Check out what these celebrities were wearing on the red carpet and who some of them brought as their dates.
Lady Gaga at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Olivia Colman (pictured at right) and husband Ed Sinclair at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Christian Bale and wife Sibi Blazic at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Christine Lahti at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Terry Crews and wife Rebecca King-Crews at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Bradley Cooper (center) with mother Gloria Campano and girlfriend Irina Shayk at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
John Mulaney (pictured at right) and wife Annamarie Tendler at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Holland Taylor at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Krysten Ritter at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Tommy Hilfiger and wife Dee Ocleppo Hilfiger at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Dana Carvey and wife Paula Zwagerman at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Laura Dern at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Emily Deschanel, Zooey Deschanel, Caleb Deschanel and May Jo Deschanel at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Jason Momoa and Lisa Bonet at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Samuel L. Jackson at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Viggo Mortensen (center) with son Henry Mortensen and girlfriend Ariadna Gil at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Brie Larson at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Javier Bardem at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Mike Myers and wife Kelly Tisdale at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Alfonso Cuarón (center) with wife Annalisa Bugliani and son Olmo Cuarón at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Amy Adams (pictured at right) with husband Darren Le Gallo at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
David Oyelowo (pictured at right) with wife Jessica Oyelowo at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Jennifer Hudson at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Glenn Close at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Kacey Musgraves at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Linda Cardellini at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Trudie Styler at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Jenifer Lewis at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Billy Porter and husband Adam Smith at the 91st annual Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen in “Green Book” (Photo by Patti Perret)
Universal Pictures’ “Green Book” won three Oscars, including Best Picture, at the 91st Academy Awards, which took place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on February 24, 2019. Meanwhile, Netflix’s Spanish-language film “Roma,” which went into the ceremony tied with the most nominations (10), won four Oscars. There was no host for the show, following the controversy over Kevin Hart quitting the job over his past homophobic remarks, as well as disagreements over his public apologies for those remarks. ABC had the U.S. telecast of the Academy Awards ceremony, which is presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
“Green Book” is inspired by the true story of a friendship that develops between Italian-American driver Tony “Lip” Vallelonga and African-American pianist Don Shirley during a early 1960s road trip in the segregated South. “Green Book” also won Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (Marhershala Ali, who plays Shirley) and Best Original Screenplay, which was co-written by Nick Vallelonga (one of Tony Vallelonga’s sons) and director Peter Farrelly. “Green Book” is one of the few movies that has won the Oscar for Best Picture without its director getting a Best Director nomination.
“Roma” is inspired by filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón’s childhood in early 1970s Mexico, as seen through the perspective of his family’s nanny/housekeeper. “Roma” won the Oscars for Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Foreign Language Film. Cuarón was a winner of all three of these Oscars, since he is the director and cinematographer of “Roma,” as well as one of the film’s producers.
The official Queen biopic “Bohemian Rhapsody” won four Oscars: Best Actor (for Rami Malek), Best Film Editing, Best Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. 20th Century Fox’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture.
Fox Searchlight’s “The Favourite,” which had 10 nominations going into the ceremony, won one award that came as a surprise to many: Best Actress, for Olivia Colman, who triumphed over widely predicted Glenn Close of “The Wife,” who had been winning several major prizes in this category at other major award shows. “The Favourite,” set in the early 1700s, tells the story of Great Britain’s Queen Anne and two women who compete for her affections. Meanwhile, Regina King of “If Beale Street Could Talk” won for Best Supporting Actress.
Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther,” won three out its seven Oscar nominations: Best Original Score, Best Costume Design and Best Production Design. “Black Panther” now holds the record as the superhero movie with the most Oscars.
Presenters at the 2019 Academy Awards were Awkwafina, Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Tina Fey, Jennifer Lopez, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Amandla Stenberg, Tessa Thompson Constance Wu, Javier Bardem, Angela Bassett, Chadwick Boseman, Emilia Clarke, Laura Dern, Samuel L. Jackson, Stephan James, Keegan-Michael Key, KiKi Layne, James McAvoy, Melissa McCarthy, Jason Momoa, Sarah Paulson, Gary Oldman, Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell, Allison Janney, Elsie Fisher, Danai Gurira, Brian Tyree Henry, Michael B. Jordan, Michael Keaton, Helen Mirren, John Mulaney, Tyler Perry, Pharrell Williams, Krysten Ritter, Paul Rudd, Michelle Yeoh, José Andrés, Dana Carvey, Queen Latifah, Congressman John Lewis, Diego Luna, Tom Morello, Mike Myers, Trevor Noah, Amandla Stenberg, Barbra Streisand and Serena Williams.
Queen with singer Adam Lambert opened the show with a medley of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions.” Other musical performances were for four of the five Oscar-nominated songs. Bette Midler sang “The Place Where Los Things Go” from “Mary Poppins Returns.” Jennifer Hudson performed “I’ll Fight” from “RBG.” David Rawlings and Gillian Welch performed “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” from “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper duetted on “Shallow” from “A Star Is Born,” which won the Oscar for Best Original Song. “All the Stars” from “Black Panther” was not performed since the song’s artists Kendrick Lamar and SZA declined to perform the song.
Donna Gigliotti (who won an Oscar for Best Picture for 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love) and Emmy-winning director Glenn Weiss were the producers of the 2019 Academy Awards. This was the first time that Gigliotti is producing the Oscar ceremony. Weiss has directed several major award shows, including the Oscars and the Tonys.
Diversity and Historic Wins
Rami Malek, Olivia Colman, Regina King and Mahershala Ali at the 91st Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on February 24, 2019. (Photo by Rick Rowell/ABC)
It was a historic Oscar ceremony for diversity, since it was a record-breaking Oscar ceremony, with the highest number so far (14) of non-whites winning Oscars in one year. Malek became the first Egyptian-American to win an Oscar for Best Actor. Ali of “Green Book” and Regina King of “If Beale Street Could Talk” joined the growing list of black actors who have won Oscars. “BlacKkKlansman” screenplay co-writer Spike Lee won his first Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. (Lee also received an honorary Oscar, a non-competitive prize, in 2015.) Black filmmakers won in the categories for Best Adapted Screenplay (Lee and Kevin Willmott); Best Animated Feature (“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” co-director Peter Ramsey); Best Production Design (Hannah Beachler of “Black Panther”); and Best Costume Design (Ruth Carter of “Black Panther”). It was the first time that black people have won Oscars for Best Animated Feature, Best Costume Design and Best Production Design.
Asian filmmakers also had several Oscar wins: “Free Solo” directors/producers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyil won for Best Documentary Feature; “Bao” director Domee Shi won for Best Animated Short; and “Period. End of Sentence.” director/producer Rayka Zehtabchi won for Best Live-Action Short. “Roma” was the movie that gave Latinos the most representation at this year’s Academy Awards, with wins for Cuarón and producer Gabriela Rodríguez.
The number of female Oscar winners increased considerably in 2019, compared to 2018. In 2019, there were 15 female winners and 36 male winners, compared to 2018, when there were only six female winners and 24 male winners.
In addition, this was the first time in Oscar history that three of the four acting prizes went to LGBTQ character roles, and these characters also happened to be based on real people: Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Queen Anne of “The Favourite” and pianist Shirley of “Green Book.”
