Everything Everywhere All At Once takes home 7 wins out of it’s 11 nominations, with a few surprises and an odd trend towards the middle of the show. Let’s get into it.
Everything Everywhere Cleans Up, with some All Quiet Distraction
We’ll talk about how the broadcast was structured, and the interesting All Quiet picks that started to make me worried live on the broadcast about the potential EEAAO sweep being upended. Of their 11 nominations, EEAAO took home 7 wins, including Jamie Lee Curtis for Best Supporting Actress – which many thought was going to go to Angela Bassett’s performance as Queen Ramonda (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) and give the MCU it’s first acting win. Honestly, as great as Curtis has been on the press junket, supporting Yeoh the entire way, her win here felt weird. Bassett or Stephanie Hsu (EEAAO) would have been stronger picks, or even Kerry Condon for her role in The Banshees of Inishirin.
After the animation win for Pinocchio, the show started strong with the Best Supporting wins of Ke Huy Quan and then Curtis… but after that, any chance of EEAAO sweeping all its categories were dashed as All Quiet on the Western Front starting taking wins in the middle of the show, like for Cinematography and Score. In our livestream, All Quiet started to become the butt of the stream’s joke as it inexplicably started racking up more and more wins. To be clear, it’s not a bad film by any means and certainly deserves it’s nominations, but the wins for Production Design and Score struck me oddly, as I would have taken Babylon first in either category. Yes, I realize that it also won International Feature, but I will contend that No Bears (by jailed Iranian director Jafar Panahi) not being nominated was an incredible oversight and takes this category for me.
Michelle Yeoh had been the odds on favorite for a long time. Yes, there was likely a chance that Cate Blanchett’s role as Lydia Tár might have swayed a few voters or even the long shot challenger of Andrea Risenborough’s performance in To Leslie, but this win was likely locked up a long time ago. With this win, Yeoh joins a small list of POC actresses to win an Oscar, and an even smaller list to win Best Actress specifically. When you wonder why the Risenborough push was so controversial, it wasn’t just because it edged out a chance for Viola Davis in Woman King or Danielle Deadwyler in Till, it also took a chance for them to win in a category POC traditionally haven’t won in. I also found it telling that Halle Berry specifically presented the award alongside Jessica Chastain – almost as an acknowledgement of that problematic history, since Berry was the first POC to win Best Actress.
Brendan Fraser Wins for The Whale
Fraser was another contender that likely had this wrapped up since his ovations at the Venice Film Festival, but given the reviews and visceral reactions that happened to reviewers and audiences members, it became clear that his nomination had some doubts heading into Oscar night. And I’m not sure whether to say I’m thankful it didn’t happen? Fraser is amazing with the material he’s given, but the win is complicated for a number of ableist reasons. Having the Academy award this performance, given their nature of awarding actors for taking on “risks” or being perceived as “edgy” when they take on a physical ailment or disability, perpetuates a long history of misrepresentation of delicate issues to score hardware. And yet, with Fraser’s own story, there’s a lot of internalized shame that Hollywood’s elites and powerbrokers may be trying to alleviate by this win. To be clear, I’m not saying Academy voters set out and said “we gotta give this one to Brendan for all the shit we put him through”…but I’m also not NOT saying it.
Jimmy Kimmel Swings Hard
I knew we were going to get some jokes about what happened last year, but I wasn’t prepared for how deep that well was going to be for Kimmel. Our editor Taryn said on the stream that they felt many of these quips might have been improvised – and I agree there was likely a small element of that – but given the debacle of last year, I wouldn’t be surprised if Kimmel had to vet most of what he said the entire night.
Was his performance as memorable as say a Ricky Gervais hosting the Golden Globes with his drive and willingness to take shots directly at the stars? Not quite…but it was certainly closer to that territory than you would have expected from the late night host who was taking shots on his own channel.
My Biggest Surprises
I am shocked…shocked I tell you, that Steven Spielberg went home empty handed. I think The Fabelmans is a fine film, definitely another Spielberg classic, but I completely expected the voters to crumble and eat up what Spielberg had given them. Don’t get it twisted: this night isn’t an internal rebuke of all the Oscars’ generations of problems, they have to stay consistent with these changes for much longer before we can even begin to say that. However, if the voters weren’t swayed by a solid film from Hollywood’s arguably biggest director, it points to a future where different films have a stronger chance of resonating and competing well in every category.
If this was any another year, Fabelmans likely would have done better, along with Banshees, Tár, or even Elvis. It was genuinely surprising to see these films get completely shutout. I thought there was a chance that Banshees could have grabbed a Supporting or Screenplay win, while Elvis not getting Costume was another shocker.
List of all the Winners
- Best Picture: Everything Everywhere All At Once
- Best Director: Everything Everywhere All At Once
- The Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)
- Best Actress: Michelle Yeoh
- Everything Everywhere All At Once
- Best Actor: Brendan Fraser
- The Whale
- Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Jamie Lee Curtis
- Everything Everywhere All At Once
- Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Ke Huy Quan
- Everything Everywhere All At Once
- Best Animated Feature: Pinocchio
- Director: Guillermo del Toro
- Best Original Song: “Naatu Naatu” from RRR
- M.M. Keeravaani, lyrics by Chandrabose
- Best Adapted Screenplay: Women Talking
- Written by director Sarah Polley
- Best Original Screenplay: Everything Everywhere All At Once
- Written by directors The Daniels (Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert)
- Best Visual Effects: Avatar The Way of Water
- Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, and Daniel Barrett
- Best Film Editing: Everything Everywhere All At Once
- Paul Rogers
- Best Score: All Quiet On The Western Front
- Volker Bertelmann
- Best Cinematography: All Quiet On The Western Front
- James Friend
- Best Makeup and Styling: The Whale
- Adrien Morot, Judy Chin, and Anne Marie Bradley
- Best Sound: Top Gun Maverick
- Mark Weingarten, James H. Mather, Al Nelson, Chris Burdon, and Mark Taylor
- Best Costume Design: Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
- Ruth Foster
- Best Production Design: All Quiet on the Western Front
- Christian M. Goldbeck and Ernestine Hipper
- Best Animated Short: The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and The Horse
- Best Documentary Feature: Navalny
- Best Documentary Short: The Elephant Whisperers
- Best Live Action Short: An Irish Goodbye
- Best International Feature: All Quiet On The Western Front
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