Oscars 2024 Highlights: âOppenheimerâ Wins Best Picture, and Emma Stone Wins Best Actress for âPoor Thingsâ
âOppenheimerâ won seven Oscars, âPoor Thingsâ four and âBarbieâ only one, for best original song. The Israel-Hamas war was on the minds of many people inside and outside the ceremony.
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Time
âOppenheimerâ overwhelmed the competition at the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday, winning seven Oscars, including the one for best picture, and at long last cementing Christopher Nolanâs status as the foremost filmmaker of his generation.
Nolan, 53, a previous five-time nominee for directing or writing but never a winner, was named best director. âOppenheimerâ also won Oscars for actor (Cillian Murphy), supporting actor (Robert Downey Jr.), film editing (Jennifer Lame), cinematography (Hoyte van Hoytema) and score (Ludwig GĂśransson).
âMovies are just a little bit over 100 years old,â Nolan said in accepting the statuette for directing. âImagine being there 100 years into painting or theater. We donât know where this incredible journey is going from here. But to know that you think that Iâm a meaningful part of it means the world to me.â
By showering âOppenheimerâ with honors, Hollywood was awarding the film as much for its artistry as for its against-all-odds performance in theaters. In an era when superheroes, paint-by-numbers franchise sequels and movies based on toys have blotted out traditional filmmaking at the box office, âOppenheimer,â a drama with nearly $1 billion in ticket sales, gave the film elite hope that traditional cinema has not been entirely lost.
âOppenheimerâ marked a shift for the Academy Awards. Call it the revenge of the studio movie. In recent years, Hollywoodâs top prize has gone almost exclusively to independent movies like âEverything Everywhere All at Once,â âCODA,â âParasiteâ and âMoonlight.â âOppenheimer,â made by Universal Pictures, is something of a throwback â an expensive film from an old-line studio.
Other highlights included:
Emma Stone won the Oscar for best actress for âPoor Things,â a twist on the Frankenstein story from Searchlight Pictures. âLily, I share this with you,â Stone said from the stage, gesturing toward Lily Gladstone, the âKillers of the Flower Moonâ actress who had been considered a strong contender to win the prize going into the ceremony. Gladstone was the first Native American acting nominee. Stone previously won in the category for âLa La Landâ in 2017.
âPoor Thingsâ collected a quartet of Oscars overall, also winning for costumes, production design and makeup and hairstyling.
âBarbieâ melted as an Oscar contender, converting only one of its eight nominations to a win: Billie Eilish and Finneas OâConnell collected the trophy for best song for their âWhat Was I Made For?â (At 22, Eilish is now the youngest person ever to have won two Oscars, having cruised to a best song victory in 2022 for âNo Time to Die.â) But âBarbieâ did provide one of the telecastâs most rousing live moments, when Ryan Gosling, who played Ken, performed one of the movieâs other nominated songs (âIâm Just Kenâ) as an elaborate song-and-dance number replete with three dozen backup Kens, fireworks and a surprise appearance by Slash, the Guns Nâ Roses guitarist.
Downey accepted the Oscar for best supporting actor, completing a remarkable career arc â from scene-stealing young actor in the 1980s, to out-of-work drug addict in the 1990s, to a superhero comeback in the 2000s and 2010s, to Academy Award glory for his performance in âOppenheimer.â âIâd like to thank my terrible childhood and the academy, in that order,â Downey joked in a short acceptance speech that also touched on his stylist.
DaâVine Joy Randolph was named best supporting actress for playing a grieving mother and boarding school cook in âThe Holdovers.â âFor so long, Iâve always wanted to be different, and now I realize I only need to be myself,â Randolph said.
The Oscars for best sound and best international film went to âThe Zone of Interest,â in which a well-off Nazi couple exult in their good fortune while living next door to the Auschwitz concentration camp. In his speech, Jonathan Glazer, the filmâs director, decried âthe victims of dehumanization,â both in Israel and Gaza. âWe stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,â he said.
â20 Days in Mariupol,â Mstyslav Chernovâs account of the atrocities committed during the early days of Russiaâs invasion of Ukraine, won the Oscar for best documentary feature. âI wish Iâd never made this film,â he said in his speech. âI wish Iâd been able to exchange this for Russia never attacking Ukraine.â
Justine Triet and Arthur Harari accepted the original screenplay Oscar for âAnatomy of a Fall,â a courtroom thriller about a woman accused of murder. Voters honored Cord Jefferson with the adapted screenplay Oscar for âAmerican Fiction,â a satire about a writer who puts together a novel that turns on racial stereotypes.
Jimmy Kimmel, hosting the ceremony for the second year in a row, avoided politics in his monologue, opting instead to poke fun (gently) at nominated films. The closest he came to controversy was a crack about the omission of Greta Gerwig, the âBarbieâ filmmaker, as a directing nominee. âI know youâre clapping, but youâre the ones who didnât vote for her,â Kimmel said, as the camera cut to a smiling Gerwig. Toward the end of the show, he did joke about a social media post from former President Donald J. Trump, who criticized the job Kimmel was doing as a host.
âIsnât it past your jail time?â Kimmel said.
Former President Donald J. Trump couldnât help himself. And Jimmy Kimmel couldnât resist either. So the Oscars wound to a close on a political note.
Kimmel used some of his final stage time as host to read, to millions of Americans watching at home, a post published on Truth Social by Trump. (And yes, he really did post it.)
Drawing out his phone onstage, Kimmel decided to share what he called âa review.â
âHas there ever been a worse host than Jimmy Kimmel at the Oscars,â Kimmel said, reading part of Trumpâs post, which included a disparaging nickname for the ABC host George Stephanopoulos.
âHis opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be,â Kimmel continued. âGet rid of Kimmel and perhaps replace him with another washed up, but cheap, ABC âtalent,â George Slopanopoulos. He would make everybody on stage look bigger, stronger, and more glamorous.â
âBlah, blah, blah,â Kimmel said. âMake America great again.â
After asking the audience, âSee if you can guess which former president just posted that?â Kimmel offered one final jab, expressing surprise that Trump had stayed up to watch the telecast.
âIsnât it past your jail time?â he said.
Al Pacino put a room full of Hollywood stars a little bit on edge to close out the 96th Academy Awards.
Rather than listing all 10 nominees while presenting the best picture Oscar, or offering a conventional âAnd the Oscar goes to,â Pacino simply said âHere it comesâ before slowly opening the envelope.
âAnd my eyes see âOppenheimer,ââ Pacino said next, to tepid applause from an audience that seemed unsure whether that statement was the most important proclamation of the night.
âYes, yes,â Pacino, 83, said of the movie that was considered the favorite to win best picture and finished with a night-best seven awards.
At that point, on came the music, and cheers rose from the crowd. The camera cut to Christopher Nolan, the filmâs director, and Emma Thomas, one of its producers, as they stood up and made their way to the stage.
Did Jimmy Kimmel see it coming? Just minutes earlier, Kimmel, the host of the ceremony, made a joke about needing to tear up the envelope that said Emma Stone had won best actress for âPoor Things,â an allusion to the epic âMoonlightâ/âLa La Landâ best picture mix-up of 2017.
After the ceremony, Bill Kramer, the chief executive of the academy, said he was pleased with Pacinoâs performance. âEverything went beautifully,â Kramer said. âHe was just having fun up there.â
Nicole Sperling contributed reporting.
Lily Gladstone, whose powerful performance in âKillers of the Flower Moonâ fueled a rapid ascent to Hollywood stardom, ended a career-defining awards season run at the Oscars, where she was the first Native American person to be nominated for a competitive acting Academy Award.
She lost the award, for best actress, to Emma Stone for âPoor Things.â
Gladstone played a wealthy Osage woman whose family becomes a target of a murderous plot by white men to steal their oil rights. The actress quickly drew accolades following the premiere of Martin Scorseseâs three-and-a-half-hour historical epic at the Cannes Film Festival last May.
âYou are the soul of âKillers of the Flower Moon,ââ said the actress Jennifer Lawrence, as she introduced Gladstone as a nominee on Sunday.
Earlier this year, Gladstone, who has Blackfeet and Nez PercÊ heritage, became the first Indigenous person to win a Golden Globe for best actress, using her moment on the stage to share a snippet of Blackfeet language and remind the industry how far Hollywood had come in representing Native Americans onscreen.
âIn this business Native actors used to speak their lines in English and then the sound mixers would run them backwards to accomplish Native languages on camera,â said Gladstone, 37, who also picked up best-actress wins from the Screen Actors Guild and the New York Film Critics Circle.
Other Indigenous performers have won Oscars. The folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie is considered the first, getting best original song for âUp Where We Belongâ from âAn Officer and a Gentlemanâ in 1983 (though her Indigenous Canadian heritage has recently been disputed), and Taika Waititi, who is of Maori descent, took home best adapted screenplay for âJojo Rabbitâ (2019). In the best actress category, Indigenous performers like Keisha Castle-Hughes (âWhale Rider,â 2003) and Yalitza Aparicio (âRoma,â 2018) have been in the running for the honor. But among Native Americans, Gladstone is the first to be nominated for that competitive prize. (Wes Studi, who is Cherokee American, received an honorary Oscar in 2019.)
âThereâs a handful of people who love film that have been aware of my career for a while, but this has been like being shot out of a cannon,â Gladstone told The New York Times in a profile earlier this year.
In portraying Mollie Burkhart, a real-life figure who survived the Reign of Terror against the Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma, Gladstone brought to life the complexities of a woman who was both charmed by the romantic interest of a brash white interloper â played by Leonardo DiCaprio â and deeply suspicious of him. With a performance that could be both emotionally reserved but gutting, Gladstone became the standout in a cast that included two longtime Hollywood fixtures, DiCaprio and Robert De Niro.
Gladstone did not follow the typical path of an actor. Instead of moving to Los Angeles or New York to audition in her 20s, she stayed in Montana, touring schools with a one-woman show about the Native American boarding school system and building relationships with local filmmakers. Her career breakthrough came in the 2016 film âCertain Women.â
With âKillers of the Flower Moon,â Gladstoneâs talents were given the heft of a big-budget film. She learned to speak Osage with a language teacher and dialect coach, and she consulted with Margie Burkhart, her characterâs granddaughter, about her grandparentsâ relationship. After Scorsese met in Oklahoma with descendants of the victims, the director worked to deepen the roles of the Osage characters in the script, giving Gladstone access to experts who could advise her on aspects of her performance.
As she has made the media rounds, Gladstone has spoken about the challenges in an industry with few opportunities for Native actors. A recent study found that out of roles in 1,600 films released from 2007 to 2022, speaking parts for Native actors amounted to less than one quarter of 1 percent.
âIf Iâve kicked the door in,â Gladstone said in an interview with The New Yorker, âIâm just trying to stand here and leave it open for everybody else.â
Critic at large
OK, people. The 96th Oscars have come to an end. No violence was committed, just a closing shot of the dog from âAnatomy of a Fallâ lifting his leg over Matt Damonâs Hollywood Walk of Fame star â to Dua Lipaâs âDance the Night,â at that. So the burns were merely sick-ish. Thanks for joining us, everybody. See you next year.
Culture reporter
Damon wasnât in the house tonight and still couldnât escape being made the butt of a Kimmel joke.
Critic at large
Thereâs also something refreshing about how much Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas, who produced âOppenheimer,â mentioned, in their respective speeches, how much theyâve been dreaming about this moment, more or less. I mean, you can definitely feel it in the movie.
Movie critic
And there it is â âOppenheimerâ is this yearâs best picture winner, and the highest-grossing winner in that category since âThe Kingâs Speechâ in 2011.
Critic at large
Al Pacino presents best picture, and he makes us all nervous with the casual way he declares âOppenheimerâ the winner.
ADVERTISEMENT
âOppenheimer,â Christopher Nolanâs hit drama about the man who helped create the atomic bomb, won best picture.
That victory capped a huge night for the film, which won seven Oscars total, including awards for director (Nolan), actor (Cillian Murphy) and supporting actor (Robert Downey Jr.).
Released last summer to glowing reviews and a worldwide box-office total nearing $1 billion, âOppenheimerâ was considered the front-runner even before awards season began. Though some presumed favorites canât sustain their momentum over several months, âOppenheimerâ never faltered, earning top prizes from the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, BAFTAs and every major Hollywood guild along the way.