Here is the complete list of winners and nominations for the 2019 Academy Awards:
*=winner
Best Picture
Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen in “Green Book” (Photo by Patti Perret)
“Black Panther”
(Producer: Kevin Feige)
“BlacKkKlansman”
(Producers: Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Raymond Mansfield, Jordan Peele and Spike Lee)
“Bohemian Rhapsody”
(Producer: Graham King)
“The Favourite”
(Producers: Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday and Yorgos Lanthimos)
“Green Book”* (Producers: Jim Burke, Charles B. Wessler, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly and Nick Vallelonga)
“Roma”
(Producers: Gabriela Rodríguez and Alfonso Cuarón)
“A Star Is Born”
(Producers: Bill Gerber, Bradley Cooper and Lynette Howell Taylor)
“Vice”
(Producers: Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Adam McKay and Kevin Messick)
Best Actor
Rami Malek and Gwilym Lee in “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Photo by Alex Bailey)
Christian Bale, “Vice”
Bradley Cooper, “A Star Is Born”
Willem Dafoe, “At Eternity’s Gate” Rami Malek, “Bohemian Rhapsody”*
Viggo Mortensen, “Green Book”
Best Actress
Olivia Colman in “The Favourite” (Photo by Atsushi Nishijima)
Yalitza Aparicio, “Roma”
Glenn Close, “The Wife” Olivia Colman, “The Favourite”*
Lady Gaga, “A Star Is Born”
Melissa McCarthy, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali in “Green Book” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures and Participant Media)
Mahershala Ali, “Green Book”*
Adam Driver, “BlacKkKlansman”
Sam Elliott, “A Star Is Born”
Richard E. Grant, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Sam Rockwell, “Vice”
Best Supporting Actress
Regina King in “If Beale Street Could Talk” (Photo by Tatum Mangus)
Amy Adams, “Vice”
Marina de Tavira, “Roma” Regina King, “If Beale Street Could Talk”*
Emma Stone, “The Favourite”
Rachel Weisz, “The Favourite”
Best Director
Alfonso Cuarón and Yalitza Aparicio on the set of “Roma” (Photo by Carlos Somonte/Netflix)
Spike Lee, “BlacKkKlansman”
Paweł Pawlikowski, “Cold War”
Yorgos Lanthimos, “The Favourite” Alfonso Cuarón, “Roma”*
Adam McKay, “Vice”
Best Animated Feature
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” (Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Animation)
“Incredibles 2,” directed by Brad Bird; produced by John Walker and Nicole Paradis Grindle
“Isle of Dogs,” directed and produced by Wes Anderson; produced by Scott Rudin, Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson
“Mirai,” directed by Mamoru Hosoda; produced by Yuichiro Saito
“Ralph Breaks the Internet,” directed by Rich Moore and Phil Johnston; produced by Clark Spencer
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman; produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller*
Best Animated Short
“Animal Behaviour,” directed and produced by Alison Snowden and David Fine “Bao,” directed by Domee Shi; produced by Becky Neiman-Cobb*
“Late Afternoon,” directed by Louise Bagnall; produced by Nuria González Blanco
“One Small Step,” directed by Andrew Chesworth and Bobby Pontillas
“Weekends,” directed and produced by Trevor Jimenez
Best Adapted Screenplay
Spike Lee and Adam Driver on the set of “BlacKkKlansman” (Photo by David Lee/ Focus Features)
“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen “BlacKkKlansman,” Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee*
“Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty
“If Beale Street Could Talk,” Barry Jenkins
“A Star Is Born,” Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper and Will Fetters
Best Original Screenplay
Viggo Mortensen, writer/director/producer Peter Farrelly and Mahershala Ali on the set of “Green Book” (Photo by Patti Perret)
“The Favourite,” Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara
“First Reformed,” Paul Schrader “Green Book,” Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie and Peter Farrelly*
“Roma,” Alfonso Cuarón
“Vice,” Adam McKay
Best Cinematography
Marco Graf, Daniela Demesa, Yalitza Aparicio, Marina De Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey and Carlos Peralta Jacobson in “Roma” (Photo by Carlos Somonte)
“Cold War,” Łukasz Żal
“The Favourite,” Robbie Ryan
“Never Look Away,” Caleb Deschanel “Roma,” Alfonso Cuarón*
“A Star Is Born,” Matthew Libatique
Best Documentary Feature
Alex Honnold in “Free Solo” (Photo courtesy of National Geographic)
“Free Solo,” directed and produced by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyil; produced by Evan Hayes and Shannon Dill*
“Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” directed and produced by RaMell Ross; produced by Joslyn Barnes and Su Kim
“Minding the Gap,” directed and produced by Bing Liu; produced by Diane Quon
“Of Fathers and Sons,” directed by Talal Derki; produced by Ansgar Frerich, Eva Kemme and Tobias N. Siebert
“RBG,” directed and produced by Betsy West and Julie Cohen
Best Documentary Short Subject
“Black Sheep,” directed by Ed Perkins; produced by Jonathan Chinn
“End Game,” directed and produced by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman
“Lifeboat,” directed and produced by Skye Fitzgerald
“A Night at the Garden,” directed and produced by Marshall Curry “Period. End of Sentence.,” directed and produced by Rayka Zehtabchi*
Best Live Action Short Film
“Detainment,” directed and produced by Vincent Lambe; produced by Darren Mahon
“Fauve,” directed by Jeremy Comte; produced by Maria Gracia Turgeon
“Marguerite,” directed by Marianne Farley; produced by Marie-Hélène Panisset
“Mother,” directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen; produced by María del Puy Alvarado “Skin,” directed and produced by Guy Nattiv; produced by Jaime Ray Newman*
Best Foreign Language Film
Yalitza Aparicio, Marco Graf, Carlos Peralta Jacobson and Daniela Demesa in “Roma” (Photo by Alfonso Cuarón)
Gwilym Lee, Ben Hardy, Rami Malek and Joe Mazzello in “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox)
“BlacKkKlansman,” Barry Alexander Brown “Bohemian Rhapsody,” John Ottman*
“Green Book,” Patrick J. Don Vito
“The Favourite,” Yorgos Mavropsaridis
“Vice,” Hank Corwin
Best Sound Editing
Gwilym Lee, Rami Malek and Joe Mazzello in “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Photo courtesy 20th Century Fox)
“Black Panther,” Benjamin A. Burtt and Steve Boeddeker “Bohemian Rhapsody,” John Warhurst*
“First Man,” Ai-Ling Lee and Mildred Iatrou Morgan
“A Quiet Place,” Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl
“Roma,” Sergio Diaz and Skip Lievsay
Best Sound Mixing
Joe Mazzello, Ben Hardy, Rami Malek and Gwilym Lee in “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Photo by Alex Bailey)
“Black Panther,” Steve Boeddeker, Brandon Proctor and Peter Devlin “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Paul Massey, Tim Cavagin and John Casali*
“First Man,” Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Ai-Ling Lee and Mary H. Ellis
“Roma,” Skip Lievsay, Craig Henighan and José Antonio García
“A Star Is Born,” Tom Ozanich, Dean Zupancic, Jason Ruder and Steve Morrow
Best Production Design
Michael B. Jordan and Daniel Kaluuya in “Black Panther” (Photo courtesy of Disney/Marvel Studios)
“Black Panther”* Production Design: Hannah Beachler; Set Decoration: Jay Hart
“The Favourite”
Production Design: Fiona Crombie; Set Decoration: Alice Felton
“First Man”
Production Design: Nathan Crowley; Set Decoration: Kathy Lucas
“Mary Poppins Returns”
Production Design: John Myhre; Set Decoration: Gordon Sim
“Roma”
Production Design: Eugenio Caballero; Set Decoration: Bárbara Enríquez
Best Original Score
Lupita Nyong’o and Chadwick Boseman in “Black Panther” (Photo courtesy of Disney/Marvel Studios)
“BlacKkKlansman,” Terence Blanchard “Black Panther,” Ludwig Goransson*
“If Beale Street Could Talk,” Nicholas Britell
“Isle of Dogs,” Alexandre Desplat
“Mary Poppins Returns,” Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman
Best Original Song
Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper in “A Star Is Born” (Photo by Clay Enos)
“All the Stars” from “Black Panther,” song written by Kendrick Lamar, Solana Rowe (SZA), Mark Spears and Anthony Tiffith
“I’ll Fight” from “RBG,” song written by Diane Warren
“The Place Where Lost Things Go” from “Mary Poppins Returns,” song written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman
“Shallow” from “A Star Is Born,” song written by Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, Andrew Wyatt and Benjamin Rice*
“When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings” from “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” song written by David Rawlings and Gillian Welch
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Amy Adams and Christian Bale in “Vice” (Photo by Matt Kennedy)
“Border,” Göran Lundström and Pamela Goldammer
“Mary Queen of Scots,” Jenny Shircore, Marc Pilcher and Jessica Brooks “Vice,” Greg Cannom, Kate Biscoe and Patricia DeHaney*
Best Costume Design
Lupita Nyong’o and Letitia Wright in “Black Panther” (Photo by Matt Kennedy)
“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” Mary Zophres “Black Panther,” Ruth E. Carter*
“The Favourite,” Sandy Powell
“Mary Poppins Returns,” Sandy Powell
“Mary Queen of Scots,” Alexandra Byrne
Best Visual Effects
Ryan Gosling in “First Man” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures)
“Avengers: Infinity War,” Dan DeLeeuw, Kelly Port, Russell Earl and Dan Sudick
“Christopher Robin,” Christopher Lawrence, Michael Eames, Theo Jones and Chris Corbould
“First Man,” Paul Lambert, Ian Hunter, Tristan Myles and J.D. Schwalm*
“Ready Player One,” Roger Guyett, Grady Cofer, Matthew E. Butler and David Shirk
“Solo: A Star Wars Story,” Rob Bredow, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Dominic Tuohy
Academy president John Bailey and Oscar nominee Marianne Farley (writer/director of the Oscar-nominated live-action short film “Marguerite”) at the Oscar Nominee Luncheon held at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, on February 4, 2019. (Photo by Phil McCarten/A.M.P.A.S.)
In a move that came after immense backlash and pressure from the film industry and the general public, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has reversed its decision to give out awards for four categories during commercial breaks for the 91st Academy Awards and will instead have the presentation of all Oscar categories during the telecast, as has been the tradition for decades. There are currently 24 competitive categories (categories that require nominations and voting) for the Academy Awards. The 91st Oscar ceremony will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on February 24, 2019. ABC will have the U.S. telecast of the ceremony, which will not have a host.
The Academy had announced back in August 2018 that, in order to keep the Oscar telecast limited to three hours, some of the award categories would be dropped from the live telecast, with those categories’ awards and acceptance speeches taking place during commercial breaks. The Academy did not reveal at the time which categories would be dropped or if any part of the winners’ speeches from the dropped categories would be televised. The Academy did say that the list of winners from those dropped categories would be announced later during the show in an abbreviated format.
According to Variety, Academy president John Bailey (who is a former cinematographer) and Academy CEO Dawn Hudson had a meeting on February 14 with top cinematographers and have pledged to air every awards category on the live show. The cinematographers at the meeting, according to Variety, were American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) president Kees van Osstrom and ASC members Hoyte van Hoytema (Oscar nominee for “Dunkirk”), Rachel Morrison (Oscar nominee for “Mudbound”) and Emmanuel Lubezki (Oscar winner for “Gravity,” “Birdman” and “The Revenant”)
The Academy then issued this statement: “The Academy has heard the feedback from its membership regarding the Oscar presentation of four awards – Cinematography, Film Editing, Live Action Short, and Makeup and Hairstyling. All Academy Awards will be presented without edits, in our traditional format. We look forward to Oscar Sunday, February 24.”
