This Year’s Oscars Had Plenty of Highs—and Some Lows

With Oppenheimer’s Win, Christopher Nolan Has Done Something Not Even Spielberg Managed

The blockbuster filmmaker’s long-awaited Best Picture victory is paralleled only by Spielberg’s. Read more about the precedent for Nolan’s triumph—and what sets the two victories apart.—Dan Kois

The Academy Awards Come to an Anticlimactic Close

10:30 p.m.: It took a few minutes to even process that the final winner had been announced, thanks, in part, to the incredibly blasé way presenter Al Pacino mumbled, “My eyes see Oppenheimer” while peering at the Best Picture card. But the other part of the equation was that many people—both attendees in the theater and spectators online—seemed to be left reeling after Emma Stone ended up taking home the Best Actress award, beating out Lily Gladstone.

While Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon hasn’t gotten nearly as much love on the awards circuit compared to Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer and Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, Gladstone had been considered one of the odds-on favorites in the tight race for Best Actress, racking up a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award along the way for her performance as an Osage woman betrayed by her white husband in the 1920s. Gladstone’s win would have been historic; she would have been not only the first Native Best Actress winner, but also the first out queer actor—she identifies as “middle-gendered” and uses the pronouns she/they—to take home the prize.

Stone, accepting her award onstage at the Dolby Theatre, appeared flustered and even a little discomfited. “Lily, I share this with you,” she said, in an echo of previous awards winners who have found themselves in the unenviable position of achieving a career high that many may believe should have gone to someone else. This is Stone’s second Best Actress win, with her first being for her role in 2016’s La La Land. Her turn as Bella Baxter in Poor Things has been widely praised; Slate’s Dana Stevens calls it a “technically astounding yet thrillingly unhinged performance.” I don’t think anyone would argue that Stone doesn’t deserve her win; it’s more the wistful wish that she could have won any other way.—Jenny G. Zhang

🏆 10:21 p.m.: Oppenheimer wins Best Picture.

🏆 10:14 p.m.: Emma Stone wins Best Actress for Poor Things.

🏆 10:04 p.m.: Christopher Nolan wins Best Director for Oppenheimer.

🏆 10:01 p.m.: Cillian Murphy wins Best Actor for Oppenheimer.

He’s Just Ken

9:50 p.m.: Ryan Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken” was hands down the best part of the Oscars. Read more about the electrifying moment and watch it again.—Nadira Goffe

Of Course “I’m Just Ken” Lost Best Song

9:44 p.m.: Given the choice between a funny, spirited showstopper and a weepy ballad, the Academy will always pull out their handkerchiefs. Read about the glory of “I’m Just Ken” and the Oscars’ rejection of comic tunes here.—Dan Kois

🏆 9:42 p.m.: “What Was I Made For?” wins Best Original Song for Barbie.

🏆 9:40 p.m.: Oppenheimer wins Best Original Score.

Wes Anderson Beats This Year’s Most Embarrassing Nominees

9:30 p.m.:The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, the lovely short bankrolled by Netflix and adapted by Wes Anderson from a Roald Dahl story, has won its expected Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film. This feels like it should be illegal in some way, huge names dipping into a race meant to celebrate the little guy. Anderson didn’t even show up!

Except. Each year, I go to see these shorts. Each year I think, “this will be the year when each entry will not involve the horrible and bizarre death of a child(ren), usually for a ‘topical’ reason, presented to manipulate academy dupes to give Oscars to the least worthy people possible.” This year, once again, I was proven wrong. This year’s slate included:

• The After, in which a child is randomly massacred like a minute in. It’s on Netflix, enjoy!

• Red, White and Blue, starring the underappreciated actress Brittany Snow, which seems to be about a woman who has to cross state lines to get an abortion but in a big, extremely weirdly handled TWIST, turns out to be taking her 10-year-old daughter to get an abortion because she was raped. My audience had an absolute breakdown during this one, and not in the way intended.

• Invincible, about a 14-year-old boy who kills himself after escaping a youth detainment center. This one was actually pretty good, but come on!

There has been a periodic uproar over how the academy treats this category, sometimes threatening to cut it from the broadcast, and I am always sympathetic—except for once a year, when I see the actual nominees.—Jeffrey Bloomer

🏆 9:28 p.m.: The Zone of Interest wins Best Sound.

