice, Richard Rodgers, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. What an impressive group of artists!

New Zealand screenwriter and director Jane Campion.
Credit: © Kathy Hutchins, Shutterstock

Jane Campion, a New Zealand motion-picture screenwriter and director, won the best director for The Power of the Dog (2021) at the 2022 Academy Awards hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards on Sunday. The Power of the Dog (2021) is a psychological western set in Montana in 1925. The awards are better known as the Oscars. Campion’s win made history as the first time women have won best director two years in a row. Last year, Chinese filmmaker Chloé Zhao became the first Asian woman to win an Academy Award for best director, for the motion picture Nomadland (2020).

Campion is also the only woman to be nominated for best director twice. She was first nominated for best director for the film The Piano in 1993, which she wrote and directed. It tells the story of a mute young Scottish woman who is sent to colonial New Zealand to marry a stranger. The Piano won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes International Film Festival in France. Campion was the first woman ever to receive this prestigious award. She also won an Academy Award for writing the screenplay for The Piano.

Campion was born on April 30, 1955, in Wellington, New Zealand. During the 1970′s, she earned a degree in anthropology at the Victoria University of Wellington, and an arts degree at the Sydney College of the Arts in Sydney, Australia, where she majored in painting. Campion began making short films in the late 1970′s. One of the films, the dark comedy Tissues, resulted in her being accepted in the Australian Film and Television School in 1981. Campion’s first notable short film, Peel (1982), won the Short Film Palme d’Or award at Cannes in 1986.

Campion’s first feature film was Sweetie (1989), which she co-wrote and directed. A sharp comedy about family discord, it won several international prizes. Campion’s next film, An Angel at My Table (1990), won awards at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival. It is a drama based on the autobiography of the New Zealand writer Janet Frame.

Campion’s other films include Portrait of a Lady (1996), based on a novel by the American author Henry James; Holy Smoke (1999); In the Cut (2003); Bright Star (2009), about the English poet John Keats; and The Power of the Dog (2021), for which she won a Golden Globe Award. Campion also co-wrote and co-directed the television miniseries Top of the Lake (2013).

Asian American actress Anna May Wong.
Credit: © Paramount Pictures

March is Women’s History Month, an annual observance of women’s achievements and contributions to society. This month, Behind the Headlines will feature woman pioneers in a variety of areas.

Her face has gone from the big screen to quarters! Anna May Wong was an Asian American actress. She became famous during the early years of American cinema. In her time, she was one of the few Asian performers to achieve widespread success. Wong eventually grew disappointed with the limited roles offered to her. She also became an outspoken critic of the casting of white performers in Asian roles. The U.S. Mint announced in 2021 that Wong would be one of five women commemorated on the quarter in their American Women Quarters series.

U.S. Mint’s American Women Quarters Program 2022 quarters.
Credit: US Mint

Wong Liu Tsong was born Jan. 3, 1905, in Los Angeles, California. Her parents operated a laundry. She made her first motion-picture appearance as an extra in The Red Lantern (1919). Wong continued acting in small roles. For years, she hid her work as an extra from her family. Her first credited role was in Bits of Life (1921). When her father learned of her acting career, he insisted on being present when she was on set.

Wong starred in the 1923 film Toll of the Sea, the first widely released feature film made in Technicolor. Before Technicolor, films were either shown in black and white or colored by hand. In Toll of the Sea, Wong played the romantic lead, bringing her new fame. However, her stardom started to strain her family life, with photographers and fans showing up at the family laundry to see her. Her family was further upset with her role in The Thief of Bagdad (1924) as an untrustworthy “Mongol slave.”

By the late 1920’s, Wong had grown disappointed in Hollywood. She was consistently offered roles as villains, slaves, or temptresses. In contrast, sympathetic leading roles were often reserved for white performers. Even Asian lead roles were often performed by better-known white actors made up to look Asian. In The Crimson City (1928), for example, Wong played a supporting role to lead actress Myrna Loy, a white woman made to look Asian. Wong moved to Europe in hopes of finding more realistic roles. There, she learned to speak French, German, and Italian. In 1929, Wong starred alongside the British actor Laurence Olivier in the play A Circle of Chalk in London.