And why shouldnât it have had a charmed run? When it comes to what awards-season voters typically respond to, âOppenheimerâ ticked so many boxes that it could have been designed in an Oscar-friendly Los Alamos lab: Itâs a period drama about a great historical figure, set against World War II, directed by a major Hollywood auteur. The cherry on top is that audiences responded to it, too: Itâs now the third highest-grossing film to win best picture, behind only âTitanicâ and âThe Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.â
Movie critic
Jimmy Kimmel makes a joke about tearing up the envelope âso thereâs no confusion with best picture,â which is a joke about the last time Stone won best actress, for âLa La Landâ â and then that film was accidentally announced as best picture winner, instead of âMoonlight,â in some kind of envelope mix-up.
Critic at large
We can talk about how Lily Gladstone didnât win and what it would have meant if she had won. But Emma Stoneâs truly was the most inventive, surprising performance I saw last year.
Culture reporter
Emma Stone and Lily Gladstone, her competitor in the best actress race, have become friends, and Emma tells her, âI am in awe of you.â
Critic at large
Gladstone also appeared to be the first one to stand up and cheer when Stoneâs name was called.
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
Extremely brutal shutout for âKillers of the Flower Moon,â but Martin Scorsese is used to it: His films âThe Irishmanâ and âGangs of New Yorkâ also went 0 for 10.
Movie critic
Among other things, Emma Stoneâs dress burst, which really does feel like something that would happen in a bad dream.
Culture reporter
Emma Stone, walking to the stage to accept best actress, looked genuinely stunned.
Last yearâs Oscar for best actress went to a universe-hopping laundromat owner who at one point appears to have hot dogs for fingers. Naturally, this year had to go even stranger.
The award went to Emma Stone for her performance in the Yorgos Lanthimos-directed âPoor Thingsâ as Bella Baxter, once dead but resurrected by a mad scientist, who implanted the brain of her unborn child into her skull.
The result is a full-grown woman with the impulses of an infant, until she progresses into a child testing boundaries and searching for independence in a world where men are accustomed to dictating womenâs lives.
Stone, who was visibly overwhelmed in her acceptance speech, shared a conversation she had with Lanthimos, who is a frequent collaborator.
âThe other night I was panicking, as you can kind of see happens a lot, that maybe something like this could happen,â she said, âand Yorgos said to me, âPlease take yourself out of it.â And he was right because itâs not about me. Itâs about a team that came together to make something greater than the sum of its parts.â
The victory is Stoneâs second for best actress: she won for her turn as a striving Hollywood performer in the 2016 musical âLa La Land.â
In the fantastical, absurdist world of âPoor Things,â Stoneâs Bella Baxter is charmingly blunt, brash and intent on being free to experiment. In one memorable scene at a restaurant in Portugal, Baxter launches into a wild and silly dance, inspiring her lover (played by Mark Ruffalo) to furiously try matching her vigor.
âSheâs drinking up the world around her in such a unique and beautiful way that I just dream I could,â Stone, 35, said in an interview with The Times in November.
This past year was something of a crossroads for Stoneâs career as she made a sharp turn away from the kind of mainstream roles that made her famous (âEasy A,â âThe Helpâ). On TV, Stone starred alongside Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie in âThe Curse,â a satire of a home renovation show filled with little absurdities that almost rival the duck-headed bulldog in âPoor Things.â
Baxterâs unusual character arc provided Stone a unique actorâs playground as her character learned how to walk and talk, discovered her sexuality, learned the deepest horrors of humanity, and sought to forge her own life as an adult.
âI felt like I kind of lived with her for a long time,â Stone told Vanity Fair. âYorgos and I still talk about how we miss her now.â
A correction was made on
:
An earlier version of this article misstated the country where a scene in âPoor Thingsâ took place. It was Portugal, not Spain.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Critic at large
Michelle Yeoh, Jessica Lange, Sally Field, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Lawrence are presenting best actress, and the idea that Field, who just paid tribute to Emma Stone, watched âPoor Thingsâ brings me no end of fascination.
Culture reporter
Even in an A-list-filled room, thatâs a lot of wattage on one stage.
Reporting from the Dolby Theater
Emma Stone, during the final commercial break before the best actress category is called, exited her seat and ran over to her director, Yorgos Lanthimos, for a long hug and a quick chat.
The in memoriam segment at the Academy Awards opened not with a Hollywood star, but with a clip of Aleksei A. Navalny from âNavalny,â the Oscar-winning 2022 documentary about the Russian opposition leader who died last month in a Russian prison.
âThe only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing,â read a quote of Navalnyâs on the screen.
Taking a moment to recognize those in the film industry who have died since the previous Oscars ceremony, the telecast also paid tribute to stars such as Harry Belafonte, the barrier-breaking performer and activist, and Chita Rivera, the Broadway star who also appeared in films, as well as filmmakers such as Norman Jewison, the lauded director behind âIn the Heat of the Night,â âFiddler on the Roofâ and âMoonstruck.â
To accompany the tributes, the superstar tenor Andrea Bocelli sang âTime to Say Goodbyeâ â with a new orchestration by Hans Zimmer â alongside his son, Matteo Bocelli.
Here are some of figures the Academy honored:
Alan Arkin, the acclaimed actor who won an Oscar for his role in âLittle Miss Sunshineâ
Andre Braugher, a film, TV and theater actor who had roles in Spike Lee and Edward Zwick films
Michael Gambon, the acclaimed Irish-born actor who played Albus Dumbledore in the âHarry Potterâ movies
William Friedkin, director of the box office hits âThe French Connectionâ and âThe Exorcistâ
Bo Goldman, the admired Hollywood screenwriter who took home Oscars for his work on âOne Flew Over the Cuckooâs Nestâ and âMelvin and Howardâ
Glenda Jackson, the two-time Oscar winner who turned to politics in her 50s
Piper Laurie, a respected actress with three Oscar nominations, including for her role in âCarrieâ
Bill Lee, a jazz bassist and composer who scored the early films of his son Spike Lee
Richard Lewis, the acerbic stand-up comic who became a regular in movies and TV
Ryan OâNeal, who became an instant movie star in the 1970 hit film âLove Storyâ
Matthew Perry, the âFriendsâ star who had roles in movies such as âThe Whole Nine Yardsâ
Paul Reubens, the comic actor behind Pee-wee Herman who had scores of movie and TV credits
Richard Roundtree, one of the first Black action heroes who was catapulted to fame in the movie âShaftâ
Ryuichi Sakamoto, one of Japanâs most prominent composers, who scored the films âThe Last Emperor,â âThe Sheltering Skyâ and âThe Revenantâ
Tina Turner, the pop sensation who appeared in films such as âTommyâ and âMad Max Beyond Thunderdomeâ
Carl Weathers, a former pro linebacker, who played Apollo Creed in the âRockyâ movies
Culture reporter
Many social campaigns like #OscarsSoWhite changed the face of the academy, urging it to increase and diversify its membership. But Christopher Nolan may have single-handedly changed the awards just as much â it was after the furor over his âThe Dark Knightâ not being nominated that the organization decided to move to 10 best picture nominees, celebrating a much broader array of movies.
Cillian Murphy won the Oscar for best actor for his portrayal in âOppenheimerâ of the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who developed the atomic bomb and was haunted by its impact.
âFor better or for worse, weâre all living in Oppenheimerâs world,â Murphy said in his acceptance speech. âSo I would really like to dedicate this to the peacemakers everywhere.â
This is Murphyâs first Oscar win and his first nomination. He was a top contender at this yearâs Academy Awards after winning a slew of other awards, including best actor at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, best leading actor at the BAFTA Film Awards and best actor in a drama at the Golden Globes.
âItâs been the wildest, most exhilarating, most powerfully satisfying journey youâve taken me on over the last 20 years,â he said, thanking âOppenheimerâ producer Emma Thomas and director Christopher Nolan, who also won his first Oscar on Sunday night. âI owe you more than I can say.â
The contest for best actor had developed into a two-way race between Murphy and Paul Giamatti (âThe Holdoversâ), who won best actor at the Critics Choice Awards and best actor in a musical or comedy film at the Golden Globes.
Bradley Cooper (âMaestroâ), Colman Domingo (âRustinâ) and Jeffrey Wright (âAmerican Fictionâ) were also nominated in the category.
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
âŞIt may be counterintuitive, but just like the last time the Oscars did their lengthy former-winner presenter bit, this show looks like itâs going to run much shorter than it usually does.
ADVERTISEMENT
Movie critic
Incredibly, this is Christopher Nolanâs first directing Oscar.
Culture reporter
Cillian Murphy shouts out his 20-year working relationship with the âOppenheimerâ director Christopher Nolan. Itâs the sixth film theyâve worked on together, starting with âBatman Beginsâ in 2005.
Reporting from the Dolby Theater
Because best actress is seen as the one big race with some unpredictably to it, the academy switched its usual order and put director ahead of actress.
The Ukrainian director Mstyslav Chernov used his acceptance speech for â20 Days in Mariupol,â which won the Oscar for best documentary feature on Sunday, to give an emotional denunciation of the continued invasion of his country by Russian forces.
âIâll be the first director on this stage who will say, âI wish I never made this film,ââ Chernov said.
The harrowing first-person account from Chernov, a video journalist for The Associated Press, captures the first days of the Russian invasion and the devastation and destruction the port city of Mariupol faced. â20 Days in Mariupolâ is the first Ukrainian film to win an Oscar.
âI wish to be able to exchange this to Russia never attacking Ukraine, never occupying our cities,â Chernov continued. âI wish to give it all the recognition to Russia not killing tens of thousands of my fellow Ukrainians. I wish for them to release all the hostages, all the soldiers who are protecting their lands, all the civilians who are now in their jails.â
Chernov and his crew raced to make it out of Mariupol alive. He said in his speech that he could not change history but wanted it to be remembered.
âWe can make sure that the history record is set straight and that the truth will prevail and that the people of Mariupol and those who have given their lives will never be forgotten,â he said.
Many Ukrainians echoed this view on Monday as they celebrated on social media the news that the documentary had won an Oscar. They said seeing the documentary was crucial to truly understanding Russiaâs war of aggression in Ukraine.
âThe world saw the truth about Russiaâs crimes,â said Andriy Yermak, the head of the presidential office of Ukraine. âOur film broke enemy propaganda.â
In a statement last week before the awards ceremony, President Volodymyr Zelensky said the âhorrific and true storyâ told in the documentary was âcrucial to counter Russian lies, to keep Ukraine in the spotlight.â
Christopher Nolan won the directing Oscar for âOppenheimer,â the expected outcome after he took home the Directors Guild of Americaâs prize and a Golden Globe for his biopic of the physicist who led the Manhattan Project. Before this year, the British-born Nolan had won no Oscars and been nominated for directing only once, for the 2017 film âDunkirk.â One would-be contender in this category, the âBarbieâ director Greta Gerwig, was denied a nomination.
Reporter covering Hollywood
With three prizes to go, âOppenheimerâ is in the lead with five Oscars. Cillian Murphy, who played that filmâs title role, collected the award for best actor, while Robert Downey Jr., who played a nemesis government official, was named best supporting actor. âOppenheimerâ also won for editing, cinematography and score. âPoor Things,â a twist on the Frankenstein story, has received three Oscars (costumes, production design and makeup and hairstyling). Voters honored âThe Zone of Interestâ with two â best sound (seen as a toss-up between it and âOppenheimerâ) and best international film.
Critic at large
Nicolas Cage, Ben Kingsley, Matthew McConaughey, Brendan Fraser and Forest Whitaker pay tribute to the best actor nominees. Cage mentions that the lazy-eye contact lens Paul Giamatti wore made him blind during the âHoldoversâ shoot. âWould I have done that?â Cage asks. He would, he says. He, in fact, has done crazier.
Culture reporter
We are in the home stretch, and yet it will still take a long time, Kimmel notes. He coins a new one, âgetting Oppenhammered,â referencing all the audience members who are out at the bar.
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
âŞWhy did Wes Anderson miss the Oscars? A Netflix rep tells me he starts production on a new film tomorrow in Germany. âŹ
ADVERTISEMENT
Reporter covering Hollywood
âBarbieâ finally got some Oscar love. Ryan Gosling, who played Ken in the movie, performed one of its two nominated songs (âIâm Just Kenâ) as an elaborate song-and-dance number replete with three dozen backup Kens, fireworks and a surprise appearance by Slash, the Guns Nâ Roses guitarist. Billie Eilish and Finneas OâConnell collected the trophy for best song for their own âBarbieâ nominee, âWhat Was I Made For?â (At 22, Eilish is now the youngest person ever to have won two Oscars, having cruised to a best song victory in 2022 for âNo Time to Die.â) Now, the ceremony is in its âin memoriamâ segment.
