Okay, another year in the books. We are somehow creeping ever closer to the eventual 100th Oscars, and I’m sure they’re gonna go all out for those. But for these — pretty much everyone saw what was gonna happen ahead of time and there weren’t any real surprises. Most years, a ‘surprise’ is something winning out of nowhere. This year, it’s ‘oh, this alternate beat the other nominee we figured was probably going to win’. The biggest surprise was “oh wow, Zone of Interest won Sound.” Or, for me, “They went with Emma Stone over Lily Gladstone” and “Boy and the Heron beat Spider-Verse.” Both things that seemed very likely, but neither of which seemed like something that was guaranteed to happen. Otherwise, pretty straightforward all the way through and nothing really to mention from a winners standpoint.
But I will say — the production this year of the actual telecast was superb. They finished early. 3 1/2 hours is the norm, and they nailed it. They were moving, they found ways to make things interesting. The bits in between categories worked. They did a fantastic job with the actual show portion this year (and bumping it an hour earlier was also a tremendously smart choice. I hope that continues in the future).
So yeah. That’s that. Let’s recap how it all went.
Best Picture: Oppenheimer
This was the entirety of the race. This swept everything, and it was clear this was its year. Not really a whole lot to say here except — I did say that 8 wins was rarified air and that most things in recent years have only won 7. So this missing out on something was more likely than it winning more. That’s kind of been the theme of most years — things don’t sweep at that level anymore. 7 wins is still a great haul and it’s clear this was the preferred film in the category. So we got consensus.
Best Director: Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
They brought out Spielberg for this. All I could think as it was happening was “how many times have they had him announce this category?” You know it’s gotta be close to half a dozen (and that’s not even including Best Picture, which I know he’s done a few times). It’s also fitting because Spielberg also had to wait 20 years to finally get recognized by the Academy. But otherwise, we knew he was winning and he’s swept the entire race. He gets his win after years of incredible work. Not much else to say here.
Best Actor: Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
So happy for him. Love that he shook all of the presenters’ hands before giving his speech. Pure grace and class. Just wonderful. Otherwise, not much to talk about here. He’s been the favorite from the start of the race. He and Giamatti started off in a race, but at a certain point it just became him. Easy winner for most and just a very deserving piece of work. We love Giamatti and it’s a shame he had to lose, but at least this wasn’t a situation where he lost to someone where you go, “… really?”
Best Actress: Emma Stone, Poor Things
Okay then. She was the favorite just based on precursors, but this was a tight race. The minute the film won Makeup earlier in the night I figured this is where it was headed. A shame about Lily Gladstone but also wonderful for Emma, who gave a terrific performance and was very deserving. Most people should have been right there on this one, as it was clear one or the other was winning. So there’s not much to say there. Killers of the Flower Moon gets shut out (like The Irishman), and Poor Things wins 4 and pretty much wins the night with Oppenheimer.
Best Supporting Actor: Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
“There are actors, and then there are actors who don’t drop character until the DVD commentary.” I love Sam Rockwell. Also, Christoph Waltz introducing Ryan Gosling is a stroke of genius. That would be like if Werner Herzog introduced Barbie for its clips package. 10/10, no notes. I’d have also loved if Mahershala Ali at the end just said “Mark Ruffalo” and stopped there. Surprised no one pitched that in the writer’s room.
Otherwise, Downey has swept the race and we knew he was gonna win. It was a real culmination moment for him and he gave the great speech we knew he was gonna give. It was a great moment all around, and I hope he catapults this into the interesting roles he was making before his near-fifteen year sojourn into superhero territory.
Best Supporting Actress: Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers
Good for her.
This was assured the minute she won the Globes, but it doesn’t make it any less of a great choice or any less deserving. She’s delivered incredible speeches throughout the season and I am absolutely over the moon for her. This is exactly what this category should be — an actor delivered an incredible, unforgettable performance and everyone felt it was the best and most deserving. It’s exactly what these awards should be.
Also — always amazing to see Rita Moreno in that introduction. The intro leaned a bit too much into the ‘we’re friends with the nominee’ thing, but that’s a matter of bad prompter writing and not bad planning. I wish they let them be a little more off-the-cuff with that, since they are friends.