After the decision was made to have all Oscar categories remain in the telecast, the ASC released this open letter to the Academy that read in part: “In exploring this issue we have all been reminded of an important distinction: The Academy Awards cannot become just be another televised celebrity showcase. Our prestigious Academy has a higher purpose and must stand apart from other organizations by equally recognizing the most outstanding artists and craftspeople in all categories. We thank you for your show of respect for the hard-working members of the film community, whose dedication and exceptional talents deserve the public recognition this reversal now allows them to enjoy.”
Numerous prominent filmmakers protested the Academy’s decision to present awards during the Oscar telecast’s commercial breaks. These filmmakers included Oscar winners Martin Scorsese, Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, Damien Chazelle, Quentin Tarantino, Ang Lee, George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Russell Crowe, costume designer Sandy Powell and cinematographers Janusz Kaminski and Roger Deakins. Spike Lee, Seth Rogen and Alec Baldwin were some of the other famous names who were part of the protest.
The decision reversal is another public-relations debacle for the Academy, which had also announced in August 2018 that it was adding a “popular films” category, only to abandon the idea a month later after immense backlash and criticism from industry professionals and the general public. The Academy also had another embarrassment in January 2019, when comedian/actor Kevin Hart stepped down from hosting the 2019 Oscar ceremony two days after it was announced that he was hosting the show. Hart quit the job after disagreements with the Academy over making a public apology for homophobic remarks that he made several years ago. After Hart stepped down as Oscar host, he made several public apologies for his past homophobic comments, but said he was not interested in hosting the Oscars this year because of all the controversy.
The producers who are heading the 91st Oscar ceremony telecast are Donna Giglotti (a past Oscar winner for producing 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love) and veteran TV director Glenn Weiss, who is also directing the show, as he has for many years. This is Gigliotti’s first time that she will be producing the Oscar telecast.
Alfonso Cuarón and Yalitza Aparicio on the set of “Roma” (Photo by Carlos Somonte/Netflix)
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that categories of Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Makeup and Hairstyling and Best Live-Action Short will be dropped from the Oscar telecast at the 91st Academy Awards, which will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on February 24, 2019. ABC will have the U.S. telecast of the show, which will not have a host. The Academy announced in August 2018 that, in order to keep the Oscar telecast strictly limited to three hours, the 2019 Oscar ceremony would drop a certain number of categories from the telecast and would instead give the awards during commercial breaks. The winners would then be listed on-screen instead of having their entire acceptance speeches televised.
At the time the Academy announced in August 2018 that it would be dropping a certain number of categories from the Oscar telecast, the Academy did not specify how many and which categories would be dropped but did say that it would not be the same categories that would be dropped every year. Many people assumed that any of the three categories for short films (live-action, animation and documentaries), would be the most likely to be dropped since short films are the least-seen films of the Oscar nominees. The technical categories for sound editing and sound mixing also seemed likely to get dropped from the telecast. Therefore, it was a shock to many industry professionals that cinematography and film editing—which are considered two of the most crucial aspects of filmmaking—were among the dropped categories. Although there has been some criticism for dropping the makeup/hairstyling and live-action shorts categories, most of the criticism is over dropping the categories for cinematography and film editing.
The Academy’s announcement was met with immense backlash from Academy voters, other industry professionals and movie fans, who voiced their opinions on social media and elsewhere. Oscar-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón, who has several Oscar nominations this year for “Roma,” including for Best Cinematography, tweeted this criticism of the Academy’s decision to drop the Best Cinematography prize from the Oscar telecast: “In the history of CINEMA, masterpieces have existed without sound, without color, without a story, without actors and without music. No one single film has ever existed without CINEMAtography and without editing.” Cuarón has won Oscars for producing, directing and co-editing the 2013 film “Gravity,” which also won Oscars for cinematography, sound editing, sound mixing, original score and visual effects.
Cuarón is the writer, director, editor and cinematographer of “Roma,” as well as one of the film’s producers. He has already won several prizes as the director, cinematographer and producer of “Roma,” a Spanish-language movie filmed in black and white. “Roma” is tied with “The Favourite” for the most Oscar nominations (10) this year. Oscar nominations for “The Favourite” include those for cinematography and film editing.
Kees van Oostrum, the president of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC), issued this statement: “After receiving many comments on this matter from ASC members, I think I speak for many of them in declaring this a most unfortunate decision. We consider filmmaking to be a collaborative effort where the responsibilities of the director, cinematographer, editor and other crafts often intersect. This decision could be perceived as a separation and division of this creative process, thus minimizing our fundamental creative contributions. The Academy is an important institution that represents our artistry in the eyes of the world. Since the organization’s inception 91 years ago, the Academy Awards have honored cinematographers’ talent, craft and contributions to the filmmaking process, but we cannot quietly condone this decision without protest.”
He also told Variety: “The decision can only be seen as a diminution of our contribution. It’s absolutely the wrong message. My phone has been ringing off the hook. It also diminishes the contribution of editors, with whom we collaborate very closely.”
Oscar-winning actor Russell Crowe (“Gladiator”) was among the celebrities, such as Alec Baldwin and Seth Rogen, who condemned the decision. Crowe tweeted in an expletive-peppered statement: “The Academy is removing cinematography, editing and makeup from the televised show? This is just a fundamentally stupid decision, I’m not even going to be bothered to be a smart arse about it. It’s just too fucking dumb for words.”
Meanwhile, several people who are not happy about the dropped categories began posting the hashtag #boycottoscars on social media in addition to expressing their outrage and disgust. Several of the protesters say that tedious monologues, skits and stunts should be dropped from the Oscar telecast instead of dropping important award categories.
The decision to drop these categories is one of several controversies and public-relations missteps by the Academy over the 2019 Oscars. In January 2019, comedian/actor Kevin Hart dropped out of hosting the show because of his past homophobic remarks and disagreements over how he would make a public apology. Less than a month later, the Academy considered having only two of the five Best Original Song nominations performed at the ceremony, which was idea that was swiftly shot down by the nominees, Academy members and the general public. And in August 2018, the Academy announced the addition of a “popular films” category, an idea that was dropped a month later due to immense backlash from the industry and the general public. It didn’t help that when the Academy announced the “popular films” category, it did not explain how films would qualify for that category.
Academy members have made it clear on social media that it is the Academy’s board of directors and branch governors, not the membership as a whole, who have made these decisions without full input from voting membership. Ratings for the Oscars, as well as for almost all major televised award shows, have been on a downward spiral for the past few years. The 2018 Oscar telecast was the lowest-rated in Oscar history so far, with 26.5 million U.S. viewers.
The 91st Oscar ceremony is being produced by Donna Gigliotti and Glenn Weiss, who is also directing the show. It will be the first Oscar ceremony since 1989 to not have a host.
February 13, 2019 UPDATE: According to Deadline, about 99 prominent filmmakers (including Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino and Seth Rogen; Oscar-winning directors Martin Scorsese, Ang Lee and Damien Chazelle; and Oscar-winning cinematographers Roger Deakins, Emmanuel Lubezki and Janusz Kaminski; and Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell) signed an open letter to the Academy vehemently protesting the decision to have four award categories presented during the commercial breaks.
In response, the Academy’s board of governors issued a statement that appears to backtrack from the Academy’s previous hints that the winners’ speeches in those categories would not be televised. The statement clarifies that the speeches will be televised, but the speeches will be shown later in the Oscar telecast. What the statement does not say is if or how much the speeches will be edited. Considering that reducing the ceremony’s running time was the main reason from not having these four categories presented in the same manner as the other categories, it’s likely that the speeches that happen during the commercial breaks will be heavily edited.
Here is the statement from the Academy:
“We’d like to restate and explain the plans for presenting the awards, as endorsed by the Academy’s Board of Governors.”
· All 24 Award categories are presented on stage in the Dolby Theatre, and included in the broadcast.· Four categories – Cinematography, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, and Live Action Short – were volunteered by their branches to have their nominees and winners announced by presenters, and included later in the broadcast. Time spent walking to the stage and off, will be edited out.
· The four winning speeches will be included in the broadcast.
· In future years, four to six different categories may be selected for rotation, in collaboration with the show producers. This year’s categories will be exempted in 2020.
· This change in the show was discussed and agreed to by the Board of Governors in August, with the full support of the branch executive committees.
Such decisions are fully deliberated. Our show producers have given great consideration to both Oscar tradition and our broad global audience.We sincerely believe you will be pleased with the show, and look forward to celebrating a great year in movies with all Academy members and with the rest of the world.
John Bailey, President Lois Burwell, First Vice President Sid Ganis, Vice President Larry Karaszewski, Vice President Nancy Utley, Vice President Jim Gianopulos, Treasurer David Rubin, Secretary
February 15, 2019 UPDATE: The Academy has reversed its decision, and the Oscar ceremony will go back to fully televising all of the award categories. Click here for the full story.
Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga at the 76th Annual Golden Globe Awards on January 6, 2019. (Photo by Paul Drinkwater/NBC)
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced several entertainers who will be performers and presenters at the 91st Annual Academy Awards ceremony, which will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. ABC will have the U.S. telecast of the show, which will not have a host. As previously reported, comedian/actor Kevin Hart was going to host the show, but he backed out after the show’s producers demanded that he make a public apology for homophobic remarks that he made several years ago. After getting a firestorm of backlash for the homophobic remarks, Hart later made several public apologies but remained adamant that he would still not host the Oscars this year.