Culture reporter
Alexei Navalny appears in a clip from âNavalnyâ at the start of the in memoriam segment.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Hereâs a sign of the times that I donât like. We were just instructed to use a QR code to see the honorary Oscar nomineesâ taped ceremony. Not even a recap for the live broadcast. No me gusta.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
People, by my count, weâre in the home stretch. Four awards left, right?
March 10, 2024
Movie critic
I think youâre right, but thereâs still an âin memoriamâ to come, too, I believe.
Reporting from the Dolby Theater
And with best original song, there was the one and most likely only Oscar win for the night for âBarbie.â
March 10, 2024
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
With her second victory, the 22-year-old Billie Eilish becomes by far the youngest person ever to have won two Oscars. (And I suspect that record will hold for a very, very long time.)
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
And she just thanked the friends she played Barbies with and the teacher who didnât like her but, she says, was good at her job.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
She may have a future as a dramatic performer, too. In a surprise cameo last year, Eilish guest-starred as a cult leader on the Amazon Prime drama âSwarm.â
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
More bits have been thrown to Bradley Cooperâs mother, Gloria, tonight than to her son.
Billie Eilishâs tender, yearning ballad âWhat Was I Made For?â won for original song, ensuring that âBarbieâ will leave the ceremony with at least one Oscar.
The soundtrack for Greta Gerwigâs blockbuster film became a powerhouse unto itself, loaded with songs by A-list stars. âWhat Was I Made For?,â which Eilish wrote with her brother, Finneas OâConnell, won song of the year at the Grammys and was the favorite in this category at the Oscars. This is the siblingsâ second original-song Oscar. They previously won for âNo Time to Dieâ from the 2021 James Bond blockbuster.
âI was not expecting this,â Eilish said in a speech. âIâm so grateful for this song and for this movie and the way that it made me feel. And this goes out to everyone who was affected by the movie and how incredible it is.â
In a sign of the strength of the âBarbieâ soundtrack, the winnerâs stiffest Oscars competition may have been another song from the film, âIâm Just Ken,â Ryan Goslingâs doleful lamentation. Gosling, and a large ensemble that included some of the filmâs Kens, performed the number on Sunday night.
âBarbie,â which has grossed $1.4 billion at the box office worldwide, came into the evening with eight Oscar nominations but was a favorite only in the song category.
March 10, 2024
Reporting from the Dolby Theater
The crowd went berserk for âIâm Just Ken,â no one more than Greta Gerwig, who immediately hugged Mark Ronson when he came into the audience at the end of number. She and Margot Robbie knew the moves and danced along, and the academy urged the audience to get involved, telling them to turn on their phone flashlights and sing along to the final verse.
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
Amir Hamja/The New York Times
In one of the most anticipated and surely one of the most exuberant moments of Oscar night, Ryan Gosling took the stage to perform âIâm Just Ken,â the nominated song from âBarbieâ by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt.
Wearing a sparkling pink suit and a cowboy hat, Gosling started out in the audience serenading his âBarbieâ co-star Margot Robbie, who couldnât contain her giggles. He then took the stage surrounded by an army of besuited Ken dancers, including fellow movie Kens Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa and Scott Evans. Mark Ronson joined him onstage but Slash of Guns Nâ Roses did the true shredding, showing up midway through for a cameo. In a Ken-like demonstration of (minimal) strength he punched through a pink board with his hand, wearing a pink glove.
At one point, Gosling returned to the crowd leading a singalong that included Robbie, director Greta Gerwig, âBarbieâ actress America Ferrera and Emma Stone. (Stone was not in âBarbie,â however, she sang with Gosling in âLa La Land.â)
On the red carpet, Ronson promised an âabsolutely bananas spectacleâ in an interview with E!, and he delivered on that promise, complete with cut outs of Barbie heads and a âGentlemen Prefer Blondesâ aesthetic.
âDoing any sort of live TV is nerve-racking, and then to do it in that room? Thereâs not many rooms that are more intimidating,â Simu Liu told The Times at the Governors Ball following the telecast. âNerves were running high and there was such a moment of elation when we were done: âYes!â I think we pulled it off,â he said.
In another life, Gosling might have gone the pop star route. He got his start on âThe All New Mickey Mouse Club,â the revival of the classic Disney variety show, which also launched the careers of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Justin Timberlake. Before that, Gosling was a child dancer. His early routines, including one in which he wears âHammer pants,â have received tens of millions of views online.
But instead of pursuing music celebrity, Gosling aimed to be an actor in âserious film,â as he once told The New York Times. He considered his past a hindrance. Agents dropped him. âItâs very hard coming from kidsâ television to break the stigma,â he explained in 2011. âAll you have is a VHS tape of you humping stuff on âThe Mickey Mouse Clubâ and wearing fake tanner and fighting imaginary sphinxes.â (That latter bit was a reference to his time on âYoung Hercules.â)
But even as Gosling moved from child performer to feted movie star, he never truly gave up his song and dance chops. There was a detour in 2009 when he made an indie rock record with his friend Zach Shields as the duo Dead Manâs Bones, which featured the Silverlake Conservatory of Music Childrenâs Choir on their goth tracks.
And filmmakers have been eager to use his talents. He was nominated for best actor for crooning and tap dancing in the musical âLa La Landâ (2017). Even so, when that filmâs song âCity of Starsâ was up for (and won) best original song, Gosling did not take the stage. Instead, executive producer and fellow cast member John Legend did the honors.
âBarbie,â however, got Gosling to commit to the bit. âIâm Just Kenâ accompanies the dream ballet near the end of Greta Gerwigâs billion-dollar blockbuster in which Goslingâs Ken expresses his torment over playing second fiddle to Barbie (Margot Robbie) in Barbie Land. In addition to busting a move for the film, Gosling also sang on âKen the EP,â which featured the original version of the tune and three additional ones, including âIâm Just Ken (Merry Kristmas Barbie).â
Kyle Buchanan contributed to this report.
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
Their song concluded, the Kens are jumping up and down. They are hooting and hollering. Now they are running through the aisles. Itâs Ken-demonium in the theater.
Critic at large
Greta Gerwig is still standing gesturing at the stage in elated disbelief.
Culture reporter
The moment the people at my Oscar party, at least, were waiting for: âIâm Just Ken,â performed by Ryan Gosling, rising in hot pink from the audience and joined by many men (who are not yet shirtless, sob).
Culture reporter
Gosling looks like heâs having the time of his life.
Critic at large
This number doesnât need shirtlessness because now it has Slash.
Culture reporter
And a helping hand from the songwriter and producer Mark Ronson, plus Goslingâs co-stars Simu Liu and Kingsley Ben-Adir.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
It had a Busby Berkeley moment with the faces of vintage Barbies, and ends as a karaoke number for the audience with the lyrics flashing onscreen.
Reporter covering Hollywood
âBarbie,â âKillers of the Flower Moonâ and âMaestroâ have won nothing so far, despite having 25 nominations among them. Instead, âOppenheimerâ began to dominate as the ceremony rolled into its third hour, adding the Oscar for cinematography to wins earlier in the night for Robert Downey Jr.âs supporting performance and Jennifer Lameâs film editing. âThe Zone of Interestâ won the Oscar for best sound, while the documentary feature trophy went to â20 Days in Mariupol,â a searing account of the atrocities committed during the early days of Russiaâs invasion of Ukraine. âI wish Iâd never made this film,â the director, Mstyslav Chernov, said in his speech. âI wish Iâd been able to exchange this for Russia never attacking Ukraine.â The Oscar for live-action short went to an absent Wes Anderson for âThe Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,â on Netflix
Reporting from the Dolby Theater
Emma Stone leaped out of her seat to start that standing ovation for the win by âThe Zone of Interestâ in sound.
March 10, 2024
Movie critic
I donât root for Oscar winners, on principle, but I do root for one thing: John Mulaney to host the Oscars.
Reporting from the Dolby Theater
Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig and America Ferrera have been moved into the front row, and the three of them are holding hands while they laugh at John Mulaney.
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
Jimmy Kimmel must have missed last yearâs Champagne red carpet. He changed jackets mid-show to one in that color.
March 10, 2024
Photographer at the Oscars
Annette Bening, Margot Robbie, Emma Stone and Lily Gladstone talk during a commercial break.
March 10, 2024
Movie critic
Wes Anderson wins his first Oscar, live-action short film, for âThe Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,â which is an adaptation of a Roald Dahl story starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Itâs part of a four-short compilation for Netflix. Anderson wasnât there to accept â I bet heâs holding out for his first feature win.
Critic at large
How’s that going to go for him? The magic of âHenry Sugar,â in part, is its concision. Strangely, âAsteroid Cityâ is an âOppenheimerâ companion piece in a sense, and was treated like a novelty. Like, whatâs a Wes Anderson best picture contender look like now?
Wes Andersonâs âThe Wonderful Story of Henry Sugarâ won for live action short, giving the celebrated filmmaker his first Academy Award. The 39-minute film is adapted from a Roald Dahl short story and features Ralph Fiennes, Benedict Cumberbatch and Ben Kingsley. Anderson, 54, who was not present at the ceremony to accept the award, has received four individual nominations. Two of his movies have been nominated for animated feature and one, âThe Grand Budapest Hotelâ (2014), received a nod for best picture
Culture reporter
The âOppenheimerâ win for cinematography was expected, but I still want to shout out that âBarbieâ and âKillers of the Flower Moonâ had the same cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto.
Movie critic
The âOppenheimerâ cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema comes out strong in favor of shooting on celluloid, and I tend to agree with him.
Critic at large
The Oscars â the only place where a rousing speech denouncing a war and calling on a room to act against it can be followed by a tracking shot of tuxedoed beefcake line-flexing for the camera.
March 10, 2024
Movie critic
â20 Days in Mariupolâ wins for documentary feature, and that was mostly expected; itâs the first Ukrainian film to win an Oscar. The director Mstyslav Chernov, an Associated Press journalist, was caught in the crossfire in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol when the bombing started. He and his colleagues kept their cameras rolling. âI wish Iâd never made this film,â he says in his speech. âI wish Iâd been able to exchange this for Russia never attacking Ukraine, never occupying our cities … never killing tens of thousands of my fellow Ukrainians … But I cannot change the history. I cannot change the past. But we all together … we can make sure that the history record is set straight and that the truth will prevail.â
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Probably the most harrowing film of the awards season? After meticulously documenting the staggering loss of life in the early days of the war (refuting Russian claims of âfake newsâ in real time), Chernov and his crew raced to make it out of Mariupol alive.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Bit alert: Kate McKinnon and America Ferrera, presenting the documentary Oscars, did a bit about how McKinnon believes the âJurassic Parkâ movies are real. Fererra says theyâre not. McKinnon says, âOh, America. Not you, too.â Then she asks if Jeff Goldblum is real. Ferrera says no to that, too. So to whom has McKinnon been sending her nudes? Cut to Spielberg, who points at himself.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
I laughed out loud! These are some really sophisticated bits for such a big show with such high stakes.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Jimmy Kimmelâs sidekick, Guillermo, just handed out tequila while sitting next to Colman Domingo and Jeffrey Wright, and declared Charlize Theron his wife.
March 10, 2024
Reporter covering Hollywood
Robert Downey Jr. accepted the Oscar for best supporting actor, completing a remarkable career arc â from scene-stealing young actor in the 1980s, to out-of-work drug addict in the 1990s, to Marvel superhero in the 2000s and 2010s, to Academy Award glory for his performance in âOppenheimer.â âIâd like to thank my terrible childhood and the academy, in that order,â Downey joked in a short acceptance speech that also touched on his stylist. An âOppenheimerâ colleague, Jennifer Lame, won the Oscar for film editing. So far, however, âPoor Thingsâ has collected the most trophies, winning for costumes, production design and makeup and hairstyling. âBarbieâ is 0-for-5.
Godzilla is one of cinemaâs longest running characters, terrifying people around the world in dozens of films over seven decades.
But the prehistoric monster had never been to the Oscars until now. âGodzilla Minus One,â the 37th film in the franchise, finally broke through, winning for best visual effects. The film, directed by Takashi Yamazaki, was a surprise success in theaters, grossing $98 million worldwide after its December release.
âThe Creator,â âGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,â âMission: Impossible â Dead Reckoning Part Oneâ and âNapoleonâ were also nominated in the category.