In 1931, Wong starred as the lead in the Broadway play On the Spot. The role led to a return to Hollywood, with Daughter of the Dragon (1931) and Shanghai Express (1932). Both films offered the type of Asian villainess roles Wong had sought to escape. Yet Shanghai Express allowed for a more nuanced portrayal. Wong played Hui Fei, a prostitute (sex worker) and ally of a Chinese warlord who later turns on him, killing him.

Despite the acclaim she received for Shanghai Express, Wong continued to be offered disappointing roles. Producers had wanted Wong to play Lotus, a dancer, in the film adaptation of the novel The Good Earth. Wong wanted to play O-Lan, the female lead. The German actress Luise Rainer went on to win an Academy Award for portraying O-Lan.

In 1936, Wong again left Hollywood, this time for China. In China, Wong was criticized for her early film roles and for being too western for Chinese audiences. When she returned to America, filmmakers were more interested in hiring her to coach white actors performing Asian roles. In 1942, she retired from acting in films.

During the 1950’s, Wong acted in television shows, including her own series in 1951. In “The Gallery of Mme. Liu Tsong,” Wong portrayed a gallery owner who solved crimes. In 1960, she attempted a return to film, portraying a housekeeper in Portrait in Black. Wong died Feb. 3, 1961, from a heart attack. The Chinese American actress Michelle Krusiec played Wong in the television miniseries Hollywood (2020).

Frances McDormand as Fern in the film “Nomadland” (2020).
Credit: © Searchlight Pictures

On April 25, 2021, the 93rd Academy Awards—commonly known as the Oscars—were held in a ceremony split between Los Angeles’ Union Station and the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. (Because of the ongoing pandemic [global outbreak] of the coronavirus disease COVID-19, several nominees gathered at other venues in such cities as Sydney, Australia, and London, England.) For the third year in a row, the ceremony went without a host. A variety of comedians, actors, and musicians introduced and handed out the awards.

The drama Nomadland took home the coveted best picture award. The film tells the story of a widow named Fern who travels across the United States in a van. The film’s director, Chloé Zhao, became the first woman of color to win the award for best director. The American actress Frances McDormand, who plays Fern, won her third award for best actress in a leading role.

Many people expected McDormand’s win. However, the British actor Anthony Hopkins took the award for best actor in a leading role, surprising many. The American actor Chadwick Boseman—who died last August—was expected to win for his performance as a trumpet player named Levee Green in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Hopkins won for his role as a man suffering from dementia in The Father. At age 83, he became the oldest actor to win an Oscar.

As for other top awards, the British actor Daniel Kaluuya won for best actor in a supporting role for Judas and the Black Messiah. Kaluuya portrayed Fred Hampton (1948-1969), an African American civil rights activist and leader of the Black Panther Party. The actress Yuh-Jung Youn became the first Korean to take home the award for best actress in a supporting role, for the film Minari. She played Soon-ja, the grandmother in a Korean-American family that moves from California to Arkansas in pursuit of a better life.

The winners used their speeches to bring attention to such themes as racism and police brutality. The American actress, author, and deaf activist Marlee Matlin presented an award in American Sign Language. Her remarks called attention to a teenager named Darnella Frazier who, in May 2020, used her cellphone to capture the death of George Floyd. (Former Minneapolis, Minnesota, police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of murder after kneeling on the neck and back of Floyd, an unarmed Black man, for more than nine minutes leading up to his death on May 25, 2020.) Frazier’s video of the killing was perhaps the most-watched film of 2020, inspiring millions of people around the world to protest racism and to demand justice.

February 12, 2020

On Sunday, February 9, the 92nd Academy Awards—commonly known as the Oscars—were held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. The Oscars celebrate the past year’s achievements in filmmaking. As happened in 2019, the award ceremony went without a host. Instead, the comedians Steve Martin and Chris Rock opened the show, and a variety of celebrities introduced and handed out the awards.