🏆 9:18 p.m.: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar wins Best Live Action Short Film.

🏆 9:15 p.m.: Oppenheimer wins Best Cinematography.

A Bittersweet Win

9:11 p.m.: More than anything, the Oscars are a celebration of how the movie industry sees itself: This is what we do. Which is part of what makes 20 Days in Mariupol such an interesting winner. Directed by the Associated Press reporter Mstyslav Chernov, the movie is composed of footage shot at the beginning of the Russian attack on the Ukrainian city. It’s often brutally graphic, featuring shots of dead children and infants, a true shock to the conscience. And yet, as he struggles to transmit his footage and waits to see if editors and networks will actually use it, Chernov frequently doubts in voiceover whether any of this will make a difference. “Thousands have died,” he says. “We keep filming. Things stay the same.”

20 Days ends on a note of minor triumph, with a montage of the images we’ve seen Chernov risking his life to capture being broadcast on major networks. But Chernov’s acceptance speech was bittersweet. “I will probably be the first on this stage to say I wish I would never make this film,” he said. “I wish to be able to exchange this to Russia never attacking Ukraine, never occupying our cities. I wish to give all the recognition to Russia not killing tens of thousands of my fellow Ukrainians.”

Films, Chernov acknowledged, cannot change the past. But they can shape how we understand it. “Cinema forms memories,” he said, “and memories form history.”—Sam Adams

🏆 9:07 p.m.: 20 Days in Mariupol wins Best Documentary Feature Film.

🏆 9:04 p.m.: The Last Repair Shop wins Best Documentary Short Film.

Want to Watch Godzilla Minus One Now? Well …

9 p.m.: Made for only $15 million, Godzilla Minus One is the lowest-budget winner of the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in years, but it has another, less happy distinction: It’s the only Oscar nominee it’s currently impossible to see. Perhaps because of the forthcoming Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, the movie was removed from theaters on Feb. 1, but it’s currently not available on streaming or physical media. (A Japanese Blu-ray is due May 1, but there’s no U.S. date yet.) So congratulations to the winners. Hope you can see their awards-worthy work somewhere soon.—Sam Adams

🏆 8:52 p.m.: Oppenheimer wins Best Film Editing.

🏆 8:49 p.m.: Godzilla Minus One wins Best Visual Effects.

🏆 8:40 p.m.: Robert Downey Jr. wins Best Supporting Actor for Oppenheimer.

Just Give Stunts a Category!

8:38 p.m.: It is lovely that Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling did a little appreciation of Hollywood stunt performers. It is slightly less lovely when you realize that the academy is doing this instead of actually just approving an Oscar for Best Stunts. It is even less lovely when you think of it as just pre-publicity for The Fall Guy. On the other hand, that shot of the Bourne cameraperson hanging off a wire freaking ruled.—Dan Kois

Jonathan Glazer Brings Gaza to the Fore

8:35 p.m.: Although several celebrities added red buttons to their Oscar-night outfits to support a ceasefire in Gaza, the ceremony started off in a decidedly apolitical vein, unless you count Jimmy Kimmel showing solidarity with below-the-line union works. But that changed when Jonathan Glazer stepped to the microphone to accept The Zone of Interest’s award for Best International Feature.

Pulling a piece of paper from his pocket, Glazer made clear, as he had since the movie premiered at Cannes last year, that it is not just a movie about the past, but about right now.

All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say “Look what they did then,” rather “Look what we do now.” Our film shows where dehumanization leads, at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we 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—whether the victims of Oct the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization.

This isn’t the first time people involved with the movie have taken the opportunity to speak out on the subject. After winning the top prize at the BAFTAs last month, producer James Wilson noted, “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.” And as she accepted an award from the London Film Critics’ Circle in January, composer Mica Levi drew a similar parallel between the movie’s historical atrocities and the ones going on right now. “The time we are in can’t be ignored,” they said. “I wish for a ceasefire, as I’m sure we all do, and for some change.”