Culture reporter
The editing winner Jennifer Lame has range: Before she first teamed up with Christopher Nolan â on the action epic âTenetâ â she was the indie director Noah Baumbachâs go-to editor and also worked on the gnarly horror hit âHereditaryâ for Ari Aster.
Movie critic
Jon Batiste is the central subject in âAmerican Symphony,â which missed an expected documentary feature nomination, but he still gets his Oscars moment with âIt Never Went Away,â the song from the film. The camerawork in this performance reminds me a bit of âAmerican Symphony,â too.
Culture reporter
The win for âOppenheimerâ in editing bodes well for its best picture chances. Not that it needs any more boding.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
The âGodzilla Minus Oneâ team has been making the rounds during Oscar season with their little Godzillas, and they make cute accessories on the stage (though hard to juggle the statue and the reptile!).
ADVERTISEMENT
Reporting from the Dolby Theater
Scott Stuber, former head of film for Netflix, with his wife, model Molly Sims, chat up Warner Discovery chief executive David Zaslav. Greta Lee, adorned in black and white, is regaling the executives at Disney/Searchlight as they joke that after the early âPoor Thingsâ wins, perhaps they will take it all.
March 10, 2024
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
âGodzilla Minus One,â with its estimated budget of less than $15 million, is the lowest-budget film to win the visual effects Oscar since âEx Machina.â
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Wait, that room just gave the stars of âTwinsâ a standing ovation. Nostalgia is strong tonight.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
But the stars of âTwinsâ just formed two-thirds of a good âBatmanâ-villain bit thanks to Michael Keatonâs scowl and his Bruce Wayne-y ascot. Never mind that Keaton was never Arnold Schwarzeneggerâs âBatman.â It worked.
The documentary category isnât usually too controversial, but this year it was. All five nominees are international movies, and a Variety article noted complaints from filmmakers who felt that films like âAmerican Symphonyâ and âStill: A Michael J. Fox Movie,â both directed by Americans and favored by Oscar prognosticators, were snubbed despite spending substantial resources on their campaigns. In truth, this batch of nominations is likely a reflection of the widening taste of the documentary branch, especially as the composition of the academy becomes more international.
March 10, 2024
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
Robert Downey Jr. thanks his stylist. And stylists, in truth, have changed the Oscars game. In 1989, Downey wore a tuxedo with a green tie and sparkly cummerbund and looked like a wayward clog dancer.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
I liked Downeyâs speech for winning for âOppenheimerâ a lot more than I liked his speeches in âOppenheimer.â
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
He was being his charisma-dripping self. What movie stars (as distinguished from mere “actors”) do best!
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Robert Downey Jr. says, âWhat we do is meaningful and the stuff we decide to make is important,â and then goes on to thank his publicist and his lawyer who spent years trying to get him insured. (Downey, who had longtime addiction issues, was considered an employment risk.)
March 10, 2024
Reporting from the Dolby Theater
In the press room, the director Justine Triet tells the media that at first she had wanted to use Dolly Partonâs âJoleneâ as the infamous track that plays on loop during âAnatomy of a Fall,â but they were unable to secure the rights. So they used the steel drum rendition of âP.I.M.P.â instead. âIâm 45,â she said, âand when I was young I listened to 50 Cent a lot.â
The Israel-Hamas war was prominently addressed on the Oscars stage on Sunday in an acceptance speech for âThe Zone of Interest,â which follows the domestic life of a Nazi commandant whose house is just outside the Auschwitz concentration camp.
The director Jonathan Glazer read from prepared remarks after the film won for best international feature, offering thanks to collaborators before turning to the conflict.
âAll our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present â not to say, âLook what they did then,â rather, âLook what we do now.â Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present.â
Glazer, who is Jewish, said that he rejected âJewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.â
He continued: âWhether the victims of October the seventh in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?â
âThe Zone of Interest,â featuring Sandra HĂźller and Christian Friedel, was nominated for five Oscars, including best picture.
On the red carpet earlier in the evening, some attendees â including the singer Billie Eilish and the actor Ramy Youssef â wore red pins to signify their call for a cease-fire in the conflict. This yearâs Golden Globes, Emmys and Grammys included few references to the war, with celebrities wary to weigh in.
James Wilson, a producer of âThe Zone of Interest,â also addressed the war in one of his acceptance speeches at the BAFTA Film Awards last month. In his speech, he referred to the walls that people construct in their lives.
âThose walls arenât new from before or during or since the Holocaust,â Wilson said at the BAFTAs. âAnd it seems stark right now that we should care about innocent people being killed in Gaza or Yemen in the same way we think about innocent people being killed in Mariupol or in Israel.â
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Robert Downey Jr.: âIâd like to thank my terrible childhood.â
Robert Downey Jr. won the Oscar for best supporting actor for his portrayal of Lewis Strauss, the reserved and calculating rival to the titular character in âOppenheimer,â the Christopher Nolan blockbuster.
âIâd like to thank my terrible childhood and the Academy, in that order,â Downey joked in a nod to his once-turbulent career. He later added: âWhat we do is meaningful and the stuff that we decide to make is important.â
The win is Downeyâs first Oscar after three previous nominations. He also won at the Golden Globes and at the BAFTAs for his work in âOppenheimer.â The victory is also notable for another reason: itâs the first Oscar for a cast member of âSaturday Night Live,â which Downey joined in 1985-86.
Sterling K. Brown (âAmerican Fictionâ), Robert De Niro (âKillers of the Flower Moonâ), Ryan Gosling (âBarbieâ) and Mark Ruffalo (âPoor Thingsâ) were also nominated in the category.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Ke Huy Quan, Sam Rockwell, Tim Robbins, Christoph Waltz and Mahershala Ali are presenting the supporting actor Oscar, and the nominee Robert De Niro is all but scowling (even when Robbins accidentally calls his âFlower Moonâ performance Oscar-winning).
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Movie critic
Christoph Waltz is somehow the most perfect and most hilarious person to pay tribute to Ryan Goslingâs Ken.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Could almost hear a hint of his âDjango Unchainedâ character in his line delivery. Did Tarantino do punch-up?
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
âThere are actors, and then there are actors who donât drop character until the DVD commentary,â Sam Rockwell says in introducing his buddy Robert Downey Jr. in the best supporting actor run-up.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Jimmy Kimmel: âIf this was an AMC theater, the show would just be starting right now.â
Critic at large
The presenters Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling just did a whole âBarbenheimerâ bit, and I have to say, the producers appear to be trying to keep people watching. Blunt and Gosling went hard at each other over who won last summer and it was funny. She accused his abs of being C.G.I.! Who knows whoâs watching, but a show is being put on.
March 10, 2024
Film editor
Jonathan Glazerâs speech went much further than the âZone of Interestâ winners have in previous ceremonies. He said: âRight now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked, an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October the seventh in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims, this dehumanization, how do we resist?â
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Jonathan Glazer, winner for âThe Zone of Interest,â set during the Holocaust, gives one of the first political speeches of the night, decrying âthe victims of dehumanization,â both in Israel and Gaza. âHow do we resist?â
March 10, 2024
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
Glazerâs speech went over well inside the ceremony. I heard a lot of cheers. Notable, too, that this is a topic that most people have assiduously avoided while taking the awards-season stage this se
Movie critic
Thereâs been a lot of non-English-language work featured in this yearâs Oscars. Thatâs always true of the international feature category, of course â just awarded to âThe Zone of Interestâ â but the documentary category is all international this year too, and as Kimmel pointed out, three of the 10 best picture nominees are largely or entirely in languages other than English. And thereâs the best song nominee that was just performed, âWahzhazhe (A Song for My People),â with lyrics in the Osage language. The academyâs expansion into more international membership is a big part of the reason.
Culture reporter
The director Jonathan Glazer is known for his deliberate working pace. His last feature, âUnder the Skin,â was released in 2014.
Culture reporter
Bad Bunny introduces the international film category in Spanish, and Dwayne Johnson responds by making a pun on his name (âyou see, heâs not such a bad bunnyâ). The terrible name-puns are flying tonight.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
OK, did you all just catch that shot backstage of a be-gowned John Cena walking between fellow wrestlers Bad Bunny and the Rock and sheepishly, boyishly looking up at the Rock and shaking his hand? WWE pun alert: I wonder if he really does wish âYou Canât See Meâ were true. It doesnât matter. The naked-presenter bit was funny. Cena sold it.
March 10, 2024
Reporter covering Hollywood
âPoor Things,â a twist on the Frankenstein story, collected a trio of Oscars early in the ceremonyâs second hour, winning for costumes, production design and makeup and hairstyling. (John Cena presented the costume category, appearing naked except for a well-placed envelope.) Will voter support for âPoor Thingsâ extend to Emma Stone, a best actress nominee? That prize is scheduled for later in the ceremony, with Stone considered to be in a photo finish with Lily Gladstone, the âKillers of the Flower Moonâ actress.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Thatâs a lot of branches voting for âPoor Things.â Letâs make this a race, folks!
March 10, 2024
Reporting from the Dolby Theater
Emma Stone in the lobby bar with Florence Pugh when a naked John Cena crosses the Oscar stage. Pugh turns around dramatically and says, âWho is he streaking for, everyone is out here?â Then when âPoor Thingsâ wins for best costumes, Emma groans loudly, âWe are missing every one of these,â visibly upset when they thank her specifically and sheâs not in the auditorium to hear it.
Movie critic
Since weâre still awaiting the arrival of the much-heralded 75 shirtless Kens, I think we can safely say this is the Male Body Oscars.
March 10, 2024
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
Oscar is emphatically giving male body, including the parade of phenomenally fit actors who are now universally the suit size of a runway model.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
The costume designer for âPoor Things,â Holly Waddington, told me she got exactly one image as a directive from the filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos: a young designerâs take on âinflatable trousers.â
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
John Cena appears, naked save for an envelope, to do some kind of streaker bit, that he thinks better of. âThe male body is not supposed to be funny,â Cena says. âMine is,â Kimmel replies. Heâs announcing for costumes.
March 10, 2024
Movie critic
Well, I … donât think anyone will forget who won costume design at these Oscars.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
A second early win for âPoor Things,â this time for production design.
ADVERTISEMENT
Critic at large
This makeup Oscar for âPoor Thingsâ is a good one, not just for Willem Dafoeâs scone face but also for Kathryn Hunterâs full-body ink. My third favorite performance in that movie.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
âPoor Thingsâ wins for best makeup and hair, which probably bodes well for its chances in the costume category, too.
March 10, 2024
Movie critic
And production design!
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
With two well-liked but longshot best picture contenders already awarded in âAnatomy of a Fallâ and âAmerican Fiction,â are we headed for a wealth-spreading âEverybody gets a prize!â kind of year?
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Stay tuned! Iâm definitely not rooting for anything like a sweep.
March 10, 2024
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
After the quiet, lovely Billie Eilish performance, the crowd that has stayed fairly rapt for the past hour makes a beeline to the lobby bars.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Billie Eilish and Finneas perform the heavy Oscar favorite âWhat Was I Made For?â â a performance that has to compete with their rendition on the Grammys, an award they also won. This show at least gets a reaction shot from Kate McKinnon.
March 10, 2024
Photographer at the Oscars
Colman Domingo and Danielle Brooks chat with DaâVine Joy Randolph inside the Dolby Theater.
ADVERTISEMENT
The actress Vanessa Hudgens, one of the hosts of ABCâs Oscars pre-show, included a subtle pregnancy announcement in her coverage of the red carpet on Sunday evening.
âI clearly have a lot to be excited for,â she said at the beginning of the broadcast, positioning her hands on her stomach.
Ms. Hudgens, 35, wore a fitted black Vera Wang gown with long sleeves and a turtleneck. She did not explicitly discuss her pregnancy during the broadcast, instead keeping her attention on the stars she was interviewing.
A representative for Ms. Hudgens did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday.
This is the third consecutive year that Ms. Hudgens, who became a household name with her role in âHigh School Musicalâ in 2006, has hosted âThe Oscars Red Carpet Showâ on ABC.
Ms. Hudgens married Cole Tucker, a baseball player, in Mexico in December. (For that occasion, she also wore a streamlined Vera Wang gown.) This will be the coupleâs first child.
During the broadcast, Ms. Hudgens traded off interviews with her co-host, Julianne Hough, and acknowledged that the ceremony was taking place on Indigenous land. Her interview subjects included Emma Stone, Simu Liu, Ariana Grande and America Ferrera.