The celebrities who will be on stage at the Oscars this year are several of those whose songs are nominated for Best Original Song. Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper will perform their duet “Shallow” from their movie remake of “A Star Is Born.” Jennifer Hudson will perform “I’ll Fight” from the Ruth Bader Ginsburg documentary “RBG.” David Rawlings and Gillian Welch will team up for the duet “When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” from the Western film “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs.” It has not yet been announced who will perform “The Place Where Lost Things Go” from the Disney musical sequel “Mary Poppins Returns.”** It also hasn’t been announced yet if Kendrick Lamar and SZA will take the stage for “All the Stars” from the superhero flick “Black Panther.”
Gustavo Dudamel and the L.A. Philharmonic do the music for the “In Memoriam” segment, which spotlights notable people in the film industry who have died in the year since the previous Oscar ceremony.
Meanwhile, the following celebrities have been announced as presenters at the ceremony: Whoopi Goldberg (who has hosted the Oscars twice in the past), Awkwafina, Daniel Craig, Chris Evans, Tina Fey, Jennifer Lopez, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Amandla Stenberg, Tessa Thompson Constance Wu, Javier Bardem, Angela Bassett, Chadwick Boseman, Emilia Clarke, Laura Dern, Samuel L. Jackson, Stephan James, Keegan-Michael Key, KiKi Layne, James McAvoy, Melissa McCarthy, Jason Momoa and Sarah Paulson. Goldberg and Bardem are previous Oscar winners.
Other previous Oscar winners taking the stage will be Gary Oldman, Frances McDormand, Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney, who won the actor and actress prizes at the 2018 Academy Awards.
Donna Gigliotti (who won an Oscar for Best Picture for 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love) and Emmy-winning director Glenn Weiss are the producers of the 2019 Academy Awards. This will be the first time that Gigliotti is producing the Oscar ceremony. Weiss has directed several major award shows, including the Oscars and the Tonys. He will direct the Oscar ceremony again in 2019.
**February 18, 2019 UPDATE: Bette Midler will perform “The Place Where Los Things Go,” the Oscar-nominated song from “Mary Poppins Returns.” British rock band Queen, whose official biopic is the Oscar-nominated film “Bohemian Rhapsody,” will also perform on the show with lead singer Adam Lambert. It has not been revealed which song(s) Queen will perform at the Oscars.
February 19, 2019 UPDATE: These presenters have been added to the Oscar telecast: Elsie Fisher, Danai Gurira, Brian Tyree Henry, Michael B. Jordan, Michael Keaton, Helen Mirren, John Mulaney, Tyler Perry, Pharrell Williams, Krysten Ritter, Paul Rudd and Michelle Yeoh.
February 21, 2019 UPDATE: These celebrities will present the Best Picture nominees: José Andrés, Dana Carvey, Queen Latifah, Congressman John Lewis, Diego Luna, Tom Morello, Mike Myers, Trevor Noah, Amandla Stenberg, Barbra Streisand and Serena Williams.
Now that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has announced the nominees for the 91st annual Academy Awards, people might be wondering where to see the nominated films before the winners are announced. The Oscar ceremony will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on February 24, 2019. ABC will have the live telecast of the show in the United States. Here is where the nominated films can be seen in theaters and on video before the Oscar ceremony. (This information applies to U.S. theaters only, and remains current until February 24, 2019.)
NOTE: “Home video” means available for rent or purchase in various formats on Amazon, iTunes, YouTube, Google Play, etc.
BEST PICTURE
“BlacKkKlansman”
Nominated for:
Best Picture
Best Director (Spike Lee)
Best Supporting Actor (Adam Driver)
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Film Editing
Best Original Score
Nominated for:
Best Picture
Best Costume Design
Best Production Design
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing
Best Original Score
Best Original Song (“All the Stars”)
Nominated for:
Best Picture
Best Actor (Rami Malek)
Best Film Editing
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing
Where to watch:
Playing in theaters nationwide.
Available on digital video. Home video release in all other formats: February 12, 2019. Regal Best Picture Film Festival (February 15-24, 2019) AMC Best Picture Marathon (February 23, 2019)
“The Favourite”
Nominated for:
Best Picture
Best Director (Yorgos Lanthimos)
Best Actress (Olivia Colman)
Best Supporting Actress (Emma Stone)
Best Supporting Actress (Rachel Weisz)
Best Original Screenplay
Best Cinematography
Best Film Editing
Best Production Design
Best Costume Design
Nominated for:
Best Picture
Best Director (Alfonso Cuarón)
Best Actress (Yalitza Aparicio)
Best Supporting Actress (Marina de Tavira)
Best Original Screenplay
Best Foreign Language Film
Best Cinematography
Best Production Design
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing
Where to watch:
Playing in select independent theaters.
Streaming on Netflix.
“A Star Is Born”
Nominated for:
Best Picture
Best Actor (Bradley Cooper)
Best Actress (Lady Gaga)
Best Supporting Actor (Sam Elliott)
Best Adapted Screenplay
Best Cinematography
Best Sound Mixing
Best Original Song (“Shallow”)
Where to watch:
Playing in theaters nationwide.
Available on digital video. Home video release in all other formats: February 19, 2019. Regal Best Picture Film Festival (February 15-24, 2019) AMC Best Picture Marathon (February 23, 2019)
“Vice”
Nominated for:
Best Picture
Best Director (Adam McKay)
Best Actor (Christian Bale)
Best Supporting Actor (Sam Rockwell)
Best Supporting Actress (Amy Adams)
Best Original Screenplay
Best Film Editing
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Where to watch:
Playing in select theaters.
Digital video release: February 5, 2019. Home video release in all other formats: February 19, 2019.
“Hale County This Morning, This Evening”
Where to watch:
Playing in select theaters.
PBS’s “Independent Lens” will have the TV premiere on February 11, 2019 — check local listings.
“Minding the Gap”
Where to watch:
Playing in select theaters.
Streaming on Hulu.
PBS’s “POV” will have the TV premiere on February 18, 2019 — check local listings.
Streaming on POV.org on February 18, 2019.
“Of Fathers and Sons”
Where to watch:
Playing in select theaters for limited engagements.
Streaming on Kanopy. (Free with a valid library card from participating libraries.)
“RBG”
Where to watch:
Available on home video.
Streaming on Hulu.
CNN will re-air “RBG” on February 16, 2019, at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.
BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM
“Capernaum” (Lebanon)
Where to watch:
Playing in select theaters.
“Cold War” (Poland)
Nominated for:
Best Foreign Language Film
Best Director (Paweł Pawlikowski)
Best Cinematography
Where to watch:
Playing in select theaters.
“Never Look Away” (Germany)
Nominated for:
Best Foreign Language Film
Best Cinematography
Where to watch:
Playing in select theaters.
“Roma” (Mexico)
Nominated for:
Best Picture
Best Director (Alfonso Cuarón)
Best Actress (Yalitza Aparicio)
Best Supporting Actress (Marina de Tavira)
Best Original Screenplay
Best Foreign Language Film
Best Cinematography
Best Production Design
Best Sound Editing
Best Sound Mixing
Where to watch:
Playing in select independent theaters.
Streaming on Netflix.
“Shoplifters” (Japan)
Where to watch:
Playing in select theaters.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
“Incredibles 2”
Where to watch:
Available on home video.
Streaming on Netflix begins on January 30, 2019.
“Isle of Dogs”
Where to watch:
Available on home video.
Available on HBO.
BEST SHORT FILMS (ANIMATED, LIVE-ACTION & DOCUMENTARY)
Every year, select AMC Theaters have special screenings of the Oscar-nominated short films. The screenings of the Oscar-nominated short films begin on February 8, 2019. More information can be found here.
Select independent theaters will also have special screenings of the Oscar-nominated short films. Check local listings. In addition, most cable and satellite TV companies will have the Oscar-nominated short films available as a VOD package for subscribers.
Some of the short films are currently available for viewing on the Internet:
“Bao” Nominated for:
Best Animated Short
Where to watch:
Available in digital format on iTunes and Amazon.
“Late Afternoon” Nominated for:
Best Animated Short
Yalitza Aparicio in “Roma” (Photo by Alfonso Cuarón)Rachel Weisz and Olivia Colman in “The Favourite” (Photo by Yorgos Lanthimos)
With 10 nominations each, including Best Picture, the Spanish-language drama “Roma” and the British dark comedy “The Favourite” are the leading nominees for the 91st Academy Awards, which will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on February 24, 2019. There is no host for the show, following the controversy over Kevin Hart quitting the job over his past homophobic remarks, as well as disagreements over his public apologies for those remarks. ABC will have the U.S. telecast of the Academy Awards ceremony, which is presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Actor/screenwriter Kumail Nanjiani and actress Tracee Ellis Ross announced the nominations on January 22 at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, California.
Netflix’s “Roma” is inspired by filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón’s childhood in early 1970s Mexico, as seen through the perspective of his family’s nanny/housekeeper. Fox Searchlight’s “The Favourite,” set in the early 1700s, tells the story of Great Britain’s Queen Anne and two women who compete for her affections.