Parasite, which won best picture at the 2020 Academy Awards, stars (from left) Choi Woo Shik, Song Kang Ho, Chang Hyae Jin, and Park So Dam. Credit: CJ Entertainment

The biggest headline on Oscars night was the naming of the South Korean black comedy Parasite as best picture. Black comedy is characterized by bizarrely or morbidly humorous plots and situations. Directed by Bong Joon Ho, Parasite is the first movie in a language other than English to win best picture. Parasite also won best original screenplay and best international film. Bong too made history as the first South Korean to win best director. The World War I drama 1917—the favorite to win best picture before the ceremony—missed out on the top award but took home the best cinematography, best sound mixing, and best visual effects Oscars.

Renée Zellweger won the best actress award for her portrayal of the former Hollywood star Judy Garland in the biopic Judy. Joaquin Phoenix earned best actor for his leading role in the origin story of the Batman villain Joker. Brad Pitt won best supporting actor for his stuntman sidekick role in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Laura Dern was named best supporting actress as a divorce lawyer in Marriage Story. Toy Story 4 won best animated feature, and American Factory won best documentary. American Factory, the story of a Chinese-run glass factory in Ohio, was the first film made by Higher Ground Productions, a company run by former United States President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama. The World War II satire Jojo Rabbit earned the Oscar for best adapted screenplay.

Each trophy given out at the ceremony (there were a total of 24 this year) is officially called an Academy Award of Merit, but the small golden statues have been known as “Oscars” since the 1930′s. The origin of the nickname is uncertain, but most histories center on Margaret Herrick, a former director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Apparently, upon seeing the statuettes for the first time in 1931, Herrick remarked that they looked a lot like her Uncle Oscar. Oscar came into common usage for the award soon after.

February 27, 2019

On Sunday, February 24, the 91st Academy Awards—commonly known as the Oscars—were held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. The Oscars celebrate the past year’s achievements in filmmaking. For the first time since 1989, the award ceremony went without a host. Instead, a variety of celebrities introduced and handed out the awards. The comedy drama Green Book took home the coveted best picture award, and Alfonso Cuarón won best director for his film Roma.

Viggo Mortensen (left) and Mahershala Ali starred in Green Book, the best picture winner at the 2019 Academy Awards in Hollywood. Credit: © Universal Pictures

Hollywood’s biggest night began with a rousing performance by the rock group Queen, the subject of the best picture-nominated film Bohemian Rhapsody. Later in the ceremony, that film’s star, Rami Malek, became the first Arab American to win best actor for his charismatic portrayal of former Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury. British star Olivia Colman won best actress for her role as Queen Anne in the period dark comedy The Favourite. Anne was the first queen of Great Britain, which was formed when the Kingdom of Scotland united with the Kingdom of England and Wales in 1707.

Roma, a Mexican film that follows the life of an indigenous domestic worker, lost out on the best picture award, but it did top the best foreign language film category. Green Book told the story of a black musician and his white driver and bodyguard on a tour of the American south in 1962. The film’s title was taken from the The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guidebook that once helped African American travelers navigate dangerous racial discrimination in the southern United States. African American actor Mahershala Ali won the best supporting actor award for his role in the film, which also won best original screenplay.

As for the other top awards on Sunday, Regina King won  best supporting actress for her role in If Beale Street Could Talk, a movie based on a 1974 novel by African American author James Baldwin. Director Spike Lee’s  BlacKkKlansman earned the best adapted screenplay award. That film told the story of a black detective who investigated the Ku Klux Klan hate group in the 1970′s. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse won best animated feature film, and Free Solo won best documentary.

Each trophy given out at the ceremony (there were a total of 24 this year) is officially called an Academy Award of Merit, but the small golden statues have been known as “Oscars” since the 1930′s. The origin of the nickname is uncertain, but most histories center on Margaret Herrick, a former director of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Apparently, upon seeing the statuettes for the first time in 1931, Herrick remarked that they looked a lot like her Uncle Oscar. Oscar became common usage for the award soon after.