Best Original Screenplay: Anatomy of a Fall
I cannot believe they used the one moment from Maestro where Bradley Cooper randomly does an Adam Sandler voice as the clip for that script. Also love that they played Justine Triet up to the cover of “P.I.M.P.” they used in the film. Otherwise, this was the favorite throughout the race and not really a surprise at all. Mostly I’m curious what the WGA ends up doing next month. This wasn’t eligible there, so I’m curious if it would’ve thrown off what was otherwise a pretty straightforward race with the other two precursors. Otherwise, this joins Marie-Louise, Divorce Italian Style, A Man and a Woman, Talk to Her and Parasite as foreign language winners in this category (and I guess kinda The Red Balloon, even though there’s no dialogue in that at all. And it’s a short!). That’s pretty cool. Also, fun fact: the guy who won the Oscar for writing The Red Balloon also invented the game Risk.
Bet you didn’t think you were really gonna learn anything today, huh.
Best Adapted Screenplay: American Fiction
Can’t believe I caught both Screenplay categories. These two were not the obvious winners, given how this category usually goes. A foreign film and American Fiction over both Oppenheimer and Barbie? The fact that I (and a lot of people) just brazenly picked it over both of those and didn’t think twice about it is nuts. And it worked out. But BAFTA was pretty clear in all that, so it made sense. Also, beautiful speech by Cord Jefferson. Sad that the town will not listen to him at all and not change one but, but still a beautiful speech that is absolutely what these awards are about. Otherwise, this has been the favorite throughout the race, so it was the presumptive choice.
Best Editing: Oppenheimer
This was the moment of the night where Oppenheimer started winning everything. This was one of the gimmes for it. Whether it won Best Picture or not, it was pretty clear this was one of its categories. Also thrilled a woman won this. I know Thelma was nominated too and she’s won three times, but it’s still great to see a woman winning in a technical category like this as opposed to Costumes.
But also, Editing has a very rich history of having women win Oscars. Anne Bauchens won this category in 1940 for North West Mounted Police! She was nominated in the first Editing category in 1934! Barbara McLean won this category in 1944 for Wilson. Adrienne Fazan won for Gigi. Anne V. Coates won for Lawrence of Arabia (featuring the greatest single cut in the history of cinema). Françoise Bonnot won for Z. Verna Fields won for Jaws. Marcia Lucas won for Star Wars. Thelma, as I said, won three times (Raging Bull, Aviator, Departed). Lisa Fruchtman won for The Right Stuff. Claire Simpson won for Platoon. Gabriella Cristiani won for The Last Emperor. Margaret Sixel won for Mad Max: Fury Road. I love that so many women have won here, and for really major films, too.
Best Cinematography: Oppenheimer
Happy for Hoyte. This was a sweep all the way and we knew it was gonna win, but Hoyte absolutely deserved a win and I’m glad he got it. I thought he deserved it for Dunkirk (but I can’t argue with him losing to Deakins there). But, given his resume, I’m so happy he’s finally won one. That part is more important to me than this being an obvious winner.
Best Original Score: Oppenheimer
Ludwig wins again. His second. Another one we saw coming. Love for Robbie Robertson, though. Otherwise, this was expected and is another win on the night for Oppenheimer.
Best Original Song: “What Was I Made For?” from Barbie
Notes on the performances: Billie Eilish did a great job. Scott George and the Osage Singers were amazing. Jon Batiste felt like he cut the performance short (either that or they slotted him to go short). Felt very abbreviated. Becky G — they tried to make it something, but it felt like it highlighted how little there was with that song. This is the downside of automatically nominating Diane Warren for anything.
And then — “I’m Just Ken” — love that they didn’t introduce it and just cut to Gosling in the audience. Perfect. Loved Margot Robbie not being able to keep her shit together for it. I truly hope he kept it a secret that he was gonna do it and just started singing. I love that they also went all out on the production values there. And SLASH. Because why the fuck NOT. Plus bringing the rest of the cast and Greta in the audience to sing along. Plus Emma Stone. Plus walking the cameraman on stage. Just a 15/10. Brought the fucking house down. My only question was — how do you put this on without absolutely knowing if it’s gonna win. But, that’s why they put Score on first afterward and a commercial and didn’t just give out the award. Because they figured Billie Eilish would likely beat it.
As for Eilish — her second win in three years. The presumptive winner (the film was gonna win either way) and not much to talk about in terms of the ballot.
Also, INCREDIBLE In Memoriam they did after this. I like how they made it interactive (though that did sort of take attention away at points as they switched viewpoints) and I thought the singers were incredible. There’s really no winning for them on this, as someone’s gonna be upset no matter what they do, but I think they did a great job with it.
Best Production Design: Poor Things
Absolutely deserved. This was the presumed favorite all the way and I’m happy to see it carry through. It was a tight precursor race with Barbie, but this made the most sense and ended up taking home one of the categories it deserved to win. Given the nominations total for the film, it was gonna take home some stuff. This was the one category it absolutely should have taken, so I’m glad it did.