As of 2010, the Academy can nominate up to 10 movies for Best Picture. This year, there are only eight movies that made the list: In addition to “Roma” and “The Favourite,” the other Best Picture contenders are “BlacKkKlansman,” “Black Panther,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Green Book,” “A Star Is Born” and “Vice.” Of those contenders, “A Star is Born” and “Vice” have eight nominations each; “Black Panther” scored seven nods; “BlacKkKlansman” has six nominations; and “Green Book” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” received five nods each.
In the categories for actors, actresses and directors, most of the contenders are those who have been the same nominees or winners at other award shows leading up to the Oscars. However, there were some nominations that were not widely predicted.
Snubs and Surprises
Bradley Cooper (pictured at left) on the set of “A Star Is Born” (Photo by Clay Enos)
The Oscars can always be counted on to have some nominations that are very different from the other major movie awards. The biggest snub was Bradley Cooper of “A Star Is Born” being shut out of the Best Director category, even though he was nominated for that prize at just about every other award show where movies from major studios are eligible. (Cooper’s 2018 remake of “A Star Is Born” was released by Warner Bros. Pictures.) Cooper, who made his directorial debut with “A Star Is Born,” still received three Oscar nominations for the movie: Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay. (He’s also one of the movie’s producers and screenwriters.)
The biggest surprises were the nominations for the two main actresses from “Roma”: Yalitza Aparicio (for Best Actress) and Marina de Tavira (for Best Supporting Actress). Aparicio, who made her film debut in “Roma,” got very little recognition on the awards circuit leading up to the Oscars: She picked up a Critics’ Choice nomination and won a Hollywood Film Award for her role in the movie, but she was passed over for nominations at just about all the other movie award shows. Meanwhile, de Tavira was completely shut out of being nominated at all other major U.S.-based movie award shows until the Oscars.
Another big surprise was Paweł Pawlikowski getting a Best Director nomination for his Polish-language “Cold War,” which is, just like “Roma,” a period movie filmed in black-and-white in a non-English language and distributed by a streaming service. (Amazon is distributing “Cold War.”) Pawlikowski’s nomination for Best Director was also unusual because it’s rare for someone to get an Oscar nomination for Best Director for a movie that is not nominated for Best Picture. In addition to Pawlikowski, the other Best Director nominees are Spike Lee for “BlacKkKlansman”; Yorgos Lanthimos for “The Favourite”; Alfonso Cuarón for “Roma”; and Adam McKay for “Vice.” “Cold War” had been widely predicted to get Oscar nominations for Best Foreign-Language Film and Best Cinematography, and the movie did get those nods, but it’s got stiff competition from “Roma” in all of those categories.
Amazon Studios’ robust awards campaign for Timothée Chalamet and his supporting role in the drug-addiction drama “Beautiful Boy” seemed to be paying off, since he was getting nominated at several award shows, but Chalamet and “Beautiful Boy” were ultimately shut out of the Oscar race. And so was another buzzworthy “based on a true story” drama about a troubled teenage son: Focus Features’ “Boy Erased,” starring Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe as a family affected by the controversial practices of gay-conversion therapy.
Ethan Hawke in “First Reformed” (Photo courtesy of A24)
Ethan Hawke won the majority of critics’ awards for Best Actor for his role in A24’s “First Reformed,” but he was shut out of the Oscar race for the movie. Although he was a critics’ darling, Hawke did very little awards campaigning for the movie, which probably hurt his chances of being nominated for an Oscar. (He was also snubbed this year by the Screen Actors Guild Awards and Golden Globe Awards.) Instead, the only Oscar nomination for writer/director Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed” was Best Original Screenplay.
Horror movies are typically overlooked by the Academy Awards (2017’s “Get Out” was one of the few exceptions), and this year continued that snubbing pattern, with critically acclaimed “A Quiet Place”from Paramount Pictures getting just one nomination (Best Sound Editing) and A24’s “Hereditary” (which had its share of passionate fans and detractors) getting completely shut out of the race.
It hasn’t been a good Oscar year for independent film distributor A24, which previously scored Oscar gold for 2016’s “Moonlight,” winner of the prizes for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor. A24 lost some of its Oscar momentum for its movies released in 2017: “Lady Bird” received five Oscar nominations but no Oscar wins, while the Oscar campaign for “The Disaster Artist” imploded when the movie’s star/director James Franco was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women during the final week of Oscar nomination voting. Franco was snubbed by the Academy for “The Disaster Artist,” and the movie ended up with only one Oscar nomination: Best Adapted Screenplay, for writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. This year, A24’s “Hereditary” and the critically acclaimed teen comedy “Eighth Grade” were completely shut out for Oscar nominations, while A24’s only Oscar nod for a 2018 movie was for the previously mentioned Best Original Screenplay nomination for “First Reformed.”
As streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu continue to increase their clout in the movie industry, traditional independent studios are struggling to keep up with getting hit movies and major awards. A24 isn’t the only independent studio whose awards influence has faded for movies released in 2018. Neon hit a home run in its first year in business with 2017’s “I, Tonya,” which scooped up several major awards (including an Oscar) for Allison Janney’s supporting performance. However, Neon’s 2018 movies have mostly been passed over for winning awards: The Natalie Portman music-oriented drama “Vox Lux” and the documentary “Three Identical Strangers” were Neon’s biggest awards hopefuls of the year, but those two films have been completely shut out of Oscar nominations. Neon’s only Oscar nod for a 2018 film is Best Makeup and Hairstyling for the troll movie “Border,” which has tough competition with category frontrunner “Vice.”
Emily Blunt in “Mary Poppins Returns” (Photo by Jay Maidment/Disney Enterprises, Inc.)
Disney’s musical sequel “Mary Poppins Returns” didn’t get Oscar nominations for Best Picture, lead actress Emily Blunt and supporting actor Lin-Manuel Miranda, but the movie got expected nominations for Best Production Design, Best Costume Design, Best Original Score and Best Original Song.
Universal Pictures’ “First Man,” which depicts astronaut Neil Armstrong’s journey to being the first man on the moon, started out strong after getting rave reviews at the 2018 Venice Film Festival, but Oscar buzz for “First Man” (starring Ryan Gosling as Armstrong) considerably faded after the movie fizzled at the box office and got snubbed in most of the major categories at several award shows. Best Original Score was the only category for which “First Man” was winning the most awards leading up to the Oscars. The prizes for “First Man” composer Justin Hurwitz included a Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice Award. Therefore, it was surprising that he didn’t get an Oscar nomination in this category. “First Man” did receive four Oscar nods, but only in technical categories: Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects. “First Man” was director Damien Chazelle’s follow-up to his award-winning hit “La La Land” (which won six Oscars, including Best Director), so “First Man” getting snubbed in the biggest Oscar categories is a big step down for Chazelle.
Focus Features’ “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?,” the Fred Rogers biography directed by Morgan Neville, was widely predicted as the frontrunner for Best Documentary Feature because the movie had been winning most of the documentary awards up until this point, but the movie failed to get an Oscar nomination. Instead, “Of Fathers and Sons,” a movie about a radical Islamist family, received a surprise Oscar nomination, after being passed over for nominations at every other major award show that gives prizes to documentary feature films. So why the Oscar snub for “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” The Academy tends to reward documentaries that have a great deal of original footage (in other words, not relying too heavily on archived footage), and the Academy voters prefer investigative documentaries that uncover a lot of information that was not widely known to the general public. “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” was undoubtedly a feel-good popular movie, but perhaps Academy voters considered it to be too much of a safe and conventional documentary where the filmmakers didn’t challenge themselves enough, beyond collecting archived footage and getting authorized interviews with Rogers’ family and colleagues.
Despite all the hoopla over the romantic comedy “Crazy Rich Asians,” the movie was completely shut out of the Oscar race. Warner Bros. Pictures’ “Crazy Rich Asians,” which was a big international hit, was the first major Hollywood studio movie to have an all-Asian cast since 1993’s “The Joy Luck Club.” “Crazy Rich Asians” got mostly positive reviews from critics, but the movie’s formulaic plot with over-used clichés seem to have severely hurt its chances of being taken seriously by Oscar voters.
In other categories, surprises included the German film “Never Look Away” (distributed in the U.S. by Sony Pictures Classics) getting nominations for Best Foreign-Language Film and Best Cinematography after being passed over for those nominations at almost all of the other movie award shows. The Academy rewarded “Never Look Away” with Oscar nominations, but snubbed South Korea’s “Burning” for Best Foreign-Language Film and “Black Panther” for Best Cinematography, even though “Burning” and “Black Panther” scored those nominations at several other award shows.
Diversity Issues
Lupita Nyong’o, Chadwick Boseman and Danai Gurira in “Black Panther” (Photo courtesy of Disney/Marvel Studios)
Ever since the #OscarsSoWhite backlash of 2015 and 2016, the Academy has been under intense scrutiny over diversity issues when it comes to race and gender. (Most of the Academy members and Oscar nominees are white males.) The Academy has made public efforts to invite more women and people of color into its membership in recent years. There has been a little more diversity, in terms of who gets nominated for Oscars, but there is still a long way to go for most of the behind-the-scenes technical categories, such as editing, visual effects, original score and cinematography. The good news for Oscar diversity in 2019 is that there is at least one person of color nominated in each of the four acting categories. In addition, several women and people of color are nominated in the category of Best Picture, an award that goes to a film’s producer(s). They are Jordan Peele and Spike Lee (African-American males) for “BlacKkKlansman”; and Ceci Dempsey and Lee Magiday (white females) for “The Favourite”; Gabriela Rodríguez and Alfonso Cuarón (Latinos) for “Roma”; Lynette Howell Taylor (white female) for “A Star Is Born”; and Dede Gardner (white female) for “Vice.”