When her coverage shift concluded, she held a microphone in one bejeweled hand and beamed into the camera. âThat was a lot of fun,â she said.
March 10, 2024
Reporter covering Hollywood
An hour into the Oscars, no film had collected more than one award. Justine Triet and Arthur Harari accepted the original screenplay Oscar for âAnatomy of a Fall,â a courtroom thriller about a woman accused of murder. Voters honored Cord Jefferson with the adapted screenplay Oscar for âAmerican Fiction,â a satire about a writer who puts together a novel that turns on racial stereotypes. âThe Boy and the Heronâ and âThe Holdoversâ won Oscars earlier in the telecast.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Cord Jefferson wrote âAmerican Fictionâ at a career low point, having just had a television series scrapped at the last minute. He has said that when he discovered âErasure,â the novel on which the film is based, it âfelt like somebody had written a gift specifically for me.â
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
The first-time Oscar nominee Cord Jefferson takes the prize for best adapted screenplay to robust applause.
March 10, 2024
Movie critic
Jefferson uses the stage to call for more mid-budget movies. âA $200 million dollar movie is a risk, too,â he says.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Iâm with you, Cord. More $10 million movies!
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
âBarbieâ gets a big round of applause during the nominee announcement for adapted screenplay, but the winner is âAmerican Fiction.â
Jimmy Kimmel opened the Oscars with ingratiating self-deprecation (âThank you for that partial standing ovationâ) and closed with a nod to Hollywood as a union town. In between, he did just fine, delivering a broad, conversational set, full of safe roasts (a jab at Robert De Niro dating younger, a knock on the flop âMadame Webâ), a crowd-pleasing cameo by a dog and a corny joke about Robert Downey Jr.âs pants. Nothing hilarious or daring. But it was a confident and clubby set, one youâd expect from a veteran host who had been there, done that.
ADVERTISEMENT
Cord Jefferson won the writing award for adapted screenplay for âAmerican Fiction,â a mild surprise in a category believed to be bound for âBarbieâ writers Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach after Gerwigâs surprise snub from a directing nomination. Jeffersonâs adaptation of the Percival Everett novel âErasure,â about a Black novelist confronting a career impasse, did win this award at the BAFTA and Critics Choice ceremonies. Jefferson also directed âAmerican Fiction,â his debut.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
The screenplay categories are the ones I was most interested in â maybe the one spot where the winners could be unexpected. Justine Triet, writer-director of âAnatomy of a Fall,â an expected winner, said her award would help her through her midlife crisis.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Reporting from the Dolby Theater
Just like âBarbie,â Anatomy of a Fallâ was written by a couple during lockdown, making the rest of us schlubs who didnât write an award-winning screenplay during the pandemic feel bad about ourselves.
March 10, 2024
Movie critic
Justine Triet and Arthur Harari, accepting their best original screenplay award for âAnatomy of a Fall,â walk onto the stage to the steel drum version of 50 Centâs âP.I.M.P.â that will forever be associated with their movie.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
A recurring bit from earlier ceremonies this award season. The real winners are the band members.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Itâs a version of the song that gets the audience to say, âIf she doesnât kill this guy, I will.â
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Weâre getting our second best picture nominee montage (for âPoor Things,â this time) and Iâm old enough to say I miss a plain old clip. Thatâs how I knew I wanted to see these movies.
March 10, 2024
Photographer at the Oscars
Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone chat during a commercial break.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Hayao Miyazakiâs valedictory masterpiece, âThe Boy and the Heron,â takes best animated feature, beating the American animation blockbusters âElementalâ and âSpider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.â
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Miyazaki apparently keeps his Oscars under glass in his museum in Tokyo â in a low-level room intended for children.
March 10, 2024
Reporter covering Hollywood
The 96th Academy Awards got off to a comfortable start with Jimmy Kimmel delivering a safe, shortish monologue that poked gentle fun at nominated films like âKillers of the Flower Moonâ and the failure of voters to nominate Greta Gerwig, the âBarbieâ filmmaker, as best director. The first Oscar went to DaâVine Joy Randolph, who was named best supporting actress for playing a grieving mother and boarding school cook in âThe Holdovers.â âFor so long, Iâve always wanted to be different, and now I realize I only need to be myself,â Randolph said. Hayao Miyazakiâs âThe Boy and the Heron,â about a youth coping with his motherâs death and fatherâs remarriage, won the Oscar for animated film. Miyazaki, 83, previously won for âSpirited Awayâ in 2003.
Hayao Miyazaki, the heralded Japanese filmmaker, won the Oscar for best animated feature for âThe Boy and the Heron,â an enigmatic, fantastical film that could be one of the directorâs last projects.
He was not on hand to accept the award.
Itâs possible Miyazaki, 83, could retire after this movie, although reports have suggested he is at work on another project. The director said in 2013 that he planned to retire, but continued to make other films.
Miyazaki has crafted influential and popular features through the animation house Studio Ghibli since he co-founded it in 1985. His 2001 feature, âSpirited Away,â won the Oscar for best animated feature, and in 2014, he received an honorary Oscar at the Academyâs Governors Awards. Sundayâs win was Miyazakiâs second victory in four nominations for animated feature.
March 10, 202https://www.nytimes.com/
Culture reporter
Sean Ono Lennon gets an Oscar for âWar Is Over,â inspired by the music of his parents, John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
And he just asked the house to wish his mom a British Happy Motherâs Day, which they do.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
And the band even went quiet to let him do it! The power of Yoko.
On Sunday, Jimmy Kimmel returned to host his fourth Academy Awards, opening with a monologue that riffed on many of last yearâs blockbuster movies, particularly âOppenheimerâ and âBarbie,â and poked fun at Hollywoodâs biggest stars, including a string of jokes about Robert Downey Jr.âs past drug use.
After a traditional montage of nominated films, Kimmel was introduced to the audience in a video clip of him sitting at a bus stop beside Margot Robbie, the star of âBarbie.â
âYouâre so beautiful,â Robbie told him in the clip. âI know,â he said. âI havenât eaten in three weeks. Iâm still hungry. I have to host the Oscars.â
He began his monologue by mentioning the monthslong strikes that paused most film and television production, and he saluted the actors and writers who pushed for a new deal with Hollywood studios.
âAs a result, actors no longer have to worry about getting replaced by A.I.,â he said. âThanks to this historic agreement, actors are now able to go back to worrying about being replaced by younger, more attractive people.â
Kimmel also cracked jokes about the âAnatomy of a Fallâ dog Messi, the lengthy run time of âKillers of the Flower Moonâ and the perceived snub of Greta Gerwig, who was not nominated for best director.
âI know youâre clapping but youâre the ones who didnât vote for her,â he told the audience.
Here is a transcript of the full monologue:
Thank you for that partial standing ovation and welcome to the 96th Oscars, everybody. Look at these beautiful human actors. What honor it is to be here. Thank you for having me back. And congratulations to each and every one of you for making it to the Academy Awards and for making it on time.
The show, as you know, is starting an hour early this year. But donât worry it will still end very, very late. In fact, weâre already five minutes over. And I am not joking. Iâm not going to lie. Itâs going to be a long night after what was a long year. It was a hard year, but it was also a great year for movies. Despite the fact that everything stopped, the people in this room somehow managed to come up with so many excellent films and so many memorable performances.
This night is full of enormous talent and untold potential, but so was âMadame Web.â So who knows? Are we off to a bumpy start? OK, this is a meaningful occasion for most of you. I know that. And I know that winning an Oscar is something you dreamed about since you were a kid. And now here we are, all dressed up celebrating the best of the best, beginning with the biggest movie of the year, âBarbie.â âBarbieâ was a monster hit. What a thing. What an achievement to take a plastic doll nobody even liked anymore. I mean, my wife â before this movie, youâd have had a better chance of getting my wife to buy our daughter a pack of Marlboro Reds than a Barbie doll.
Now Barbieâs a feminist icon, thanks to Greta Gerwig, who many believe deserved to be nominated for best director. I know youâre clapping, but youâre the ones who didnât vote for her, by the way. Donât act like you had nothing to do with this. And I donât want to leave out Margot Robbie. Margot put this giant hit together. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are here tonight. Look kids, itâs Barbie and Ken sitting just near each other. Ryan and Margot, I want you to know that even if neither one of you wins an Oscar tonight, you both already won something much more important: the genetic lottery. Ryan, you are so hot. Letâs go camping together and not tell our wives.
And then we have the other major box office winner this year, âOppenheimer,â directed by the great Christopher Nolan. Also a very attractive man. And this is a very fascinating person. Christopher Nolan doesnât have a smartphone, doesnât use his email and he writes on a computer with no internet connection, which is a way of, a powerful way of saying âI will not allow my porn addiction to get in the way of my work.â
Christopher is joined by his longtime collaborator, Cillian Murphy, who is just wonderful. Cillian, interesting fact about his name. Itâs pronounced Cillian when he does drama. When he does comedy, itâs Silly Anne. And congratulations to Silly Anneâs co-star Robert Downey Jr. This is the highest point of Robert Downey Jr.âs long and illustrious career. Well, one of the highest points. But Robert has been â was that too on the nose or was that a drug motion you made? But look at him, I mean look at this guy. Heâs so handsome, so talented. Heâs won every award there is to win. Is that an acceptance speech in your pocket or do you just have a very rectangular penis?
Not even 20 years ago, things werenât going that great for Robert. He played the villain and, correct me if I have this wrong, in a movie where Tim Allen turns into a dog. And if you ever decide to remake that film, I have just the guy to play Tim Allen. That is, where is he? Messi. Even though heâs a dog may have given the performance of the year in âAnatomy of a Fall.â Messi has an overdose scene. If youâve seen it, you know it is incredible. Honestly, I havenât seen a French actor eat vomit like that since GĂŠrard Depardieu.
The second most nominated movie of the year is âPoor Things,â directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Not only is Yorgos nominated for best director, his editor, whose name is also Yorgos, Yorgos Mavropsaridis, is nominated too. We have two Yorgosâs in the house tonight. Will they both win? Yorgos is as good as mine.
All right, letâs get 20 seconds for room tone. Emma Stone is an Oscar nominee for a fifth time. Right? Fifth time. Emma, you are so unbelievably great in âPoor Things.â Emma played an adult woman with the brain of a child, like the lady who gave the rebuttal to the State of the Union on Thursday, and you were just amazing.
There were so many great movies that held audiences captive this year. And I mean that literally â your movies were too long this year. The average length of the top 10 movies was 2 hours and 33 minutes. Thatâs up 30 minutes from three years ago. When I went to see âKillers of the Flower Moon,â I had my mail forwarded to the theater. âKillers of the Flower Moonâ is so long in the time it takes you to watch it, you could drive to Oklahoma and solve the murders yourself.
The multitalented Brad, Bradley Cooper is here with us tonight with us. Heâs got another best picture nominee, âMaestro.â Bradley, brought your mom to the show tonight. Hi, Mrs. Cooper. How are you? Youâre doing good. Great. Bradley brings his mother to every award show. She was his date last year at the Oscars. She was not? OK, but the Tonys and the Soul Train Awards. Itâs very sweet. But I guess the question is how many times can one bring his mom as his date before he is actually dating his mom? Are you working on a movie about Freud right now and not telling us?
Hereâs some fun Oscar trivia: 48 years ago, Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster were nominated for âTaxi Driverâ and they are both nominated again tonight, 1976 was the year and thatâs pretty crazy. In 1976, Jodie Foster is young enough to be Robert De Niroâs daughter. Now, sheâs 20 years too old to be his girlfriend. I also want to congratulate Robertâs co-star Lily Gladstone, who is the first Native American ever to be nominated for best actress and for âKillers of the Flower Moon.â And if you saw, you know that she was riveting. And did you know that before she got this movie, Lily was ready to quit acting and take a job at the Department of Agriculture tracking murder hornets, right? And now sheâs nominated for an Oscar, which is so great for her, but also makes me worry that no oneâs tracking these murder hornets.
Lily is in excellent company. We have many first time acting nominees tonight, including Emily Blunt, Jeffrey Wright, Sterling K. Brown, America Ferrera, Danielle Brooks, Colman Domingo, DaâVine Joy Randolph and Sandra HĂźller. For the first time ever, three foreign language films are up for best picture, and two of them star Sandra HĂźller. Sandra, two movies. Sandra plays a woman on trial for murdering her husband in âAnatomy of a Fallâ and a Nazi housewife living next to Auschwitz in âThe Zone of Interest.â And while these are very heavy subjects for American moviegoers, in Sandraâs native Germany, theyâre called rom-coms.
