The longest awards season in awards season history finally came to a close with an Oscars unlike any Oscars you’ve seen before. Sunday’s 93rd Academy Awards honored the best of the best in cinema with an intimate, almost entirely in-person ceremony.
“We all have gotten a little bit of Zoom fatigue,” director Glenn Weiss told ET. “As a result of that, we really wanted to bring a celebration without distraction. We wanted to bring something where people at home are a part of it and are experiencing this room in a same way.”
Breaking from tradition, that room was in Downtown L.A.’s Union Station and not the Oscars’ usual home at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood. The ceremony went host-less, featured a nontraditional red carpet and, due to COVID safety precautions, only nominees and their guests were in attendance.
Anthony Hopkins Wins Best Actor
8:15 PM: The Oscars left the biggest shock of the night for the final award: When Best Actor in a Leading Role was left for the final award of the night, many assumed it was to award the late Chadwick Boseman and pay tribute.
Instead, Joaquin Phoenix, who won Best Actor in a Leading Role last year, announced Anthony Hopkins as this year’s recipient for his performance in The Father. Hopkins was not in attendance, and the Academy accepted on his behalf, creating an abrupt and confusing end to the ceremony that even parting words from musical director Questlove couldn’t salvage.
Frances McDormand Wins Best Actress
8:12 PM: Last year’s winner in the category, Renee Zellweger returned to the Oscars to gush over the nominees and pass the title back to Nomadland’s Frances McDormand. “Look, they didn’t ask me, but if they had… we should have had a karaoke bar,” she quipped, keeping her speech brief and to the point: “I have no words. My voice is in my sword. We know the sword is our work, and I like work. Thank you for knowing that, and thanks for this.”
‘Nomadland’ Wins Best Picture
8:07 PM: In a switcheroo this year, Best Picture is not the final award of the night. Reflecting on her own Best Picture win as part of West Side Story, Rita Moreno awarded the top prize to Nomadland’s team of producers, which includes writer-director Chloé Zhao and star Frences McDormand. (The latter becomes the first actress nominated for acting and producing the same film.)
Taking the stage with her team — including the real-life nomads cast in the film — Zhao said, “We thank all the hearts and hands that came together to make this movie… All the people we met on the road, thank you for teaching us the power of resilience and hope and reminding us what true kindness looks like.”
“Please, watch our movie on the largest screen possible,” McDormand said as she took the mic. “And one day very, very soon take someone you know into a theater, shoulder-to-shoulder in that dark space, and watch every film recognized here tonight. We give this to our wolf.” And with that, McDormand let out a wolfy howl.
‘In Memoriam’ Pays Tribute to Chadwick Boseman, Sean Connery and Many More
7:58 PM: Angela Bassett gave an impassioned introduction to this year’s “In Memoriam” segment, set to Stevie Wonder’s “As.” The clip paid tribute to those the film industry has lost over the last year, including Christopher Plummer, Kelly Preston, Yaphet Kotto, Fred Willard, Helene McCrory, Carl Reiner, Lynn Shelton, Diana Rigg, Conchata Ferrell, DMX, Sean Connery, Chadwick Boseman and many more.
“Let us as one community say, ‘Thank you. You will remain as we remember you in our hearts always,'” Bassett said in her emotional introduction, paying tribute to all the artists that make the Academy’s most beloved films possible.
Glenn Close Does ‘Da Butt,’ Andra Day Gets Bleeped
7:45 PM: Ahead of the night’s final awards, Lil Rel Howery took to the audience to ask stars to guess Oscar-nominated songs. The first contestant was Best Actress nominee Andra Day, who had to guess if Prince’s “Purple Rain” was nominated, won, or snubbed at the Academy Awards. “It’s a great song so it’s probably not even f**in’ nominated,” she joked, before passing the mic back. (And she was right!) “I don’t know how much that’s gonna cost y’all, ABC, but it happened!” Lil Rel exclaimed, before taking his game to Daniel Kaluuya and Glenn Close, the former of whom gamely gushed over the School Daze track “Da Butt” and earned a bleeping herself when she said it was “bullsht” the song was snubbed. If As Close got out of her seat to perform her own rendition of “Da Butt” dance, Lil Rel proclaimed, “This the Blackest Oscars of all time, y’all!”
7:39 PM: Closing out the music portion of the ceremony, Zendaya presented the original song Oscar to H.E.R. for her Judas and the Black Messiah track, “Fight For You.” “I did not expect to win this award. I am so, so, so, so grateful,” she exclaimed.
“Musicians, filmmakers, I believe we have an opportunity and a responsibility to tell the truth and write history the way that it was,” H.E.R. said. “I have no words. Knowledge is power. Music is power. And as long as I’m standing, I’ma always going to fight for us. I’m always going to fight for our people.
‘Soul’ Wins Best Original Score
7:31 PM: Zendaya presented the original score Oscar to Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste for their dual compositions for Pixar’s Soul. “You know what’s deep is about God gave us 12 notes. It’s the same 12 notes Duke Ellington had, Bach had, Nina Simone,” Batiste said.
“It’s the same 12. Every gift is special. Every contribution of music that comes from the divine into the instruments, into the film, into the mind and hearts and souls of every person who hears it… It’s just so incredibly special,” he continued, calling the collaboration on the film and resulting award “a culmination of a series of miracles.”
Viola Davis Presents Tyler Petty With Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award
7:21 PM: Davis praised Perry as someone who “personifies empathy” and has “paid for the funerals of Black men whose names were on the placards at marches.” “Tyler knows what it is to be hungry. To be without a home. To feel unsafe and uncertain,” she noted. “So when he buys groceries for 1,000 of his neighbors, supports a women’s shelter, or quietly pays tuition for a hard-working student, Tyler is coming from a place of shared experience.”
The video package highlighting Perry’s humanitarian efforts also included high praise from Whoopi Goldberg. “This man exemplifies the best you could ask from any human,” she said. “And that is to care about your fellow human beings.”
Onstage, Perry paid a special thanks back to Davis, the Board of Governors, singingly out Goldberg and Ava DuVernay, and shared a story about a homeless woman asking him for shoes. He took her into his studio and gave her a pair of shoes. “I recall her saying, ‘I thought you were going to hate me for asking,'” he said. ‘I said, ‘How can I hate you when I used to be you?'”
“It is my hope that all of us will teach our kids to refuse hate,” Perry said. “I refuse to hate somebody because they are Mexican or because they are Black or white. Or because they’re LGBTQ. I refuse to hate someone because they are a police officer. I refuse to hate someone because they are Asian.” He dedicated the award to anyone who wants to stand in the middle, “That’s where healing happens. That’s where conversations happen. That’s where change happens.”
‘Sound of Metal’ Wins Best Film Editing
7:17 PM: Harrison Ford began his turn as presenter with a bit about all of the awful feedback he got for a past film, eventually revealing it to be Blade Runner. “These notes can help us understand why the editing process can often get a little complicated,” he explained, before awarding the Oscar to Sound of Metal’s Mikkel E.G. Nielsen.
“I’m from Denmark, and I would like to greet Denmark, because they are extremely bold at funding the Danish Film School so we students can develop our craft and language for four years,” he said, gesturing to his little gold man. “This is what you get.”