In other gender-neutral Oscar categories, women did not make much progress, compared to the 2018 Academy Awards. In 2019, there were no women nominated in the Oscar categories of Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Original Score. (In 2018, the categories of Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing each had one female nominee, while Best Original Score continued to have only male nominees.) And in the categories of Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay, only one woman was nominated in each category in 2019, and they share the nomination with a man.
The categories for Best Costume Design and Best Makeup and Hairstyling have traditionally been dominated by women. All of this year’s nominees for Best Costume Design are female, while women are 62.5 percent of this year’s Best Makeup and Hairstyling nominees. The gender-neutral categories that have the most gender parity this year are Best Production Design, Best Original Song and Best Documentary Feature, where women are almost half of the nominees in each category.
Hannah Beachler of “Black Panther” became the first African-American to get an Oscar nomination for Best Production Design. African-Americans earned other rare nominations in categories that are typically dominated by white/Caucasian filmmakers: “BlacKkKlansman” had the most nominations this year for black filmmakers: Spike Lee earned three nods as a director, producer and screenwriter, while producer Jordan Peele, screenwriter Kevin Willmott and composer Terence Blanchard were also nominated for the movie. “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” co-director Peter Ramsey is among the nominees for Best Animated Feature; costume designer Ruth E. Carter is a contender for “Black Panther”; and Barry Jenkins of “If Beale Street Could Talk” is up for Best Adapted Screenplay, an Oscar that he won for 2016’s “Moonlight,” making him only the third black person to win an Oscar in that category. Other black Oscar nominees this year are Kendrick Lamar, Solana Rowe (also known as SZA), Mark Spears and Anthony Tiffith, who all co-wrote Best Original Song nominee “All the Stars” from “Black Panther.”
“Roma” was the movie that gave Latinos the most representation at this year’s Academy Awards, and “Roma” is expected to win multiple Oscars. In addition to Cuarón and actresses Aparicio and de Tavira, other “Roma” Oscar nominees are producer Gabriela Rodríguez (Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film); Sergio Diaz (Best Sound Editing); José Antonio García (Best Sound Mixing);and Eugenio Caballero and Bárbara Enríquez (Best Production Design), It’s also worth noting that three Mexican directors (Cuarón, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Guillermo del Toro) have won several of the Best Director awards in the 2010s decade. Cuarón, who is the frontrunner to win for “Roma,” previously won the Best Director prize for 2013’s “Gravity”; Iñárritu won for 2014’s “Birdman” and 2015’s “The Revenant”‘; and del Toro won for 2017’s “The Shape of Water.”
Even though “Crazy Rich Asians” didn’t get any Oscar nominations, that doesn’t mean that Asians were completely snubbed by the Academy this year. Asians who received Oscar nominations include cinematographer Matthew Libatique for “A Star Is Born”; director Mamoru Hosoda and producer Yuichiro Saito for the animated film “Mirai”; director Hirokazu Kore-eda, who scored a Best Foreign-Language Film nod for Japan’s “Shoplifters”; and director Bobby Pontillas, who earned a Best Animated Short nomination for co-directing “One Small Step.” The category of Best Documentary Feature had the highest Asian representation, with directors/producers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi for “Free Solo”; director/producer Bing Liu and producer Diane Quon for “Minding the Gap”; director Talal Derki (who is of Syrian/Middle Eastern descent) for “Of Fathers and Sons”; and producer Su Kim for “Hale County This Morning, This Evening.”
Notable Milestones
Alfonso Cuarón and Yalitza Aparicio on the set of “Roma” (Photo by Carlos Somonte/Netflix)
The 2019 Oscar race has several milestones. “Roma” is the first Netflix movie to get an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, although it’s not the first streaming service to score a nomination in that category. That milestone was achieved by Amazon’s 2016 drama “Manchester by the Sea,” which went on to win Best Actor (for Casey Affleck) and Best Original Screenplay (for Kenneth Lonergan). Netflix won its first Oscar for the 2017 documentary feature film “Icarus.” If “Roma” wins Best Picture, it will be not only be the first movie from a streaming service to win Best Picture at the Oscars, but also the first non-English-language movie to win the prize.
As widely predicted, Marvel Studios’ “Black Panther” was nominated for Best Picture, making it the first superhero movie to be nominated in this Oscar category. However, with no Oscar nominations in the categories for acting, directing or screenplay, “Black Panther” is a long shot to win Best Picture. The other Oscar nominations for “Black Panther” are for Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Original Score and Best Original Song.
“BlacKkKlansman” filmmaker Spike Lee, who has been making critically acclaimed movies since the 1980s, received his first Oscar nomination for Best Director, after being passed over in that category for decades. Lee, who is one of the producers and screenwriters of Focus Features’ “BlacKkKlansman,” also picked up nominations for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, which are also his first Oscar nominations in those categories. He was previously nominated for Best Original Screenplay for 1989’s “Do the Right Thing” and Best Documentary Feature for 1997’s “4 Little Girls.” Lee also received an honorary Oscar (a non-competitive prize) in 2015.
Spike Lee and Adam Driver on the set of “BlacKkKlansman” (Photo by David Lee/ Focus Features)
Here is the complete list of nominations for the 2019 Academy Awards:
Best Picture
“Black Panther”
(Producer: Kevin Feige)
“BlacKkKlansman”
(Producers: Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Raymond Mansfield, Jordan Peele and Spike Lee)
“Bohemian Rhapsody”
(Producer: Graham King)
“The Favourite”
(Producers: Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday and Yorgos Lanthimos)
“Green Book”
(Producers: Jim Burke, Charles B. Wessler, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly and Nick Vallelonga)
“Roma”
(Producers: Gabriela Rodríguez and Alfonso Cuarón)
“A Star Is Born”
(Producers: Bill Gerber, Bradley Cooper and Lynette Howell Taylor)
“Vice”
(Producers: Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Adam McKay and Kevin Messick)
Best Actor
Christian Bale, “Vice”
Bradley Cooper, “A Star Is Born”
Willem Dafoe, “At Eternity’s Gate”
Rami Malek, “Bohemian Rhapsody”
Viggo Mortensen, “Green Book”
Best Actress
Yalitza Aparicio, “Roma”
Glenn Close, “The Wife”
Olivia Colman, “The Favourite”
Lady Gaga, “A Star Is Born”
Melissa McCarthy, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Best Supporting Actor
Mahershala Ali, “Green Book”
Adam Driver, “BlacKkKlansman”
Sam Elliott, “A Star Is Born”
Richard E. Grant, “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Sam Rockwell, “Vice”
Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams, “Vice”
Marina de Tavira, “Roma”
Regina King, “If Beale Street Could Talk”
Emma Stone, “The Favourite”
Rachel Weisz, “The Favourite”
Best Director
Spike Lee, “BlacKkKlansman”
Paweł Pawlikowski, “Cold War”
Yorgos Lanthimos, “The Favourite”
Alfonso Cuarón, “Roma”
Adam McKay, “Vice”
Best Animated Feature
“Incredibles 2,” directed by Brad Bird; produced by John Walker and Nicole Paradis Grindle
“Isle of Dogs,” directed and produced by Wes Anderson; produced by Scott Rudin, Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson
“Mirai,” directed by Mamoru Hosoda; produced by Yuichiro Saito
“Ralph Breaks the Internet,” directed by Rich Moore and Phil Johnston; produced by Clark Spencer
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,” directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman; produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Best Animated Short
“Animal Behaviour,” directed and produced by Alison Snowden and David Fine
“Bao,” directed by Domee Shi; produced by Becky Neiman-Cobb
“Late Afternoon,” directed by Louise Bagnall; produced by Nuria González Blanco
“One Small Step,” directed by Andrew Chesworth and Bobby Pontillas
“Weekends,” directed and produced by Trevor Jimenez
Best Adapted Screenplay
“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
“BlacKkKlansman,” Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee
“Can You Ever Forgive Me?,” Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty
“If Beale Street Could Talk,” Barry Jenkins
“A Star Is Born,” Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper and Will Fetters
Best Original Screenplay
“The Favourite,” Deborah Davis, Tony McNamara
“First Reformed,” Paul Schrader
“Green Book,” Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie and Peter Farrelly
“Roma,” Alfonso Cuarón
“Vice,” Adam McKay
Best Cinematography
“Cold War,” Łukasz Żal
“The Favourite,” Robbie Ryan
“Never Look Away,” Caleb Deschanel
“Roma,” Alfonso Cuarón
“A Star Is Born,” Matthew Libatique
Best Documentary Feature
“Free Solo,” directed and produced by Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyil; produced by Evan Hayes and Shannon Dill
“Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” directed and produced by RaMell Ross; produced by Joslyn Barnes and Su Kim
“Minding the Gap,” directed and produced by Bing Liu; produced by Diane Quon
“Of Fathers and Sons,” directed by Talal Derki; produced by Ansgar Frerich, Eva Kemme and Tobias N. Siebert
“RBG,” directed and produced by Betsy West and Julie Cohen
Best Documentary Short Subject
“Black Sheep,” directed by Ed Perkins; produced by Jonathan Chinn
“End Game,” directed and produced by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman
“Lifeboat,” directed and produced by Skye Fitzgerald
“A Night at the Garden,” directed and produced by Marshall Curry
“Period. End of Sentence.,” directed and produced by Rayka Zehtabchi
Best Live Action Short Film
“Detainment,” directed and produced by Vincent Lambe; produced by Darren Mahon