Best Costume Design: Poor Things
Well… that was a memorable introduction. Incredible lead-in by John Cena. One of the best pre-award bits I’ve seen in a while. Not to mention the FANTASTIC work to get that quick change done in like, eleven seconds. Also, this was the third win in a row for this film. Makeup, Production Design, Costumes. Boom, boom, boom. And by this point, Oppenheimer hadn’t won a single award. They backloaded it. Which is nice of them. Get the interesting stuff out of the way early. But yeah, three wins for this (with Actress coming later). This one was likely, even though I went with Barbie just to keep things interesting. But this seemed like the likely winner going in, so no surprises there.
Best Makeup & Hairstyling: Poor Things
This was extremely deserving (and I’m kinda glad Maestro didn’t win, for a variety of reasons, not least of which being that I thought this was the best overall effort). This also assured that Maestro would win absolutely nothing. But, I went with Maestro mostly because I’d have felt worse not having taken it. This was my preferred winner and I’m happy it won. This also tipped that Emma Stone would likely be winning later (I did say, you wanna pair those two. That’s the third year in a row a lead acting performance paired with the Makeup winner).
Best Visual Effects: Godzilla Minus One
Arnold and Danny DeVito. What a great pull. Also great moment with Keaton as Batman. Wasn’t expecting them to go there. Amazing bit. Sad there wasn’t a single mention of Twins, though. Though completely worth it just to hear Arnold say “Godzilla.”
I’m thrilled that they won this. Very happy for them. In a year without a major winner, something like this winning is just a nice moment. We don’t need another major Hollywood VFX-fest winning. Otherwise, the race was not much of a race, since the precursors went off the board. And Godzilla was only submitted for one category at VES, so The Creator swept there. But I didn’t believe most people saw The Creator, and Godzilla has been the talk of the town the past two months. So it makes sense it won.
Best Sound: The Zone of Interest
Love Mulaney’s intrdocution and working in the “He was in the Amazon researching spiders with my mother just before she died” line, plus his whole bit about Field of Dreams.
Anyway — REALLY FUCKING HAPPY ABOUT THIS WIN. This film absolutely deserved this recognition, and I’m glad the Academy felt the same way. Oppenheimer had amazing sound design, but it was gonna win 7 awards. This was a nice thing to give this film, and it is absolutely 100% deserved.
Also, the surprise of the night. Mostly that it won. It was clearly the alternate, so anyone with a Scorecard ballot shouldn’t have done badly with it. But in terms of outcome, this is the biggest surprise of the entire evening.
Best Animated Feature: The Boy and the Heron
So, what’s funny — I assumed I was wrong about this one. Turns out, I was right. I put Boy and the Heron on my ballot at the last minute (but left Spider-Verse at the top of my rankings, so I still caught a 2 here, as if I got it wrong. This is my current equivalent of splitting the Sound categories, back when there were 2. I will somehow always fine a way to hamstring myself). Still, I’m very happy to catch this 2, because this absolutely deserved to win. Spider-Verse can win for the third one (assuming they stick the landing). This is likely Miyazaki’s final film, and this is a nice note for him to go out on.
Best International Feature: The Zone of Interest (United Kingdom)
NO SHIT.
I will say, though — the United Kingdom (understandably) has never won this category, so that’s a bit of a history-making moment. Also very happy for Jonathan Glazer, even though I don’t think technically he wins this. Otherwise, this was the biggest gimme of the night and absolutely no one should have gotten this one wrong.
Also, just a shout out to the awesome tribute to stuntmen and stuntwomen they did after this award. Very thrilled they did that (and succinctly, too. It was perfectly paced). It did, though, make me wary about them introducing a Stunts category to these awards, just because I worry that people may not actually know from a voting standpoint what actual stunts went into things. So I worry it’ll take a few years to get them up to speed there and we’ll get some bizarre winners. But I guess the good outweighs the bad there. Especially if they’re doing a Casting category. Stunt work is more deserving than casting (even if Casting fits more with the ‘let’s pat ourselves on the back’ theme of these awards).
Best Documentary Feature: 20 Days in Mariupol
Yeah, that tracks. Beautiful speech, wishing he never made the film. Otherwise, this was the favorite, there wasn’t a whole lot of interest in this category, and there won’t be going forward. It’s just kinda gonna be there. So here we are. I hope we all got this one right, since it felt pretty obvious most of the way.
