Say what you want about the Academy Awards, but the ceremony always gives us something to talk about. It’s damn near impossible to fill a room with celebrities without something batshit happening—and this year did not disappoint.
The Oscars kicked off with a stellar monologue from Jimmy Kimmel. Rest assured, the comedian covered a ton of ground, including Greta Gerwig's snub, Madame Web's failure, and Robert Downey Jr.'s presumptive Best Supporting Actor win. (Spoiler: RDJ did, in fact, take home the award.) The ceremony began with Da'Vine Joy Randolph winning Best Supporting Actress for her turn in The Holdovers.
The star thanked everyone who encouraged her to act. "I didn't think I was supposed to be doing this as a career," she said. "I started off as a singer and my mother said to me, go across that street to that theater department. There's something for you there—and I thank my mother for doing that. I thank all the people who have stepped in my path and have been there for me, who have ushered me and guided me. I am so thankful to all you beautiful people out there."
Randolph's win was the first of many historic feats this year. For her work in Killers of the Flower Moon, Lily Gladstone was the first Native American woman to earn a nomination for Best Actress. Meanwhile, for the first time in history, three of the Best Picture nominees (Barbie, Anatomy of a Fall, and Past Lives) were directed by women. Elsewhere in the ceremony, Cillian Murphy won Best Actor for his performance in Oppenheimer, Emma Stone nabbed Best Actress for her chaotic turn as Bella Baxter in Poor Things, and Oppenheimer took home the Best Picture trophy.
So, what's the temperature of the fans at home? Thanks to Ryan Gosling's delightful rendition of "I'm Just Ken," a bit involving a nearly-naked John Cena, and a mercifully on-time ceremony, consensus is that the Academy put on damn good show. Here are the best reactions to the 96th Academy Awards.
Originally published on Esquire US
And with that, the 96th Academy Awards aka the 2024 Oscars have concluded. Celebrating films released in 2013, the awards show continued last year's "Barbenheimer" phenomenon (although Barbie received only eight nominations as compared to Oppenheimer's 13) with two musical performances from Barbie, and Oppenheimer bringing home 7 awards. The latter included Cillian Murphy's first nomination and win for "Best Actor".
Murphy took home the award in an Atelier Versace ensemble that complemented his penchant for contemporary stylings while still adhering to traditional dress codes—an aesthetic that seemed to be the unspoken rule for almost all of our best-dressed attendees. Colman Domingo's Louis Vuitton double-breasted tuxedo consisted of flared trousers and embellished buttons, while Riz Ahmed's Marni fit was finished with raw edges with minimal flourishes.
The red carpets at awards shows as important as the Oscars have had a history of being an avenue for celebrities to show allegiance to a cause. This year was no different. Like Ahmed, attendees the likes of Ramy Youssef, Billie Eilish, and Mark Ruffalo took the opportunity to show their support for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza by wearing red lapel pins. These pins represent Artists4Ceasfire, a collective of over 400 artists who have all expressed their stand through an open letter to US President Joe Biden.
View the best menswear looks at the red carpet of the 96th Academy Awards in the gallery below.
It's time to fire up your Oscars ballots, folks. On Tuesday morning, Zazie Beetz and Jack Quaid announced the nominees for the 2024 Academy Awards.
Surprise, surprise: Oppenheimer led the field with 13 nominations. The film about theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer was recognised for Best Picture, Best Director (Christopher Nolan), Best Actor (Cillian Murphy), Best Supporting Actress (Emily Blunt), Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey Jr.), Cinematography, Adapted Screenplay, Costume Design, Original Score, Makeup & Hairstyling, Editing, Sound, and Production Design.
Meanwhile, Poor Things exceeded expectations with 11 nominations, while Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon garnered 10 nominations. In what's easily the biggest shocker of the morning, Barbie failed to break double digits at this year's Academy Awards, with just eight nominations in total. Though the film was nominated for Best Picture, director Greta Gerwig and star Margot Robbie were both snubbed from the field. However, Ryan Gosling was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, America Ferrera was tapped for Best Supporting Actress, and Gerwig earned a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Other big winners include American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, The Holdovers, Maestro, Past Lives, Poor Things, and The Zone of Interest. They'll compete against Barbie and Oppenheimer for Best Picture. Paul Giamatti and Cillian Murphy will square off in the Best Actor race, alongside Maestro's Bradley Cooper, Rustin's Colman Domingo, and American Fiction's Jeffrey Wright.
Leonardo DiCaprio's exclusion from the Best Supporting Actor list may come as a shock, but the actor has always had a strange relationship with the Academy Awards. Remember, he had to fight a bear in 2015's The Revenant to finally win the coveted award. With Margot Robbie out of the Best Actress race, this year's awards-season mainstays—Flower Moon's Lily Gladstone and Poor Things' Emma Stone—are now joined by Maestro's Carey Mulligan, Nyad's Annette Bening, and Anatomy of a Fall's Sandra Huller.
Elsewhere in the field, Best International Feature Film nominations included Wim Wenders's Perfect Days (Japan), Society of the Snow (Spain), The Zone of Interest (UK), The Teacher's Lounge (Germany), and lo capitano (Italy). Anatomy of a Fall—which is up for Best Picture—and France's other critically acclaimed film of the year, The Taste of Things, both fell short. Many Best Documentary Feature titles came as a surprise, including nominations for Bobi Wine: The People’s President, The Eternal Memory, Four Daughters, To Kill a Tiger, and the timely 20 Days in Mariupol.
In the Best Animated Feature competition, Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Pixar's Elemental, Netflix's Nimona, and surprise international contender Robot Dreams will duke it out. As for Best Original Song, Barbie's "I'm Just Ken" and Billie Eilish's "What Was I Made For?" will battle it out for the golden statue. They'll see competition from "Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)" from Killers of the Flower Moon, "It Never Went Away" from American Symphony, and "The Fire Inside" from the Eva Longoria-directed Flamin’ Hot.
Other snubs include the performance of May December, which received praise for Charles Melton, Natalie Portman, and Juliane Moore's turns, only to walk away with one Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. The Color Purple also received just one nomination for Best Supporting Actress (Danielle Brooks). Ferrari, Asteroid City, Priscilla, Napoleon, AIR, Bottoms, Origin, and All of Us Strangers were completely excluded from the final list of nominations.
The 96th Academy Awards will air on ABC on March 10, with Jimmy Kimmel hosting for the fourth time.