For the first time in more than two decades, weâre adding a new category to the Oscars. Not tonight, donât worry. In the future, they will be adding an Oscar for achievement in casting, which, yeah, you better you better applaud for that. And that is great news for actors because now not only will you be able to watch someone else win an Oscar for a part you didnât get, youâll also be able to watch the person who didnât think you were right for it win one, too. What a year, weâve had. It was a tough year. Remember that kid from âThe Fabelmansâ? This is what he looks like now. Very good to have you here, Steven. Steven, are you nominated tonight or are you here because you have season tickets?
Steven and his wife, Kate Capshaw, donated a lot of money to help actors and writers who were out of work over the summer. We were on strike for a long time, 148 days. For five months, this group of writers, actors, directors, the people who actually make the films said, âWe will not accept a deal.â Well, not the directors. You guys folded immediately. But the rest of us said we will not accept the deal without protections against artificial intelligence. And as a result, actors no longer have to worry about getting replaced by A.I. Thanks to this historic agreement, actors are now able to go back to worrying about being replaced by younger, more attractive people. And I think thatâs great. And writers, could A.I. have written âTransformers: Rise of the Beastsâ? Yes, the answer is yes.
We learned a lot while we were out on those picket lines. This strike raised existential questions about our industry, like if a movie premieres at the Grove and there are no actors there to promote it, does Mario Lopez make a sound?
And now that the strike is over, now that Fran Drescher has returned to her volunteer work reading loudly to the hearing-impaired, we can be proud of the fact that this long and difficult work stoppage taught us that this very strange town of ours, as pretentious and superficial as it can be, at its heart, is a union town. Itâs not a bunch of heavily Botoxed, Hailey Bieber-smoothie drinking, diabetes-prescription abusing, gluten-sensitive nepo babies with perpetually shivering Chihuahuas. This is a coalition of strong, hard working, mentally tough American laborers, women and men who would 100 percent, for sure die if we even had to touch the handle of a shovel.
The reason we were able to make a deal is because of the people who rallied beside us. So before we celebrate ourselves, letâs have a very well-deserved round of applause for people who work behind the scenes: the Teamsters, the truck drivers, the lighting crews, sound guys, all the people who refused to cross the picket lines. All the people who refused to cross the picket lines. There they are. If youâre wearing Sketchers to the Oscars, take a bow. Come on, guys. Take a bow, you deserve it. Thank you for standing with us. And also, we want you to know that in your upcoming negotiation, we will stand you, too. And also, Iâm going to make sure this show goes really long tonight, so you get a ton of overtime. Itâs golden time everybody, should we give out some Oscars?
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Jimmy just reminded DaâVine that she didnât name the publicist she so gushingly thanked. But when she turned to the camera to name her, we couldnât hear what she said!
After a weeklong odyssey of âWill he or wonât he?â in the lead-up to the Oscars, Messi, the black-and-white Border collie who plays Snoop in the French courtroom thriller âAnatomy of a Fall,â was spotted in a plush red seat in the Dolby Theater, a big black bow tie around his neck.
He showed up during the monologue of Jimmy Kimmel, the host of the 96th annual Academy Awards. Kimmel was reminding Robert Downey Jr., who was nominated for best supporting actor for âOppenheimer,â about the time he played the villain in the 2006 comedy âThe Shaggy Dog,â starring Tim Allen as the title character.
âIf you ever decide to remake that film, I have just the guy to play Tim Allen,â Kimmel said, then asked, âWhere is he?â as he looked around. âMessi, who even though heâs the dog, may have given the performance of the year in âAnatomy of the Fall.ââ
Cue a camera pan to Messi with his soulful blue eyes. And a collective audience sigh of relief.
âI havenât seen a French actor eat vomit like that since GĂŠrard Depardieu,â Kimmel said.
Keep an eye out: With âAnatomy of a Fallâ up for five awards â best picture, best actress for Sandra HĂźller, best director for Justine Triet, best original screenplay and best film editing â this probably wonât be Messiâs last appearance of the night.
The ruff-est job in the theater on Sunday night? Whoever has to be Messiâs seatholder.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Iâll say that I could maybe live without the âyou are my friendâ-ness of them. But still â Oscar people: Keep the wedding-toast acting presentations.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Spotted a tear on the cheek of Paul Giamatti, DaâVine Joy Randolphâs âHoldoversâ co-star and a fellow graduate of Yale drama school.
March 10, 2024
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
The virtue of the former-winner presenter setup is that it elicits such emotional reactions from the nominees that the eventual winners â in this case, DaâVine Joy Randolph â are *ready* to deliver in their acceptance speeches.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Daâvine Joy Randolph, a category favorite who swept the precursor awards, takes the first Oscar of the night.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Her âHoldoversâ co-star Paul Giamatti escorts her onstage and she gets a standing ovation, before starting her speech by explaining that she didnât think sheâd be an actress. She sarted as a singer.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Lupita just told us that the glasses DaâVine Joy Randolph wears in the âThe Holdoversâ were her grandmotherâs. And now sheâs already tearing up before her name is called as the winner.
DaâVine Joy Randolph won the Oscar for best supporting actress for her portrayal in âThe Holdoversâ of a warm, witty cafeteria matriarch grappling with how to endure the holiday season at a boarding school after the loss of her son.
It was Randolphâs first win at the Academy Awards on her first nomination. She was the favorite coming into the Oscars, having already won this year in the supporting actress category at the Golden Globes, the Critics Choice Awards, the BAFTAs and the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
âI didnât think I was supposed to be doing this as a career,â she said in an emotional acceptance speech. âFor so long, Iâve always wanted to be different, and now I realize I just need to be myself. And I thank you. I thank you for seeing me.â
Danielle Brooks (âThe Color Purpleâ), Emily Blunt (âOppenheimerâ), America Ferrera (âBarbieâ) and Jodie Foster (âNyadâ) were also nominated in the category.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Supporting actress time: The previous winners Jamie Lee Curtis, Lupita Nyongâo, Regina King, Mary Steenburgen and Rita Moreno are paying tribute to this yearâs nominees.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
The previous winners seem to be friends with the current nominees, and the emotion on both sides is evident. DaâVine Joy Randolph is crying!
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Tonightâs best picture nominees are notably international, with three foreign-language films nominated for best picture. Since #OscarsSoWhite in 2016, the Academy membership has not only become more racially diverse, but much more global, the results of which are on display here.
A screenwriter whose credits include âLucaâ and âPaddington 2â has accused the creators of âThe Holdoversâ of plagiarizing his work in their screenplay, according to a Variety report.
Variety published its article on the plagiarism accusations on Saturday, a day before the Academy Awards, where âThe Holdoversâ is nominated for five Oscars, including original screenplay and best picture.
In its report, Variety cited an email from the screenwriter Simon Stephenson to an official at the Writers Guild of America, and a second email to the W.G.A. board. Stephenson argued that his screenplay âFrisco,â which he wrote in 2012, was copied to create âThe Holdovers.â (âFriscoâ has not been produced.)
Both screenplays tell the story of a grumpy man in his 50s forced to watch over a teenager, according to documents published with the Variety report. âThe Holdoversâ centers on a boarding-school teacher (Paul Giamatti), while âFriscoâ follows a doctor.
A document published with the article outlines similarities, including scenes in which each main character was âsummoned to bossâ and a description of both main characters as âunorthodox.â Plagiarism claims are not unheard of in Hollywood, but proving them is a different matter.
The Variety report described multiple attempts by Stephenson to draw the Writers Guild of America into his dispute with the filmâs director, Alexander Payne, and its writer, David Hemingson.
Stephenson argues that Payne âwas sent and read my screenplay on two separate occasions prior to the offending film entering development,â according to an email cited in the Variety report, a claim bolstered in other correspondence obtained by Variety.
Stephenson declined to comment for the Variety story but confirmed the authenticity of the emails it cited. Payne and Hemingson also declined to comment to Variety, while the guild board did not respond.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Kimmel pays tribute to the union members who participated in the strikes last year and brings some of the crew onstage.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Not only that! Heâs promised to make the show extra long so they get overtime!
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Kimmel: âCould A.I. have written âTransformers: Rise of the Beastsâ? The answer is yes.â
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Kimmel points out that the best actress nominee Sandra HĂźller is in two best picture nominees. (So, I would add, is Issa Rae.)
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
Kimmel with some Oscars trivia: Both Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster were nominated for Oscars 48 years ago, as they are tonight.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Kimmel has settled into some Bob Hope corniness. So the dresses arenât all thatâs traditional so far this evening. But Iâm laughing.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Messi the dog, the arguable star of âAnatomy of a Fall,â has a seat.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Jimmy Kimmel to Ryan Gosling: âLetâs go camping together and not tell our wives.â
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
âWeâre already running five minutes over,â Kimmel notes.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
Theyâre pre-wooing our host Jimmy Kimmel. âThank you for that partial standing ovation,â he says.
March 10, 2024
Culture reporter
The show opens with the traditional montage of nominated films, and then Jimmy Kimmel appears inserted in a scene from âBarbie.â âYouâre so beautiful,â Margot Robbie tells him. âI know,â he replies.
March 10, 2024
Critic at large
OK, world. The red carpet credits have rolled. The 96th Academy Awards are on!
March 10, 2024
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
Itâs clear the memo went out to Oscars stylists. Keep it clean, tight and traditional.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Style reporter
Florence Pugh has a very similar (strange) neckline to Emily Bluntâs aforementioned elevated straps. What does it mean? Itâs like their dresses are jumping off their bodies.
March 10, 2024
Style reporter
Instead of deep gold, which we see a lot on red carpets during awards season â as if the stars are manifesting their wins â attendees seem to be leaning toward champagne this year. Like Greta Gerwig, whose dress has a chainmail effect similar to America Ferreraâs.
March 10, 2024
Reporting from the Dolby Theater
The subjects of Sean Wangâs short film âNÇi Nai & WĂ i PĂłâ are here in all their Oscar splendor. Should Wangâs film win for best documentary short, the grandmas (as Chang Li Hua, left, and Yi Yan Fuei have become known) intend to take the stage.
Reporting from the Dolby Theater
David Alan Grier just walked onstage to give the nominees a last-minute pep talk, covering the usual ground: You already did the hard part, you were nominated; make your speeches memorable and donât thank your publicists and agents.
Fashion Vulcan mind-meld: Diana Nyad and the actor John Krasinski, both wearing white tuxedos.
Style reporter
Apparently the âWickedâ cosplay we saw on Cynthia Erivo was not a coincidence. Anyone catch a glimpse of Ariana Grande walking in wearing a puffy taffy-pink ball gown?
It looks to be a big Oscar night for âOppenheimer.â But how many prizes can Christopher Nolanâs hit drama win?
The film is nominated in 13 categories and six victories seem all but certain. âOppenheimerâ is considered the prohibitive favorite for the best picture and director Oscars, and should also prevail in the races for supporting actor (Robert Downey Jr.), cinematography, editing and score.
Two other races are tighter but still lean âOppenheimer.â The filmâs star, Cillian Murphy, has all the momentum in the lead actor category, though âThe Holdoversâ star Paul Giamatti is also racking up votes. In the sound category, âThe Zone of Interestâ could mount a late charge for its unnerving acoustic landscape, but Nolanâs film is considered the strong front-runner.
If âOppenheimerâ wins all of those races, it will be the most-awarded best-picture victor since âSlumdog Millionaireâ (2008) also took eight Oscars. But can âOppenheimerâ earn even more?
At least four races seem out of reach, no matter how mighty the filmâs Oscar sweep. âOppenheimerâ is a nonstarter in the production-design and costume categories (I project both those races will be between âBarbieâ and âPoor Thingsâ) as well as the hair-and-makeup race, which should come down to âPoor Thingsâ and âMaestro.â Emily Blunt, nominated for her supporting performance in âOppenheimer,â has no chance of unseating âThe Holdoversâ star DaâVine Joy Randolph, who has taken every major prize this season.
The only additional Oscar that âOppenheimerâ can realistically contend for is in the adapted-screenplay category, which will be a tough three-way race between Nolanâs film, âBarbieâ and the favorite, âAmerican Fiction.â If âOppenheimerâ can pull off a victory there and win nine Oscars total, it will be the biggest Oscar success in two decades, since âLord of the Rings: Return of the Kingâ (2003) won 11.