“Fauve,” directed by Jeremy Comte; produced by Maria Gracia Turgeon
“Marguerite,” directed by Marianne Farley; produced by Marie-Hélène Panisset
“Mother,” directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen; produced by María del Puy Alvarado
“Skin,” directed and produced by Guy Nattiv; produced by Jaime Ray Newman
Best Foreign Language Film
“Capernaum” (Lebanon)
“Cold War” (Poland)
“Never Look Away” (Germany)
“Roma” (Mexico)
“Shoplifters” (Japan)
Best Film Editing
“BlacKkKlansman,” Barry Alexander Brown
“Bohemian Rhapsody,” John Ottman
“Green Book,” Patrick J. Don Vito
“The Favourite,” Yorgos Mavropsaridis
“Vice,” Hank Corwin
Best Sound Editing
“Black Panther,” Benjamin A. Burtt and Steve Boeddeker
“Bohemian Rhapsody,” John Warhurst
“First Man,” Ai-Ling Lee and Mildred Iatrou Morgan
“A Quiet Place,” Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl
“Roma,” Sergio Diaz and Skip Lievsay
Best Sound Mixing
“Black Panther,” Steve Boeddeker, Brandon Proctor and Peter Devlin
“Bohemian Rhapsody,” Paul Massey, Tim Cavagin and John Casali
“First Man,” Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Ai-Ling Lee and Mary H. Ellis
“Roma,” Skip Lievsay, Craig Henighan and José Antonio García
“A Star Is Born,” Tom Ozanich, Dean Zupancic, Jason Ruder and Steve Morrow
Best Production Design
“Black Panther”
Production Design: Hannah Beachler; Set Decoration: Jay Hart
“The Favourite”
Production Design: Fiona Crombie; Set Decoration: Alice Felton
“First Man”
Production Design: Nathan Crowley; Set Decoration: Kathy Lucas
“Mary Poppins Returns”
Production Design: John Myhre; Set Decoration: Gordon Sim
“Roma”
Production Design: Eugenio Caballero; Set Decoration: Bárbara Enríquez
Best Original Score
“BlacKkKlansman,” Terence Blanchard
“Black Panther,” Ludwig Goransson
“If Beale Street Could Talk,” Nicholas Britell
“Isle of Dogs,” Alexandre Desplat
“Mary Poppins Returns,” Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman
Best Original Song
“All the Stars” from “Black Panther,” song written by Kendrick Lamar, Solana Rowe (SZA), Mark Spears and Anthony Tiffith
“I’ll Fight” from “RBG,” song written by Diane Warren
“The Place Where Lost Things Go” from “Mary Poppins Returns,” song written by Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman
“Shallow” from “A Star Is Born,” song written by Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, Andrew Wyatt and Benjamin Rice
“When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs For Wings” from “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” song written by David Rawlings and Gillian Welch
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
“Border,” Göran Lundström and Pamela Goldammer
“Mary Queen of Scots,” Jenny Shircore, Marc Pilcher and Jessica Brooks
“Vice,” Greg Cannom, Kate Biscoe and Patricia DeHaney
Best Costume Design
“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” Mary Zophres
“Black Panther,” Ruth E. Carter
“The Favourite,” Sandy Powell
“Mary Poppins Returns,” Sandy Powell
“Mary Queen of Scots,” Alexandra Byrne
Best Visual Effects
“Avengers: Infinity War,” Dan DeLeeuw, Kelly Port, Russell Earl and Dan Sudick
“Christopher Robin,” Christopher Lawrence, Michael Eames, Theo Jones and Chris Corbould
“First Man,” Paul Lambert, Ian Hunter, Tristan Myles and J.D. Schwalm
“Ready Player One,” Roger Guyett, Grady Cofer, Matthew E. Butler and David Shirk
“Solo: A Star Wars Story,” Rob Bredow, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Dominic Tuohy
Kevin Hart in “Night School” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)
Just two days after announcing that he would host the 91st Academy Awards show, Kevin Hart has quit the job after homophobic remarks from his past caused controversy over his hiring. In a series of social-media posts that began on December 6, 2018, Hart admitted that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had pressured him to make a public apology or else they would fire him. Hart says he chose to quit instead. Several of the homophobic remarks that he made on social media have now been deleted.
The 91st Oscars will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on February 24, 2019. ABC will have the U.S. telecast of the show, which is being produced by Donna Gigliotti and Glenn Weiss. Gigliotti, who won an Oscar with Harvey Weinstein and others for producing 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love,” will be producing the Oscar telecast for the first time. Weiss has been the director of the Oscars telecast for the past several years, and he won an Emmy for it in 2018. The Oscars, like many televised award shows, has faced a steep decline in ratings in recent years. Hart is a popular comedian who has been in several hit movies, and he regularly sells out arenas. His homophobic remarks have been public knowledge for quite some time, ever since he made those comments in 2009 and 2010, but the producers of the Oscars telecast chose to take the risk of hiring him, clearly under-estimating the public outcry that would follow.
Hart said in an Instagram video on December 6, 2018: “My team calls me, ‘Oh my God, Kevin, everyone’s upset by tweets you did years ago. Guys, I’m nearly 40 years old. If you don’t believe that people change, grow, evolve as they get older, I don’t know what to tell you. If you want to hold people in a position where they always have to justify the past, do you. I’m the wrong guy, man.”
He added, “I chose to pass on the apology. The reason why I passed is because I’ve addressed this several times. This is not the first time this has come up. I’ve addressed it. I’ve spoken on it. I’ve said where the rights and wrongs were. I’ve said who I am now versus who I was then. I’ve done it. I’m not going to continue to go back and tap into the days of old when I’ve moved on and I’m in a completely different place in my life.”
Hart later tweeted: “I have made the choice to step down from hosting this year’s Oscars. This is because I do not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists. I sincerely apologize to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past. I’m sorry that I hurt people. I am evolving and want to continue to do so. My goal is to bring people together not tear us apart. Much love and appreciation to the Academy. I hope we can meet again.”
The messy controversy over Hart is yet another embarrassment for the Academy, which in the past few years has had its own share of problems when it comes to accusations of bigotry. In 2015 and 2016, there was backlash against the Academy when all the actors and actress nominated for Oscars were white, which led to to the social media hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. After several media outlets published statistics revealing that the overwhelming majority of Academy members were white men over the age of 50, the Academy made very public efforts to invite more women, people of color and younger people into its membership.
In October 2017, after the Harvey Weinstein scandal hit and the #MeToo movement became a major cultural force, the Academy expelled Weinstein from its membership, but received widespread criticism for letting filmmaker Roman Polanski, a convicted rapist, still be a member of the Academy. Polanski, who still has not served his sentence for the 1977 rape of an underage girl in California, is a fugitive from the law living in Europe. Polanski was eventually expelled from the Academy in 2018, as was Bill Cosby after Cosby was convicted of rape. Polanski received his first Academy Award for directing the 2002 movie “The Pianist,” and received a standing ovation from several Academy members when he was announced as the winner. Polanski was not at the ceremony because he has not been in the U.S. since he fled in 1978.
In March 2018, the Academy faced more controversy when president John Bailey was accused of sexual harassment. A female former colleague alleged that he inappropriately touched her when they worked together. Bailey, who denied the accusation, was cleared in an investigation two weeks later, and he was re-elected president of the Academy in August 2018.
The Academy then had a public-relations misstep in August 2018, when it announced that it was adding a new Oscars category for popular films, but said that it hadn’t been decided yet what the qualifications would be for films to eligible for this category. The announcement was very controversial with most Academy members, who say the decision was largely made by the Academy’s board of directors without letting the Academy members vote on the decision. The idea for a “popular films” category also got a mostly negative reaction from the media and the general public. A month after announcing the decision, the Academy announced that the “popular films” category was indefinitely shelved.
Hart quitting as host of the Oscars isn’t the first time that someone has walked away from the job. In 2011, Eddie Murphy (who also has a history of making homophobic remarks when he was doing stand-up comedy) quit the job of hosting the 2012 Academy Awards, after filmmaker Brett Ratner, who had been hired as the Oscar telecast producer, stepped down for saying a homophobic slur in an interview. Murphy was later replaced by Billy Crystal. (Years later, during the rise of the #MeToo movement in 2017, Ratner was accused of sexual harassment by several women, including actress Olivia Munn, who claims that while on a film set, Ratner masturbated in front of her without her consent. Ratner has denied all the allegations, but he has lost several business deals, including with Warner Bros. Pictures and Playboy Enterprises, as a result of the accusations.)
The Murphy/Ratner debacle for the Oscars telecast was years before the rise of the #MeToo movement, and the controversy over Hart shows that the producers of the Oscar telecast have not learned from past mistakes about hiring people who’ve made bigoted remarks, no matter how long ago those remarks were made. Because the Oscars telecast has been losing millions of viewers and because there is more pressure than ever to be a host who can bring in the desired ratings without offending people, it’s no longer as prestigious to host the Oscars as it used to be. Many A-list entertainers don’t want to be under that type of pressure for a dwindling audience.
