The 92nd Academy Awards Ceremony, held at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California honored the best films of 2019. The Oscars featured, ”huge entertainment values, big musical numbers, comedy and star power,” according to ABC Entertainment president Karey Burke.
The ceremony estimated 29.6 million views while going host-less for the second year in a row.
The South Korean film, Parasite, headlined the Oscars, winning four awards, including best International Feature Film, Original Screenplay, Best Picture, and Directing. Not only did Parasite take home the most awards, it also became the first non-English language film to win Best Picture, making Oscar history.
Todd Phillip’s take on the classic villain, The Joker, scored a leading 11 Oscar Nominations and was awarded Best Actor for Joaquin Phoenix, and Best Original Score.
The Irishman, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and 1917 followed with 10 Academy Award nominations each. The war film 1917 won Best Cinematography, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood won Best Supporting Actor for Brad Pitt and Best Production Design, while Ford v Ferrari won five nominations, they also went home with two awards, Best Film Editing and Best Sound Editing.
American Factor, Bombshell, Hair Love, Jojo Rabbit, Judy, Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl), Little Women, Marriage Story, The Neighbors’ Window, Rocketman and Toy Story 4 each won one Oscar.
In the Best Actor category, Antonio Banderas was nominated for Pain and Glory, Leonardo DiCaprio for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Adam Driver for Marriage Story, Joaquin Phoenix for Joker and Jonathan Pryce for The Two Popes.
For Best Actress, the award went to Renee Zellweger in Judy, the other nominations included Cynthis Erivo for Harriet, Scarlett Johansson for Marriage Story, Saoirse Ronan for Little Women and Charlize Theron for Bombshell.
Brad Pitt won award for, Best Supporting Actor. The other nominations included, Anthony Hopkins for The Two Popes, Tom Hanks for A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, Al Pacino for The Irishman, Joe Pesci for The Irishman and Brad Pitt for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Laura Dern won Best Supporting Actress for Marriage Story. The other nominations go to Kathy Bates for Richard Jewell, Scarlett Johansson in Jojo Rabbit, Florence Pugh in Little Women and Margot Robbie for Bombshell.
The ceremony opened with a comedy act featuring Steve Martin and Chris Rock.
“It felt like a tradition to open the ceremony with a bit of comedy before starting the awards,” ABC special programming vice president Rob Mills said.
Billie Eilish, joined by her brother, Finneas O’ Connel, performed “Yesterday,” as a tribute during Oscars In Memoriam. The audience was disappointed when they noticed Luke Perry, and Disney Channel star Cameron Boyce were left out of the memorial.
One of the most surprising moments during the Academy Awards was Eminem’s performance of “Lose Yourself,” from his movie 8 Mile. Eminem was nominated and won an Oscar for Best Original Song, “Lose Yourself,” in 2003 but didn’t attend the ceremony because he didn’t think he was going to win. Seventeen years later, the 47-year-old rapper was invited back on the stage to give a surprise performance. “Sorry it took me 18 years to get here,” Eminem said in a tweet.