Just a reminder that the Oscars start an hour earlier than usual this year: at 7 p.m. Eastern, 4 p.m. Pacific. The academy has said it wants to keep the show in prime-time hours.
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
Last yearâs supporting actor winner, Ke Huy Quan, will be presenting that category alongside other former winners like Sam Rockwell and Christoph Waltz, and rehearsal already had him gobsmacked. âWhen I looked to my fellow winners, I couldnât believe I get to be a part of this amazing group. Winning an Oscar is something you dreamed about, but you canât imagine it would ever happen.â
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
Ryan Gosling is wearing a custom Gucci suit on the red carpet, one of three outfit changes he will make this evening â separate from his shirtless stage appearance with 75 other super-buff Kens.
Style reporter
Interestingly, Danielle Brooks is wearing the gown version. Their looks are both black, in very classic shapes, with shiny chainmail-esque trims on the chest.
Reporting from the Dolby Theater
Universal executives are not entering the ballroom with the swagger you would expect from the front-runners. Rather itâs nervous energy and a âfingers crossedâ attitude thatâs getting these âOppenheimerâ folks through the start of the show.
Itâs been a tumultuous few months for Samy Burch, whoâs Oscar-nominated with Alex Mechanik for co-writing âMay Decemberâ but has had to deal with Warner Bros. yanking the release of âCoyote vs. Acme,â which she also wrote. âThe day I found out that Warner Bros. wanted to do this in November, it was three hours before the actors strike ended, so we knew, âOh my God, Charles [Melton] and Natalie [Portman] and Julianne [Moore] are going to be able to promote the movie and be at the premiere.â So that felt like the highs and lows of an entire career in about six hours.â
ADVERTISEMENT
Here’s who we’ve spotted on the red carpet: Ramy Youssef; Nicolas Cage; Gabrielle Union and Dwyane Wade; Sandra HĂźller; and Paul Giamatti.
Expect a crowded stage at tonightâs ceremony.
Before each of the acting winners is announced, five former winners of that category will introduce the current nominees.
For example, the supporting-actor category will be presented not just by last yearâs winner, âEverything Everywhere All at Onceâ star Ke Huy Quan, but also by former winners Mahershala Ali, Sam Rockwell, Christoph Waltz and Tim Robbins. For the best-actress category, expect a crop of former winners that includes Michelle Yeoh, Charlize Theron and Jennifer Lawrence.
If this gambit sounds familiar, itâs because the Oscars first introduced it during the 2009 ceremony, where it was met with great acclaim. And though these tributes eliminate the âOscar clipsâ that typically precede the nomineesâ introductions, it should provide an emotional link between the former winners and the groups of contenders from whom they will welcome new members to their very exclusive club.
March 10, 2024
Style reporter
OK, Iâve had my first âhmm … interestingâ sartorial moment of the night: the strange tank-top neckline of Emily Bluntâs champagne Schiaparelli gown. It juts off her body, floating unnaturally off her very tanned clavicle and shoulders.
March 10, 2024
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
Can we talk about the elephant in the room? Are these the Ozempic Oscars?
March 10, 2024
Style reporter
Emma Stone reallocated the volume from her âPoor Thingsâ sleeves into her minty Louis Vuitton peplum. The silk jacquard fabric was inspired by shells, she said in an E! interview. Is this a trend alert for Botticelliâs âBirth of Venus,â which Anya Taylor-Joy just described as the inspiration for her gown?
Messi, the black-and-white Border collie who plays Snoop in the French courtroom thriller âAnatomy of a Fall,â has become the breakout star of awards season. After appearances at a press day for the film and at the academy nominees luncheon, where he wore a blue bow tie and snuggled with Billie Eilish, heâs achieved Jenny-the-donkey levels of popularity.
The internet, of course, has loved following his escapades â he even won a Palm Dog at the Cannes Film Festival last spring. But there was one group of people who werenât happy with Messiâs recent show-stealing appearance at the nominees luncheon: The companies behind nominated films that are not named âAnatomy of a Fall.â
After a number of companies complained to the academy that Messiâs appearance had given âAnatomy of a Fallâ an unfair advantage during the Oscars voting window, a source connected to the film told The Hollywood Reporter that Messi would not return to Los Angeles for Sundayâs ceremony. (Representatives for the academy did not comment.)
There is precedent for animal cameos at the Oscars: Uggie, the Parson Russell terrier who starred opposite Jean Dujardin in âThe Artist,â was onstage when the film won best picture in 2012. And Jenny the donkey (actually an impostor) from âThe Banshees of Inisherinâ shared the stage with host Jimmy Kimmel for a bit last year.
Itâs a shame Messi wonât be there because the news comes at a time when weâve learned a valuable piece of intel:Â Messi can skateboard.
But donât give up hope yet: There may be still a chance for a last-minute appearance.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Style reporter
Weâre starting to see some big textural moments in these gowns. Cynthia Erivo is wearing ruffled leather in emerald green by Louis Vuitton. (Is that an Elphaba reference?) Anya Taylor-Joy is wearing beaded and feathered scales by Dior, a gown she said was inspired by a 1949-50 original Christian Dior design. (She called her Tiffany necklace âspiky.â)
March 10, 2024
Style reporter
Billie Eilish, also nominated for âBarbie,â is going full schoolgirl/librarian in a Chanel blazer and tweed skirt â a departure from the menâs wear sheâs been embracing on the red carpet this season. What I find more interesting about this look, though, is her very simple and traditional makeup. Sheâs gone more pink than punk, and is that a blowout I see? We are far from the neon-green-roots Billie of last year.
March 10, 2024
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
Ramy Youssef is pleased that his âPoor Thingsâ accent has been well-received. âOne of the best compliments is people thinking I was British,â he said. âThereâs a disappointment that comes with that, obviously, when people find out youâre from New Jersey.â
March 10, 2024
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
What is black and white and red all over? The Oscars. Nice that the Academy returned to a red carpet that is actually red. Last yearâs Champagne carpet washed everyone out.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Style reporter
We have a âBarbieâ pink spotting. America Ferrera, nominated for best supporting actress, has arrived in a sweetly sequined pink gown by Atelier Versace. Sheâs the first but canât be the last! Although part of me wondered if the cast had grown sick of the color after that mega-pink multi-month press tour.
March 10, 2024
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
Rita Moreno will be presenting best supporting actress with four other former winners. âI was doing rehearsal yesterday and I have to tell you, I was really moved!â she said. âDoing that was so special. I was reading it and my eyes were watering.â The Oscars are not old hat for her. âIâm just thrilled to be here. I mean, Iâm 92, for Godâs sake.â
March 10, 2024
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
And the award for best Cary Grant successor goes to Matt Bomer in a purple Brunello Cucinelli dinner jacket so tautly tailored it looks as if he were stitched into it.
March 10, 2024
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
The âAnatomy of a Fallâ actors Swann Arlaud and Antoine Reinartz play courtroom foes, but on the Oscar red carpet, detente was reached as Reinartz fussed with Arlaudâs internet-famous gray locks. âSoft!â Reinartz said. This is Arlaudâs first Hollywood event for the film but he holds no hard feelings that Messi, the castâs canine member, made it to Los Angeles weeks before he did. âHeâs a really good dog,â Arlaud said.
ADVERTISEMENT
âBarbie,â the live-action adventure comedy based on the ubiquitous Mattel doll, became a cultural phenomenon last summer, grossing $1.4 billion at the global box office as moviegoers everywhere donned pink. So while the Oscars have traditionally celebrated prestige films, Greta Gerwigâs blockbuster was undeniable, scoring eight Oscar nominations.
But âBarbieâ fans, brace yourselves: One of the biggest films of the year may leave the Academy Awards on Sunday night with just one win.
The film has been recognized in a range of categories â from best picture to costume design, although Gerwig notably failed to receive a best director nomination â but it is favored only in the original song category.
Billie Eilishâs heart-wringing track âWhat Was I Made For?â won song of the year at the Grammys, and it is the front-runner in its Oscars category. Even if thereâs an upset, it may come from another of the movieâs nominees, Ryan Goslingâs showstopper âIâm Just Ken.â
But apart from the original song category, prospects look somewhat dim in Barbie Land. Itâs not unprecedented for films to earn many Oscar nominations and then go home empty-handed, or close to it. For instance, the 1985 adaptation of âThe Color Purpleâ received 11 nominations without a win; the same was true for the 1977 drama set in the ballet world, âThe Turning Point.â (A new âColor Purpleâ adaptation scored just one nomination this year.) And in 2003, Martin Scorseseâs âGangs of New Yorkâ scored 10 nominations but no trophies.
The best potential parallel to âBarbieâ may be Bradley Cooperâs 2018 remake of âA Star Is Born,â which was nominated for eight Oscars and walked away with only best song.
Some Oscar attendees were delayed arriving at the Dolby Theater on Sunday when demonstrators calling for a cease-fire in Gaza filled lanes of traffic a few blocks south of the theater, according to the Los Angeles police.
There were at least three protests about the Israel-Hamas war, said Capt. Kelly Muniz, a head of the Los Angeles Police Departmentâs media relations division. She said there were between 500 and 700 protesters at the largest demonstration, near the Cinerama Dome, a closed movie theater about a mile away from the Dolby Theater.
At that protest, Laura Delhauer, an independent filmmaker who held a cardboard sign that read âFree Palestine,â said she hoped to put pressure on the U.S. government to end the conflict.
âIâm heartbroken to know that our hard-earned tax dollars are going to pay for the murder of innocent civilians,â she said.
Delhauer and other protesters marched down Sunset Boulevard as car horns honked, a helicopter hovered overhead and Los Angeles police officers in riot gear watched nearby.
Captain Muniz said the Police Department had arrested one person for battery of a police officer in relation to the protests, which may have been connected to one another.
By 4:30 p.m. local time, Captain Muniz said that the size of the protests had diminished but that some demonstrators were still seeking to âget into the gated areasâ near the Oscars. After protesters tried to breach a chain-link fence near the entrance to the Dolby Theater, police officers secured it with zip ties.
The largest protest was organized by groups including Film Workers for Palestine and SAG-AFTRA Members for Ceasefire.
âWith people from across the globe watching the Academy Awards, this is a Hail Mary opportunity,â said Anthony Bryson, one of the organizers. He added: âWhatâs happening in Gaza needs to have attention drawn to it. We wanted to bring as much resistance and visibility as possible.â
Shortly after the protest began, a man dressed in a dark blue suit stood across the street holding both a United States flag and an Israeli flag. After a brief verbal altercation, protesters grabbed the Israeli flag and threw it into the street. The man walked away, surrounded by volunteer safety officers who had been brought in by protest organizers.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
âI wanted to shine like a diamond,â said the nominee Colman Domingo in a custom double-breasted tuxedo from Louis Vuitton with David Yurman jewelry (brooch alert: Domingoâs is pinned to his bow tie) and metal-tipped cowboy boots.
March 10, 2024
Style reporter
We reported earlier today that Artists4Ceasefire has asked many attendees tonight to wear red lapel pins â it looks like some actors, including Milo Machado-Graner and Swann Arlaud from âAnatomy of a Fall,â have opted for Palestinian flag pins.
March 10, 2024
Photographer on the Oscars red carpet
Eugene Lee Yang; Jehnny Beth, Swann Arlaud and Milo Machado-Graner from âAnatomy of a Fallâ; Wim Wenders
March 10, 2024
Style reporter
Itâs interesting that the directors Celine Song (âPast Livesâ) and Justine Triet (âAnatomy of a Fallâ) are both wearing suits, though with slightly different approaches â Songâs suit has a skirt and navy color-blocking, while Trietâs has sparkling pinstripes. A little subversion, a little modernity, but still within the Oscarsâ super-trad framework.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
Jewelry alert: The âBarbieâ actor Simu Liu is squarely on trend in, yes, a black Fendi tuxedo over a silver-black T-shirt, but cinched with one of the jeweled brooches that are the new must-have accessory for men.
After a red carpet reveal last year that upended the foundations of Hollywoodâs staid tradition â it was champagne-colored â the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences revealed on Wednesday that, this year, it would be returning to the traditional red for Sundayâs ceremony.
Last yearâs departure from tradition was prompted by the introduction of an orange â sorry, sienna â tent over the carpet that offered the couture-clad arrivals shelter from a forecast rainstorm, which Lisa Love, a red-carpet creative consultant for the Oscars, told The New York Times necessitated the color change to prevent a color clash.