The Oscars and politics have often been a potent, even explosive mix: In 1978, Vanessa Redgrave prompted boos when she used her acceptance speech for Julia, in which she played the supporting role of an anti-Nazi activist, to strike back at the “Zionist hoodlums” who attacked her support of a documentary about the PLO, and in 1993, presenter Richard Gere was disinvited from the broadcast after he denounced the Chinese government’s human rights abuses while reading out the nominees. But in a turbulent year, with an election looming and the death toll in Gaza surpassing 30,000, it’s been all quiet on the awards front. Outside the Independent Spirit Awards last month, protestors yelled “Free Palestine” loudly enough to be heard (if not necessarily understood) inside the ceremony. But only a few people on stage even noted the disruption, and none joined the cause. Instead, the ceremony’s organizers sent a bus to block the sound waves so the awards-bestowing could go on as planned.

As Glazer began his speech, the broadcast cut to a tearful Sandra Hüller, who plays the wife of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss in the film. And the crowd seemed with him, for a while. But when the camera cut to a wide shot after Glazer ended with a plea for “resistance,” you could see a handful of stars applauding, and many more staying politely uninvolved.—Sam Adams

🏆 8:23 p.m.: The Zone of Interest wins Best International Feature Film.

🏆 8:13 p.m.: Poor Things wins Best Costume Design.

A Solid Bit

8:10 p.m.: Well, there’s John Cena leaving very little to the imagination.—Jenny G. Zhang

🏆 8:08 p.m.: Poor Things wins Best Production Design.

🏆 8:05 p.m.: Poor Things wins Best Makeup and Hairstyling.

Justine Triet’s Surprisingly Low-Key Acceptance Speech

8 p.m.: Anatomy of a Fall features some of the spikiest exchanges in any movie of the last year, and director and co-writer Justine Triet has accepted the many awards it’s won in the same spirit. In May, Triet used her acceptance speech for the Palme d’Or, Cannes’ top prize, to lash out at at the French government’s “commodification of culture” and lend her support to the masses protesting Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms—comments which may have cost Anatomy of a Fall its spot as the country’s Oscars submission. (That honor went to Tran Anh Hung’s lovely The Taste of Things, which then failed, perhaps because of the controversy, to make the International Film shortlist.) And when Anatomy racked up six awards, including Best Film, at the Césars (the French Oscars) last month, she graciously acknowledged the honor while underlining that she was only the second woman to win best director in the awards’ 49-year history.

But tonight at the Oscars, Triet and her husband and co-writer Arthur Harari accepted their award for Best Original screenplay in surprisingly tame fashion, cracking jokes about plunking their kids in front of cartoons so they could work on the script during lockdown. The broadcast gives many winners the biggest audience they’ve ever had, but the road to the ceremony is so long that some of them have exhausted everything they have to say by the time they get there. Either that, or they just get cold feet and decide to play nice.—Sam Adams

🏆 7:51 p.m.: American Fiction wins Best Adapted Screenplay.

More Like Worst Animated Short

7:50 p.m.: As is often the case, the Oscar for Best Animated Short went to the worst of the five nominees. War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko is a very silly short film about the opponents in some kind of war playing chess against each other via carrier pigeon, and it is simple-minded, uninteresting, and laughably dumb. Unlike last year, there wasn’t a slam-dunk winner in this year’s category—they were all pretty beautiful and pretty dull—but the one thing the other four nominees had in common was that they were like ten times better than War Is Over. On the other hand, Sean Ono Lennon looks great.—Dan Kois

🏆 7:48 p.m.: Anatomy of a Fall wins Best Original Screenplay.

🏆 7:40 p.m.: The Boy and the Heron wins Best Animated Feature.

🏆 7:35 p.m.: War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko wins Best Animated Short Film.

🏆 7:25 p.m.: Da’Vine Joy Randolph wins Best Supporting Actress for The Holdovers.

The Opening Monologue Was … Good?

7:10 p.m.: Host Jimmy Kimmel brings a lot of surprisingly solid jokes—and a few clunkers, sure (looking at you, Robert Downey Jr.)—plus some good ol’ labor solidarity to the opening monologue. Has the curse of the awards-show host finally ended? Read our ranking of his opening-monologue jokes, from best to most groanworthy.—Jenny G. Zhang

Who Let the Dog Out (Or In)?