Best Documentary Short: The Last Repair Shop
Interesting. I mean, subject-wise, this was one of two that fits with how they usually vote. I thought the Disney money would have Nai Nai and Wai Po in contention, but this makes sense. I caught a 3 here, but it’s a Shorts category, so I expect to catch aa 3 or higher somewhere. But, it’s a good choice. A deserving subject to win and a great doc. This is the only 3 I caught on the ballot, so I’m totally fine with that. It’s those 4s and 5s that get you. One 3 on the card means you’re human. And in a Shorts category? Shit, I’ll take that every year.
Best Live Action Short: The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar
Wes Anderson wins an Oscar. And isn’t there to accept it. That feels about right. But otherwise, this was the presumed favorite, so there’s not much to talk about here. Knight of Fortune made sense as an alternate, and Red White and Blue was incredible. But the highest profile choice wins. I’m just gonna use the rest of this section to shout out the shortlisted shorts that didn’t make the category: An Avocado Pit, Bienvenidos A Los Angeles, The Anne Frank Gift Shop and Yellow.
Best Animated Short: War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko
This was an obvious choice. Look at the name. What else were they gonna vote for? Especially when half of them didn’t even bother to watch the nominees here. Nice to know the usual logic remains the correct logic when picking this category. Happy for Sean, though. He’s a great dude. Love his tribute to his mother, too. Also, who had shoutouts to Thomas Newman and Peter Jackson in Animated Short on their bingo cards? But yeah, this was a pretty clear favorite, so there’s not much to add here. (For those actually looking to watch good shorts — this was very good, Our Uniform was very good, Letter to a Pig was very good, Ninety-Five Senses was very good, and the un-nominated 27 and Wild Summon were also very good. There’s a lot of great shorts out there.)
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Award breakdown:
- Oppenheimer — 7 wins (Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Editing, Cinematography, Score)
- Poor Things — 4 wins (Actress, Production Design, Costume Design, Makeup & Hairstyling)
- The Zone of Interest — 2 wins (Sound, International Feature)
- American Fiction — 1 win (Original Screenplay)
- Anatomy of a Fall — 1 win (Adapted Screenplay)
- Barbie — 1 win (Song)
- The Boy and the Heron — 1 win (Animated Feature)
- Godzilla Minus One — 1 win (Visual Effects)
- The Holdovers — 1 win (Supporting Actress)
- 20 Days in Mariupol — 1 win (Documentary Feature)
- And then, The Last Repair Shop in Documentary Short, The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar in Live Action Short and War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko in Animated Short.
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Time for the Scorecard. I know I did well here because all I caught was one 3. The rest was just me fucking around with a couple of categories. Whatever this ends up being, I’ll take this every year.
Scorecard Tally:
- Best Picture: +1
- Best Director: +1
- Best Actor: +1
- Best Actress: +2
- Best Supporting Actor: +1
- Best Supporting Actress: +1
- Best Original Screenplay: +1
- Best Adapted Screenplay: +1
- Best Editing: +1
- Best Cinematography: +1
- Best Original Score: +1
- Best Original Song: +1
- Best Production Design: +1
- Best Costume Design: +2
- Best Makeup & Hairstyling: +2
- Best Visual Effects: +1
- Best Sound: +2
- Best Animated Feature: +2
- Best International Feature: +1
- Best Documentary Feature: +1
- Best Documentary Short: +3
- Best Live Action Short: +1
- Best Animated Short: +1
I got 18/23 straight up. Same as last year. I pretty much copied last year exactly outside of one small swap, where I guessed the winner but ranked it second. So I was +7 instead of +6 like last year, but I’m okay with that. That’s still a very solid year.
- 2010: +12 (36)
- 2011: +14 (38)
- 2012: +10 (34)
- 2013: +5 (29)
- 2014: +8 (32)
- 2015: +9 (33)
- 2016: +11 (35)
- 2017: +5 (29)
- 2018: +9 (33)
- 2019: +3 (27)
- 2020: +13 (36)
- 2021: +4 (27)
- 2022: +6 (29)
- 2023: +7 (30)
Carbon copy of last year. Which, still puts it as one of my better years ever. So I’ve got no complaints. If I carried through on my vote for Animated Feature and just kept the rankings the same I’d have been same as last year and tied for top five year all-time. Still, you just wanna be under double digits. That’s a good year. And I only got one +3 and the rest were 2s. That’s a win for me.
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(P.S. My Oscar trivia article will be updated with the results from this year within the next 12 hours.)
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