One thing is clear: Anyone who hosts the Oscars from now on better have a non-offensive background. We are now living in an era where, for many people, it’s not enough for apologies to be made for past bigoted remarks. People are expected to have the type of moral character to not say those hateful comments in the first place. The gray area comes in evaluating how much people are sincerely remorseful for their offensive mistakes, how they have possibly changed for the better to not make the same mistakes, and giving them a chance to prove it.
Kevin Hart at the Los Angeles premiere of “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle”
Comedian/actor Kevin Hart will host the 91st Academy Awards, which will take place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles and February 24, 2019. ABC will have the live U.S. telecast of the show.
He made the announcement on his Instagram account: “For years I have been asked if I would ever host the Oscars and my answer was always the same… I said it would be the opportunity of a lifetime for me as a comedian and that it will happen when it is suppose [sic] to. I am so happy to say that the day has finally come for me to host the Oscars. I am blown away simply because this has been a goal on my list for a very long time…
“To be able to join the legendary list of host [sic] that have graced that stage is unbelievable. I know my mom is smiling from ear to ear right now. I want to thank my family/friends/fans for supporting me & riding with me all this time…
“I will be sure to make this years [sic] Oscars a special one. I appreciate @The Academy for the opportunity…now it’s time to rise to the occasion.”
It’s the first time that Hart is hosting the Oscars. Most of the previous hosts of the ceremony have had an extensive background in comedy, including Bob Hope, Johnny Carson, Ellen DeGeneres, Whoopi Goldberg, Steve Martin, David Letterman, Jon Stewart, Neil Patrick Harris, Chris Rock, Seth MacFarlane and Jimmy Kimmel.
Hart has starred in hit movies such as “Ride Along,” “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle” and “Central Intelligence.” He hosted the MTV Video Music Awards in 2012, and he co-hosted the MTV Movie Awards with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in 2016. In addition to starring in movies, Hart is one of the top-grossing stand-up comedians of all time, with his sold-out headlining arena shows. He is also a producer for TV and Web series, with credits that include BET’s “The Real Husbands of Hollywood,” Comedy Central’s “Kevin Hart Presents: the Next Level” and website Laugh Out Loud Network’s “Laugh Out Loud by Kevin Hart.” In 2018, Hart signed a first-look deal to develop and produce content for Nickelodeon.
Oscar-winning producer Donna Gigliotti (“Shakespeare in Love”) will produce the 91st Oscars, while Emmy-winning director Glenn Weiss will co-produce and direct the show. Nominations for the 91st Academy Awards will be announced on January 22, 2019.
As previously reported, the Academy is implementing new policies for the award show in 2019, including enforcing the three-hour time limit and dropping a few categories from the telecast. It has not yet been announced yet which categories will be dropped from the telecast, but winners of the dropped categories will be announced during commercial breaks, and then listed on screen sometime during the show. The Academy says that it every year, the Oscar ceremony will have a different set of dropped categories from the telecast.
When it comes to awards, it’s nice to be nominated, but it’s even better to win. The year 2018 was one of the strongest in this decade for movies that have been well-received by critics and/or ticket-buying audiences. Movies from major studios that were blockbusters at the box office have become more critically acclaimed than they have been in recent years, and that means more of these types of blockbuster movies could be competing against smaller, critically acclaimed independent films for Academy Awards. Here’s a tally of the feature films released in U.S. theaters in 2018 that have gotten the most awards so far. This list, which is in alphabetical order, will be updated as more award winners are announced.
Updated: March 30, 2019
“22 July”
National Board of Review Awards
NBR Freedom of Expression Award
“American Animals”
British Independent Film Awards
Best Debut Screenwriter (Bart Layton)
Best Editing (Nick Fenton, Julian Hart, Chris Gill)
“Annihilation”
Chicago Film Critics Association Awards
Best Use of Visual Effects
GALECA Dorian Awards
Visually Striking Film of the Year
Online Film Critics Society Awards
Top 10 Film of 2018
Best Visual Effects
Phoenix Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Science Fiction Film
Utah Film Critics Association
Best Original Score (Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury)
“At Eternity’s Gate”
Satellite Awards
Best Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama (Willem Dafoe)
Venice International Film Festival
Best Actor (Willem Dafoe)
“Avengers: Infinity War”
Austin Film Critics Association Awards
Best Motion Capture/Special Effects Performance (Josh Brolin)
E! People’s Choice Awards
Movie of 2018
Action Movie of 2018
Female Movie Star of 2018 (Scarlett Johansson)
Hamilton Behind the Camera Awards
Visual Effects Supervisor (Dan DeLeeuw)
Hollywood Film Awards
Hollywood Visual Effects Award (Dan DeLeeuw, Kelly Port, Russel Earl and Dan Sudick)
Indiana Film Journalists Association Awards
Best Vocal/Motion Capture Performance (Josh Brolin)
Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society Awards
Best Visual Effects
Best Visual Effects or Animated Performance (Josh Brolin and Digital Domain)
Nevada Film Critics Society Awards
Best Visual Effects
St. Louis Film Critics Association Awards
Best Visual Effects
Teen Choice Awards
Choice Action Movie
Choice Action Movie Actor (Robert Downey Jr.)
Choice Action Movie Actress (Scarlett Johansson)
Visual Effects Society Awards
Outstanding Visual Effects in a Photoreal Feature
Outstanding Animated Character in a Photoreal Feature (Thanos)
Outstanding Effects Simulations in a Photoreal Feature (Titan)
Outstanding Compositing in a Photoreal Feature
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Awards
Best Motion Capture Performance (Josh Brolin)
“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs”
Indiana Film Journalists Association Awards
Best Ensemble Acting
Oklahoma Film Critics Circle Awards
Top 10 Film of 2018
Venice International Film Festival
Best Screenplay (Joel and Ethan Coen)
“Beautiful Boy”
Hollywood Film Awards
Hollywood Supporting Actor Award (Timothée Chalamet)
Hollywood Breakthrough Director (Felix Van Groeningen)
Palm Springs International Film Festival
Spotlight Award, Actor (Timothée Chalamet)
“Believer”
GLAAD Media Awards
Outstanding Documentary
Hollywood Film Awards
Hollywood Documentary Award
“Ben Is Back”
Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society Awards
Best Performance by an Actor 23 and Under (Lucas Hedges) – tie with Alex Wolff of “Hereditary”
“BlacKkKlansman”
AARP’s Movies for Grownups Awards
Best Director (Spike Lee)
Academy Awards
Best Adapted Screenplay (Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee)
African American Film Critics Association
Best Actor (John David Washington)
Best Screenplay (Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee)
American Film Institute (AFI) Awards
AFI Top 10 Movie of the Year
Atlanta Film Critics Association Awards
Top 10 Film of 2018
BAFTA Awards
Best Adapted Screenplay (Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee)
Cannes International Film Festival
Grand Prix Award
Capri, Hollywood – The International Film Festival
Best Adapted Screenplay (Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee)
Casting Society of America Awards
Best Studio or Independent Drama: Kim Taylor-Coleman
Columbus Film Critics Association Awards
Best Adapted Screenplay (Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee)
Georgia Film Critics Association Awards
Best Adapted Screenplay (Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee)
Hamilton Behind the Camera Awards
Best Editor (Barry Alexander Brown)
Hollywood Film Awards
Hollywood Breakthrough Actor (John David Washington)
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Adapted Screenplay (Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee)
Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards
Top 10 Film of 2018
Los Angeles Online Film Critics Society Awards
Best Male Director (Spike Lee)
Nevada Film Critics Society Awards
Best Director (Spike Lee)
Oklahoma Film Critics Circle Awards
Top 10 Film of 2018
Best Adapted Screenplay
Online Film Critics Society Awards
Top 10 Film of 2018
Best Adapted Screenplay (Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee)
Palm Springs International Film Festival
Career Achievement Award (Spike Lee)
San Francisco Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Director (Spike Lee)
Best Adapted Screenplay (Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee)
Best Original Score (Terence Blanchard)
Satellite Awards
Best Independent Motion Picture
Southeastern Film Critics Association Awards
Top 10 Film of 2018
Best Adapted Screenplay (Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott and Spike Lee)
St. Louis Film Critics Association Awards
Best Director (Spike Lee)
Best Adapted Screenplay (Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Wilmmott and Spike Lee)
Best Original Score (Terence Blanchard)
“Black Panther”
Academy Awards
Best Costume Design (Ruth Carter)
Best Production Design (Hannah Beachler)
Best Original Score (LudwigGöransson)
African American Film Critics Association
Best Film
Best Director (Ryan Coogler)
Best Song (“All the Stars”)
Alliance of Women Film Journalists EDA Awards
Best Ensemble Cast
Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in the Film Industry (cinematographer Rachel Morrison)
Art Directors Guild Awards
Best Production Design for a Fantasy Film (Hannah Beachler)
American Film Institute (AFI) Awards
AFI Movie of the Year
Atlanta Film Critics Association Awards
Top 10 Film of 2018
BAFTA Awards
Best Special Visual Effects
BET Awards
Best Movie
Black Film Critics Circle Awards
Best Picture
Best Director (Ryan Coogler)
Best Ensemble
Black Reel Awards
Outstanding Picture
Outstanding Director (Ryan Coogler)
Outstanding Actor (Chadwick Boseman)
Outstanding Supporting Actor (Michael B. Jordan)
Outstanding Ensemble
Outstanding Original Song (“All the Stars”)
Outstanding Breakthrough Actor, Male (Winston Duke)