March 6, 2018

The 90^th Academy Awards, held on March 4, 2018, proved to be a celebration of diversity. Ending an awards season that showcased the “Time’s Up” and “#MeToo” movements spurred by multiple allegations of sexual misconduct in Hollywood, the show spotlighted the contributions by women, minorities, and immigrants to the motion-picture industry.

Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out (2017).
Credit: © Universal Pictures

The diversity of nominees from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences proved better than years past. The 2017 Oscars made history with a record number of nominations and wins for African Americans. Among the nominees was director Jordan Peele, who became the first African American to be awarded an Oscar for Original Screenplay with his horror film, Get Out.

Last year’s Oscars might be best known for the blunder by presenters Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in announcing the wrong winner for the Oscar for best picture. This year the pair from Bonnie and Clyde gave it another attempt—and got it right. The winner was director Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water. The Best Picture Oscar was the fourth of the night for the science fiction film. Del Toro also won the Oscar for Best Director, making him the fourth Mexican director in five years to earn that honor.

Doug Jones, and Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water (2017).
Credit: © Fox Searchlight Pictures

Another record-breaker came from the Best Animated Feature winner, Coco. Songwriter Robert Lopez earned Coco a second award for Best Original Song, “Remember Me.” This Oscar made Lopez the first person to ever achieve a double EGOT (when a person wins an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony — the ‘double’ meaning Lopez did it twice.) Kobe Bryant, a former star of the National Basketball Association (NBA), surprised everyone with an Oscar win for his and Glen Keane’s animated short, Dear Basketball.

Late night TV personality Jimmy Kimmel hosted. Among other jokes, Kimmel said the person with the shortest acceptance speech would win a free Jet Ski. Cut to later, Mark Bridges got to ride the Jet Ski that turned out to be very real. Bridges’ 36-second speech was for Best Costume Design, Phantom Thread. Kimmel also thanked the moviegoers that make filmmaking worth it. In one of the show’s highlights, he took some stars to a nearby theater screening Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time. Emily Blunt, Ansel Elgort, Gal Gadot, Mark Hamill, Lin Manuel-Miranda, and other stars passed out snacks to surprise the audience, even shooting hot dog cannons at them.

Academy Award Winners in 2018:

Best Picture: The Shape of Water
Best Actress: Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Best Actor: Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour
Best Supporting Actress: Allison Janney, I, Tonya
Best Supporting Actor: Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Best Director: Guillermo Del Toro, The Shape of Water
Best Original Screenplay: Jordan Peele, Get Out
Best Adapted Screenplay: James Ivory, Call Me by Your Name
Best Animated Feature: Coco
Best Cinematography: Roger Deakins, Blade Runner 2049
Best Film Editing: Lee Smith, Dunkirk
Best Original Score: Alexandre Desplat, The Shape of Water
Best Original Song: “Remember Me,” Coco
Best Foreign-Language Film: A Fantastic Woman (Chile)
Best Production Design: Paul D. Austerberry, Jeffrey A. Melvin, and Shane Vieau, The Shape of Water
Best Costume Design: Mark Bridges, Phantom Thread
Best Sound Mixing: Mark Weingarten, Gregg Landaker, and Gary A. Rizzo, Dunkirk
Best Sound Editing: Alex Gibson and Richard King, Dunkirk
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski, Lucy Sibbick, Darkest Hour
Best Visual Effects: John Nelson, Paul Lambert, Richard R. Hoover, and Gerd Nefzer, Blade Runner 2049
Best Animated Short Film: Dear Basketball
Best Live-Action Short Film: The Silent Child
Best Feature Documentary: Icarus
Best Short-Subject Documentary: Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405

February 28, 2017

It was a night of Oscar firsts on Sunday, February 26, at the 89th Academy Awards, presented at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. But one of those was a first that the Academy would undoubtedly rather forget.