After initially considering a chocolate brown carpet, she said, they settled on the champagne color, which, next to the sienna tent, âwas inspired by watching the sunset on a white-sand beach at the âgolden hourâ with a glass of champagne in hand, evoking calm and peacefulness,â she told The Times. (A spokeswoman for the academy declined to comment.)
Ms. Love acknowledged in the interview that the 50,000-square-foot rug, which was very much giving âShoes-off house!â vibes, might be a challenge to keep clean.
âIt will probably get dirty â maybe it wasnât the best choice,â Ms. Love said at the time. âWeâll see!â (Heavy rain indeed arrived, and online commentators also questioned the decision.)
March 10, 2024
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
European fashion houses have been falling over themselves to dress Dominic Sessa of âThe Holdovers,â a newbie movie actor who may single-handedly bring â70s sideburns back. Yet whom did he elect to wear for the Oscars but that most home-grown of design-world titans â Tom Ford?
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
âJ.L.C. in the house!â Last yearâs supporting actress winner, Jamie Lee Curtis, just flew in from Providence, R.I., where sheâs shooting the next James L. Brooks film. âItâs an unexpected moment in your life if you have your name called,â she said. âLook, itâs an awards show, but itâs a moment in a creative life that maybe you dreamed of, maybe you didnât. But whoever has their name called will then forever have that hinge moment forever, like what happened for me. Itâs been transformative.â
Some attendees of the Academy Awards on Sunday night plan to wear red pins calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, a notable exception to an awards season in which many Hollywood stars have been reluctant to draw attention to the conflict.
The pins represent the attendeesâ alignment with Artists4Ceasefire, a group of celebrities and members of the entertainment industry who signed an open letter urging President Biden to call for a cease-fire. The nearly 400 signatories include Bradley Cooper and America Ferrera, who are both Oscar nominees this year, as well as Cate Blanchett, Drake, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez.
âThe pin symbolizes collective support for an immediate and permanent cease-fire, the release of all of the hostages and for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza,â Artists4Ceasefire said in a news release. âCompassion must prevail,â the release continued.
March 10, 2024
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
An overlooked element of Oscars dressing is performers changing up their images so casting agents see them in a different light. Case in point: the leading-man message of Jeremy Allen Whiteâs Saint Laurent tuxedo at the SAG Awards, a radical switch-up from the thirst-trap image of his recent Calvin Klein underwear campaign.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
Something of an Old Hollywood theme emerging, as celebrities forgo the sort of costume-y getups best reserved for the Met gala in favor of classic glamour.
March 10, 2024
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
The âHoldoversâ star Dominic Sessa brought his sister Bella to the Oscars: âI asked my mom and she said, âI went to another thing with you, Bella needs to go.â I was like, âSay less!ââ As you can imagine, Bella was thrilled. âI saw his text message saying, do you want to go to the Oscars. My response was, hell yeah!â
March 10, 2024
Style reporter
I am slightly regretting not throwing in black with my gown color predictions â it seemed too obvious, and celebrities on the carpet have been gravitating more toward white, as neutrals go. Anyway, Sandra HĂźller is here to prove me wrong! In Schiaparelli, it appears. (The sharp sleeves, black velvet and bedazzled lock give it away.)
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
The âFlaminâ Hotâ director Eva Longoria âchooses nothingâ she wears on the red carpet. âIâm a Barbie doll and they put things on me,â said the âDesperate Housewivesâ actress, reaching for assistance from her off-camera stylist for a brand check on her diamond necklace. For the record, it was Boucheron.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Photographer on the Oscars red carpet
Chang Li Hua, left, and Yi Yan Fuei of the nominated documentary short âNÇi Nai & WĂ i PĂłâ arrive on the carpet.
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
The âAmerican Fictionâ director Cord Jefferson is slaying in classic dinner jacket, white shirt, black tie and â super chic â a red carnation boutonniere.
Winners and losers, orgies of gratitude, generous lashings of false humility â these are the things we expect from the Oscars. Beyond that, there are truly no certainties but one. There will be tuxedos.
Durable, serviceable, flexible, the tuxedo is a time-tested form of combat gear for night owls, the epitome of uniform dressing and yet, for some reason, a form of suit that gives people the willies. Itâs prom drag, they think. Or that ill-fitting rental sack with a stale Mentos in the pocket. Lately, though, the perception of how to wear evening clothes is changing, never more obviously so than on the red carpet, where in a cavalcade of penguin suits, both traditional and innovative, celebrities and their stylists have been giving us a master class in dressing up.
At the recent Screen Actors Guild Awards, Bradley Cooper, Steven Yeun and Matt Bomer were close to impeccable wearing more or less regulation black tie, while others in the celebrity cohort made a point of showing how truly flexible this sartorial warhorse can be. The tuxedo was tweaked almost to the point of redefinition, with versions of it rendered single- or double-breasted, adorned with crisscross lapels and cropped like a bellhopâs bolero. There were tuxedos that night in bronze, brown, midnight blue, lipstick red, blush pink and, most memorably, ivory, as Jeremy Allen White bid to switch up his thirst-trap underwear-model image for something more suggestive of a leading man.
Dressed in a Saint Laurent tuxedo over an open shirt and with a diamond Schlumberger Bird on a Rock brooch pinned to his lapel, Mr. White evoked adjectives not often associated with millennial bros. Like a short-king avatar of Cary Grant, he was sophisticated, suave and â letâs just say it â debonair.
In the realm of replicating old time Hollywood glamour, Mr. White had plenty of competition that evening. And in light of the parade of elegantly tuxedo-clad celebrities like Tyler James Williams (baby blue double-breasted Amiri), Glen Powell (shawl-collar bronze Brioni), Ryan Gosling (dove gray Gucci) and Cillian Murphy (pinstriped Saint Laurent), it seemed clear what to expect on the Oscars red carpet.
That is, no wardrobe stunts. Those are better left to the glorified costume party that is the Met gala. The Oscars, after all, is Hollywoodâs big date night, in that it has a certain instructive quality of use to any civilian preparing for a red-letter day.
ADVERTISEMENT
March 10, 2024
Style reporter
The E! host Laverne Cox is back for her third Oscars. Sheâs an avid collector of Thierry Mugler designs, and sheâs wearing a vintage Mugler dress â that corset is silk lamĂŠ â from 1986, as well as earrings from 1987.
March 10, 2024
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
As my colleague Kyle Buchanan suggests, almost as hotly anticipated as a gold statue tonight by Oscars attendees are the In-N-Out sliders that are an after-party staple. Celebrities have been starving themselves for months to fit these clothes.
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
âWe made it!â said the âPast Livesâ star John Magaro. What does tonight have in store for him? âIâm planning to eat about six In-N-Out burgers at Vanity Fair, popping out of my clothes, and sleeping all day tomorrow.â
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
Celebrities can have as many as four different designer-sponsored outfits over the course of the evening, changing for the red carpet, for presentation or performance and at least once again for after-parties like the one Vanity Fair has been hosting since 1994.ADVER
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
Christine Vachon (who produced âPast Livesâ with Pamela Koffler and David Hinojosa) is nominated for her first Oscar after a storied career shepherding films like âCarol,â âBoys Donât Cryâ and âHedwig and the Angry Inch.â Howâs it feel? âI know the cliche is no one ever does it for the awards,â she said, âbut itâs nice when it happens!â
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
Red, gold and white may be the red-carpet colors for women tonight. For men, expect a continuation of the recent runway trend back to classic tailoring â that is, tuxedos.
Style reporter
In terms of predictions â because what are the Oscars without predictions? â here is what I think weâll see tonight as the carpet revs up. The colors of the night will be red, gold and white. (Always.) Gowns will be tight and revealing; the shift toward ânaked dressingâ is real, and Iâll expect weâll see some elegant versions of that. (Beyond the shirtless Kens!) And everyone will freak out over Zendaya.
March 10, 2024
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
Over 75 shirtless Kens are expected onstage for Ryan Goslingâs âIâm Just Kenâ performance. Nakedness is also fashion
At a divisive moment in the country, will the discord be reflected at the Oscars? The Los Angeles Police Department has said it is beefing up its presence outside the Dolby Theater in anticipation of possible protests over the Israel-Hamas war. But inside the ceremony? Kyle Buchanan, who covers awards season for The Times, wrote about what he expects to see:
After two years in which the war in Ukraine was acknowledged at nearly every awards show, the conflict between Israel and Hamas has gone unmentioned at most ceremonies. âItâs too fraught,â a studio executive told me after a small protest outside the Independent Spirit Awards. âPeople are worried about their careers.â
Cognitive dissonance is always required when global atrocities happen during a glamorous awards season. Thereâs even a best picture nominee about that kind of selective thinking: âThe Zone of Interest,â in which a well-off Nazi couple exult in their good fortune while living next door to the Auschwitz concentration camp. Accepting one of three BAFTA awards for the film last month in London, the producer James Wilson acknowledged those blinders, becoming one of the few artists this season to mention the current situation directly.
âA friend wrote me after seeing the film the other day that he couldnât stop thinking about the walls we construct in our lives which we choose not to look behind,â Wilson said in his speech. âThose walls arenât new, from before or during or since the Holocaust, and it seems stark right now that we should care about innocent people being killed in Gaza or Yemen in the same way we think about innocent people being killed in Mariupol or in Israel. Thank you for recognizing a film that asks us to think in those spaces.â
Iâm sure that executives at ABC, the network broadcasting the Oscars, would prefer that participants stay silent about these issues, fearing audience backlash or tune-out. But if âThe Zone of Interestâ wins the international-film Oscar, as most pundits believe it will, I wonder what weâll hear.
March 10, 2024
Style reporter and men’s wear critic
Haute couture and black tie will be the watchwords on this, the most sartorially conservative night on the red-carpet circuit. Stunt dressing discouraged. Break the internet another day.
Photographer on the Oscars red carpet
Dominic Sessa of âThe Holdoversâ arrives on the red carpet.
The Projectionist, at the Dolby Theater
The actor Mamoudou Athie is an animated good-luck charm, starring in Pixarâs âElementalâ and voicing a parrot in the English-language dub of âThe Boy and the Heron.â Though he got to know the Pixar folks well â âThese guys are geniusesâ â Athie still hasnât met the 83-year-old âHeronâ director Hayao Miyazaki in person. When I mentioned that could happen tonight, he gasped: âOh man. Oh man!â What would he say? âUm ⌠thank you, sir!â
You may have heard that âOppenheimer,â with a pack-leading 13 nominations, is a lock to win best picture. This is accurate. But even if weâre certain how the night will end, the getting there is the fun part. Hereâs what to expect:
Who is hosting?
Jimmy Kimmel is back for a second consecutive year, his fourth time overall as host of the ceremony. That ties him with Whoopi Goldberg and Jack Lemmon, but puts him behind Johnny Carson (with five) and Billy Crystal (nine). And itâs still miles back from the record-holder, Bob Hope, with 19.
Who is presenting?
The âField of Dreamsâ format is back! For the first time since the 2009 ceremony, five past winners in each acting category will introduce the five current nominees for each award, and then announce the winner together.
The academy never reveals which presenters will be announcing which awards before the ceremony, but all four of last yearâs acting winners â Brendan Fraser (actor), Michelle Yeoh (actress), Ke Huy Quan (supporting actor) and Jamie Lee Curtis (supporting actress) â are in the presenter lineup.
Also set to take the Dolby stage on Sunday night: Mahershala Ali, Bad Bunny, Nicolas Cage, Chris Hemsworth, Dwayne Johnson, Michael Keaton, Jennifer Lawrence, Matthew McConaughey, Rita Moreno, Lupita Nyongâo, Octavia Spencer, Ramy Youssef and Zendaya.
Who will be performing?
All five of the best original song nominees will be represented: âIâm Just Kenâ from âBarbieâ (performed by Ryan Gosling and Mark Ronson); âThe Fire Insideâ from âFlaminâ Hotâ (performed by Becky G); âIt Never Went Awayâ from âAmerican Symphonyâ (performed by Jon Batiste); âWahzhazhe (A Song for My People)â from âKillers of the Flower Moonâ (performed by Scott George and the Osage Singers); and âWhat Was I Made For?â from âBarbieâ (performed by Billie Eilish and Finneas OâConnell).
Watching the Oscars doesnât usually require an instruction manual.
But this year, to make sure you catch the goodness of Ryan Gosling performing âIâm Just Kenâ â in what we can only hope will be a fake fur coat â there are two crucial steps you must take.