6:50 p.m.: Messi, the breakout canine star of the Oscar-nominated French legal thriller Anatomy of a Fall, has triumphed over haters who apparently took issue with the pooch’s heart-winning presence on the awards circuit and at the annual Oscar nominees luncheon. After news outlets reported that Messi would not be making an appearance at the Academy Awards, the dog—in his best formalwear, no less—was spotted among the audience in the Dolby Theatre. Looks like he got the last word, and it’s: “Woof!”—Jenny G. Zhang

Red-Carpet Accessory Watch: Pins With a Message

6:30 p.m.: Mere hours ago, close to a thousand pro-Palestine protesters gathered in the streets surrounding the Dolby Theatre ahead of the Oscars ceremony. The Los Angeles Times reports that demonstrators shouted “Free Palestine!” and waved signs with messages like “While you’re watching, bombs are dropping.” But inside the steel barriers surrounding the theater, it largely appeared to be business as usual as red-carpet festivities kicked off, save for pins that a handful of attendees pointedly displayed. Actor Ramy Youssef and Oscar-nominated singer Billie Eilish are among the high-profile attendees who wore “Artists for Ceasefire” pins, while Anatomy of a Fall actors Swann Arlaud and Milo Machado-Graner sported pins decorated with the Palestinian flag. Youssef, speaking out directly on the red carpet, said in an interview, “We’re calling for an immediate, permanent ceasefire in Gaza. We’re calling for peace and lasting justice for the people of Palestine.”—Jenny G. Zhang

Why Everyone Has Their Eye on This Year’s Ratings

6 p.m.: One of the most interesting things to keep an eye on about this year’s Academy Awards will be just how many other people have their eyes on them. If all goes as predicted, Oppenheimer will end the night as the highest-grossing Best Picture since The Return of the King, with generous representation for the year’s box-office champ, Barbie. Will having popular movies in play bring audiences back to the Oscars?

Ratings for the broadcast have risen in the past two years, but only compared to the dire numbers put up by the pandemic-era broadcast in 2021. Last year’s ceremony was watched by 18.7 million viewers, just over a third of the 57 million who tuned in to witness Titanic win Best Picture in 1998—a record that, like the 120 million copies sold by Michael Jackson’s Thriller, changing technology has made virtually inconceivable to surpass. Critics have placed the blame on the Academy’s supposedly rarefied taste, which, after The Dark Knight missed out on a Best Picture nomination in 2009, led the Oscars to expand the Best Picture field to 10 nominations in a bid to make room for more populist choices.

That hasn’t entirely worked out as planned; with a few exceptions, including 2022’s Avatar and Top Gun sequels, voters have mainly used the extra slots to recognize more small-budget and international fare. And the Academy Awards’ ratings have continued to dwindle. But is it really the movies’ fault? The Oscars’ most-watched broadcast of the 21st century was in 2014, when Best Picture went to 12 Years a Slave—a historic winner, but no one’s idea of a blockbuster.

It’s true that the year of The Return of the King, in 2004, drew the Oscars’ second-biggest audience since the turn of the millennium. But this year’s Oscars will act as an acid test for the idea that having more popular nominees guarantees a larger audience. It seems more plausible that the Oscars’ ratings have shrunk for the simple reason that fewer people are watching TV overall, especially in the ways TV ratings measure. (At this point, acting as if the only audience that matters is people watching in real time on their TV sets comes close to professional malpractice.) If Oppenheimer wins and the ratings don’t soar, we’ll know for certain that the Oscars’ problems are bigger and more intractable than any blockbuster can fix.—Sam Adams

It’s Hollywood’s Biggest Night!

5:30 p.m.: This year, the 96^th Academy Awards have an early kickoff time of 7 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. As always, Slate’s Culture team will be weighing in on the broadcast all night, covering the triumphs, the outrages, the number of “Ken” puns uttered, and so much more. Will host Jimmy Kimmel bring groans or laughter? Will Cillian Murphy find some way to radiate his disdain for the British? Who will take home the ultimate prize (a pure and unsullied love of cinema)? Stick around and find out.

Read more in Slate about the Oscars.