Alex Hibbert, left, stars as the young Chiron in Moonlight. Mahershala Ali, right, won the 2016 Academy Award as best supporting actor for his performance in the film. Moonlight won the 2016 Oscar as best picture.
Credit: © A24

The awards are presented annually for outstanding achievements in filmmaking. They are supervised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with headquarters in Beverly Hills, California. Oscars are awarded in up to 27 categories. 

Last year, the Academy was criticized for the lack of diversity among its award nominees. After the Academy announced its 2015 Oscar nominees in January 2016, it was quickly noted that only white actors and actresses were nominated in the top four acting categories for the second year in a row. Until 2016, there had only been six black directors nominated for Academy Awards.

This year, a number of African Americans made history by their Oscar nominations and wins: This Sunday marked the most Oscar wins by African Americans in one night. Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins, won for best picture. Jenkins was the first African American to be nominated for both best director and one of the screenplay titles for a film that was also nominated for best picture. Featuring an all-black cast, the low-budget film tells the story of a troubled gay African American youth growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami, Florida. The film was based on the semi-autobiographical stage play In Moonlight, Black Boys Look Blue, written by Tarell Alvin McCraney. Jenkins and McCraney won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay. Mahershala Ali won as best supporting actor in the film for his portrayal of a sympathetic drug dealer. The film also received nominations for best director, best supporting actress, best cinematography, best editing, and best original score.

Of the five movies vying for the 2016 best documentary award, four were directed by black filmmakers: 13th, by Ava DuVernay, about the mass incarceration of African Americans in the United States and how it perpetuates the nation’s history of racial inequality; I Am Not Your Negro, by Raoul Peck, about African American writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin; Life, Animated, by Roger Ross Williams, about a young autistic man who learns how to communicate with the “outside world” through his love of Walt Disney animated films; and O.J.: Made in America, by Ezra Edelman, about the life of former National Football League star O.J. Simpson, who was arrested for, and later acquitted of, murdering his ex-wife and her friend. Edelman won the award.

With her best supporting actress win on Sunday, Viola Davis became the first African American to win an Oscar, an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award for acting. Davis won the Oscar for her portrayal of the long-suffering wife of a sanitation worker who once dreamed of a baseball career in Fences, by the African American playwright August Wilson. Directed by and starring Denzel Washington, the film was also nominated for best picture, best actor for Washington, and best adapted screenplay.

Another notable African American film that received multiple nominations was Hidden Figures, the true story of a team of African American women mathematicians who played a vital role in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the early years of the U.S. space program. The film was nominated for best picture, best supporting actress for Octavia Spencer, and best adapted screenplay.

The night’s other big winner was the musical La La Land. Starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, the film tells the story of a jazz pianist who falls in love with an aspiring actress in Los Angeles, California. It was tied with All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997) as the most nominated film ever, with 14 nominations. Damien Chazelle won as best director for the film and Stone won as best actress. The film also won for best cinematography, best original song, and best production design. Casey Affleck won the best actor award for his performance in the drama Manchester by the Sea as a man who is asked to take care of his teenaged nephew after the boy’s father dies.

Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling star in the musical La La Land. Stone won the 2016 Oscar as best actress for her performance in the film as an aspiring actress.
Credit: © Summit Entertainment

The night’s historical significance was nearly overshadowed by an embarrassing blunder at the end of the evening when the best picture Oscar was announced. Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, who starred together in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), presented the award. Beatty was given an envelope containing the name of the winner of the best actress award and the film for which she won, instead of the title of the film that won for best picture. Dunaway announced the winner as La La Land. As the cast of La La Land gathered on stage to celebrate winning the evening’s biggest award, the film’s producers Jordan Horowitz and Marc Platt were approached by a man wearing a headset. “I’m sorry, there’s a mistake,” Horowitz announced. “Moonlight, you guys won best picture.” Platt added: “This is not a joke. They read the wrong thing.”

