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.