The story of this year’s Oscars was: how to choose? Between Sinners and One Battle After Another, voters put two of the studio’s most successful, beloved, star-studded releases at the top of the nomination pile. Time One Battle After Another it seemed like bad behavior Most liked picture for months, Sinners he was collecting enough trophies, and getting so much love at the forerunner’s parties, that it felt impossible to fully count. The 98th Academy Awards, which came at the end of what felt like an endless cycle of talk and speculation, did a great job of creating a big space to celebrate both movies in earnest. yes, One Battle After Another won Best Picture, one of six trophies won. But Sinners it took four home, with his dignitaries delivering the most powerful speeches of the evening.
Tonight’s ceremony was devoid of the major disaster that has embarrassed the organizers of the Academy Awards and confirmed the event’s status as must-see TV. There was no slapno wrong name of the winner; even Adrien Brody jokingly admitted how long he played during his Best Actor speech last year. Host Conan O’Brien ran a tight ship, looking more confident in his second trip to the festival after performing knocking work last year. The worst part of the show was that Sean Penn didn’t even bother to show up to pick up his historic third acting title (reports surfaced that he might be. in Ukraine) with a few winners being ushered off the stage before speaking on the microphone.
By Oscar standards, this all adds up to a sense of calm. Many of the recipients who took the stage seemed eager to shout out their fellow nominees, acknowledging that everyone in the room probably has the same goal: to preserve cinema as an art form that many audiences still care about. Michael B. Jordan, receiving the award for Best Actor Sinnershe thanked God, his family, his team, and the cast and crew of the film, before ending his beautiful speech by thanking the audience who watched the film. over and over again when it came out almost a year ago. They are the ones, he said, who helped make the movie an unexpected box-office hit it happened.
Jordan’s victory was perhaps the most surprising of the ceremony. The Best Actor category was very visible in the air: After the most early attention during the awards season to go Marty KuuTimothée Chalamet, Jordan had gained momentum with a surprise win at the Actor’s Awards earlier this month. But watching him take the stage tonight felt close complete truth; will to Sinners from the Academy the voters felt happy, and he was strong enough to enable the film to get another big win even in front of One Battle After AnotherOpen governance. Jordan is an industry veteran who started his career Wirethen moved on to much loved soaps and TV shows such as Friday Night Lights; now, he’s joined that rarest of skies, becoming a true A-list star with an Oscar to his name, and it was an exciting time to watch live.
Otherwise, the evening was more about anointing talent that was definitely overdue for award recognition. Paul Thomas Anderson, who won for producing, directing, and writing One Battle After Anotherhe had sat on a career-high 14 nominations without a win at the event. As with Christopher Nolan a few years ago, the Academy decided now was his time—bolstered by the fact that Anderson had made the most epic film he’d ever worked on, an old-fashioned family epic that was still defined by its dark humor. But One Battle After Another It wasn’t the total juggernaut it could have been: Penn won the award for the film’s only actor, and also took home Best Editing and the inaugural Best Actor honor.
Along with Best Actor, meanwhile, Sinners it won for its screenplay, cinematography, and score, which produced a memorable speech. Writer-director Ryan Coogler gave a shout-out to his wife and co-producer Zinzi; Composer Ludwig Göransson spoke about his father investing him with a love of blues music since childhood. Most impressive was the film’s director of photography, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, who became the first woman to win the award for Best Cinematography—she asked the women in the audience to stand on their feet, representing the support she had in her journey to success.
Watching his speech was the only time I spoke of my faith One Battle After Another would take Best Picture, despite its predecessor’s deterioration in several awards, the Golden Globes, and the BAFTAs. Most of the previous festivities, starting in late November and, this year, ending in March with the Oscars, have been a bit of a chore; sometimes ends the big show of any real drama, with the same series of winners repeating their nauseating speeches. But the audience at the Dolby theater really liked, among other films, One Battle After Another and Sinners at this year’s Oscars feel obligated. To see that kind of big-budget artistry properly promoted, given some of the work the Academy has recognized in recent years—I’m looking at you, The Green Book– felt a real victory.
The dominance of these two films meant that other worthy nominees were largely overlooked. Marty KuuThe obvious chance to win was Best Actor, but the narrative seemed to be against Chalamet’s strong performance in recent weeks because of his good performance. idiosyncratic approach campaign. (Storm in a teacup over him thoughts on ballet and opera(which came on the day voting closed, may not have been the reason, although O’Brien made sure to refer to it during his speech.) I thought of Brazil’s incredible excitement. Secret Agent may win somewhere, most likely in the International Feature category; it lost out there to Norwegian drama Emotional valuewhich took home its only award of the night after 9 nominations. Jessie Buckley, iron lock, got Hamnet‘s only trophy in Best Actress, while Guillermo Del Toro Frankenstein cleared in technical categories but was not a factor anywhere else. Two other films that hit their way to a Best Picture nomination, Bugonia and Dream Trainwere thoughts.
But that is the inevitable result of a party dominated by two A great movie, a rarer situation than one titanic favorite to enjoy a great sweep. As Anderson took the stage for his final win of the night, he remembered the Best Picture contenders from 50 years before 1975—Dog Day Afternoon, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Jaws, Nashville, and Barry Lyndon. “There is no ‘best’ among them. There is how that situation can be that day,” he said. The 1975 lineup is hard to beat, but this year’s lineup was just as strong, and Anderson was honoring his film’s closest “rival” in Sinners: There is no “best” at this point, whatever might appeal to you on a particular evening. This evening, luck happened to favor him.