Hosting the awards for the first time, comedian Jimmy Kimmel, of the late-night television talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” joked “Personally, I blame Steve Harvey for this,” referring to the TV host’s infamous Miss Universe gaffe in 2015 when he announced the wrong contestant’s name as winner. As the stunned cast of Moonlight made its way to the stage, the evening ended in confusion, but apparently with no hard feelings. “God, I love Moonlight so much,” Oscar winner Stone said later backstage. “I was so excited for Moonlight.”

Other Behind the Headlines posts:

• Birdman Soars at 87th Academy Awards (Feb. 23, 2015) – A Behind the Headlines article
• Megastar Monday: The 88th Academy Awards (Feb. 29, 2016) – A Behind the Headlines article
•  See also Back in time articles for Motion picture from 1922 through 2015

February 29, 2016

The 88th Academy Awards were presented at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California, last night, following one of the most controversial Oscars seasons in recent memory. The Academy Awards are presented annually for outstanding achievements in filmmaking. The awards are supervised by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, with headquarters in Beverly Hills, California. Oscars are awarded in up to 27 categories.

Academy Awards are presented annually for outstanding achievements in filmmaking. Winners of an Academy Award receive a gold-plated statue commonly called an Oscar, shown here. Credit: © Richard Levine, Alamy Images

Spotlight won for best picture of the year. The film tells the true story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Roman Catholic Archdiocese. Alejandro González Iñárritu won the Oscar as best director for The Revenant, about a frontiersman on a fur trading expedition in the 1820′s who fights for survival after being mauled by a bear and left for dead by members of his own hunting team. It was the Mexican director’s second Oscar win in a row for best director. Iñárritu won as best director in 2015 for Birdman. Leonardo DiCaprio won the Academy Award as best actor for his performance as the lead in The Revenant. It was the actor’s first Oscar win after five other nominations. Brie Larson received the Academy Award as best actress for her performance as a woman who is abducted, held against her will, raped, and gives birth to a boy in Room. Mark Rylance won the best supporting actor Oscar for his portrayal of a man who is captured for espionage against the United States on behalf of the Soviet Union (now Russia) during the Cold War in Bridge of Spies. The Academy Award for best supporting actress went to Alicia Vikander for her performance as the wife of a transgender pioneer in The Danish Girl. The night’s big winner was Mad Max: Fury Road, with six awards, for costume design, film editing, makeup and hairstyling, production design, sound editing, and sound mixing.

A number of Hollywood’s most prominent African American stars boycotted the Oscars ceremony to protest the Academy’s lack of diversity. After the Academy announced its Oscar nominees on January 14, it was quickly noted that only white actors and actresses were nominated in the top four acting categories for the second year in a row. The Twitter hashtag #OscarSoWhite, which began last year, soon saw a resurgence among users of the social networking website. Among the most outspoken Hollywood celebrities calling for a boycott were director Spike Lee and actress Jada Pinkett Smith. On January 18, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, Pinkett Smith announced on Facebook and Lee announced on Instragram that they would not attend the Oscars ceremony with their spouses. Lee’s film Chi-Raq failed to win any nominations, while Pinkett Smith’s husband, Will Smith, who had been expected by some to be a best actor contender for his turn in the biopic Concussion, was also snubbed for an Oscar. Other notable omissions were British actor Idris Elba, who was projected to secure a best supporting actor nomination for his performance as an African warlord in Beasts of No Nation; Michael B. Jordan, who portrayed a boxer in the Rocky sequel Creed; and the cast of the biopic Straight Outta Compton, about the influential rap group N.W.A.

Many protesters called for the evening’s host, African American comedian and actor Chris Rock, to join the boycott. Instead Rock, who had also hosted the awards in 2005, made the Academy’s lack of diversity the focus of his humorous opening monologue and the butt of many of his jokes and bits during the evening. On Jan. 22, 2016, the Academy announced that it would overhaul its membership in order to promote diversity, aiming to double its number of female and minority members by the year 2020.

Other World Book articles:

• Birdman Soars at 87th Academy Awards (February 23, 2015) – A Behind the Headlines article
• See also Back in time articles for Motion picture from 1922 through 2014