Here's Everything You Might Have Missed At The 2024 Oscars

I’m sorry – was the announcement that “Oppenheimer” won best picture kind of weird for anyone else? I was still in a haze after that Emma Stone win for Best Actress that I can’t tell if I just blanked out or what. I will say that I have never been so glad for the last award to be announced at the Oscars. I’m TIRED of talking about these films lol. — Erin

Yes, that was a weird way to announce that win. Begging folks to not be weird about announcing the Best Picture win (still recovering from the “Moonlight” debacle in 2017). But hey, “Oppenheimer” — YAY!

Also: Did “Killers of the Flower Moon” win anything tonight? What a massively discussed movie filled with a lot of major stars and backed by a major director, going home empty. Same for “Maestro.” I have nothing else to add there, but I thought that was interesting. — Candice

Al Pacino gonna Al Pacino, I guess.

Whew, I’m still kind of in a daze. — Marina

Emma Stone wins Oscar for Best Actress for "Poor Things."

I just screamed! I’m surprised and happy! I thought Emma Stone was really incredible in “Poor Things.” I also felt so satisfied with the end of the film. I just knew Lily Gladstone — who I thought was great in “Killers of the Flower Moon” — was going to win. I can’t even think. Wow. Wow. — Erin

My stream is behind, so I found out this news through everyone going “WHOA.” — Marina

I was over here prewriting my little live blog about my complicated feelings around Lily Gladstone winning — and then she doesn’t even win. It’s fine. I hope that means white people watch her in films that show off her talent even more. Okay, with that said, Emma Stone is fabulous in “Poor Things” and I’m happy for her. But I also feel like Sandra Hüller was equally deserving here. Anyway, happy to see things shaken up a bit at the 11th hour, no less! — Candice

Same, I had a whole spiel ready to go. Emma Stone seems as stunned as we all are.
I can only hope people will check out Gladstone’s body of work, including her breakout role in “Certain Women” in 2016, and “Fancy Dance,” which finally got distribution from Apple — a whole year after it premiered at Sundance.

It’s hard to deny the technical precision and level of difficulty in Stone’s performance, so I’m happy for her, while also bummed for Gladstone. This was such a competitive category this year. I mean, we’ve all discussed how brilliant Sandra Hüller is in “Anatomy of a Fall.” And many deserving women didn’t even get nominated (ahem, Greta Lee, for one). — Marina

Christopher Nolan wins Oscar for Best Director for "Oppenheimer."

Christopher Nolan has given us such wild, technically fantastic and deeply challenging movies, many of which manage to be blockbusters and/or modern classics in their own right. That’s a lot for a moviegoing culture that too often desires art that is simple and that reaffirms audiences' own sensibilities. I’m truly in awe of his talent. Happy to see him finally win. — Candice

I remember seeing “Inception” twice in the theater, once on opening night — a formative moviegoing experience for me. And the reason we have 10 best picture nominees is basically because of “The Dark Knight.” I didn’t love “Oppenheimer” as much, but Nolan’s technical genius and ability to melt the artistic with the commercial is pretty astonishing. — Marina

“Inception” was the first movie I saw in theaters when I moved to New York City! — Erin

Cillian Murphy wins Oscar for Best Actor for "Oppenheimer."

No surprise here. I find Cillian Murphy so charming. “I’d like to dedicate this to the peacemakers everywhere,” Murphy said in his acceptance speech. — Erin

Yeah, definitely no surprise at all. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Cillian Murphy deliver a bad performance. Good for him. — Candice

Finally, an acknowledgment of the present-day relevance of “Oppenheimer.” It’s something I’ve thought about all awards season, and it’s among several big awards contenders this year that are about war or genocide and how history chooses to selectively memorialize those atrocities. — Marina

Billie Eillish is 22 years old and a two-time Oscar winner — a consecutive two-time Oscar winner. That’s wild. “What Was I Made For?” is really good. But damn, that’s just unusual. — Candice

My perhaps unpopular opinion is that I think “I’m Just Ken” is the better song from this film. It surprised me more. But I get why this one won. — Marina

Definitely not an unpopular opinion! — Candice

I actually was reading a piece on Slate earlier today about why “I’m Just Ken” should win instead. And it unpacks the long history of these less fun songs winning the award. — Erin

Ludwig Göransson wins the Oscar for best original score for "Oppenheimer."

“Oppenheimer” is really sweeping up tonight. I like seeing talent winning. But I would like to see them spread the wealth around. — Candice

I love me some Ryan Gosling. I was kind of half paying attention for the last, like, five awards — partially due to some computer issues — but whew, thanks, Ken, for breathing a little life into me just now. — Erin

That was fun and elaborate — and Ryan Gosling is so game. I really think “Barbie” is going to win Best Picture. They want it to so bad. And while they billed this as the “Ryan Gosling performance,” it looks like every single actor that performed it in the movie, including Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa and Kingsley Ben-Adir, were all here, too. — Candice

Here for it. — Candice

Yeah, this feels very well-deserved! — Erin

Mstyslav Chernov, Michelle Mizner and Raney Aronson-Rath win for Best Documentary Feature for "20 Days in Mariupol."

I have not seen this movie, and really wanted “Four Daughters” to win. But I appreciate that director Mstyslav Chernov took this winning moment to discuss the war in Ukraine, on which this film centers. — Candice

It's neat to see PBS and Associated Press journalists recognized on a glitzy night like tonight, given how grim things are in the nonprofit journalism world right now. Rigorous, fact-based war reporting is a difficult and often thankless job. — Graph

‘The Last Repair Shop’ is soooooooo good! I cried at the end. It also just really reminded me of my band days — I played the clarinet. It was just so so so well done. — Erin

This was my favorite of the documentary shorts, with “Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó” as a close second. It follows the incredible life stories of the various people who work at the instrument repair shop for the Los Angeles school district. It’s one of the few public school districts in the country where music students can still get free instruments. The film begins with great interstitial interviews with a bunch of wonderful students who talk about how meaningful it is to be able to have these instruments and what music means to them. But then, it becomes about the music technicians, each of whom has an incredible and unique story about how they came to this job and how it became their passion. I was really blown away by it, and the ending will really get you. — Marina

One of the things I thought of when I got out of a screening of “Oppenheimer” was damn, that was well-edited. Because how the hell is a movie that shows us a bunch of board meetings so riveting to watch? The editing is a big part of that. Also happy to see Jennifer Lame, a woman, earn this award. The industry far too rarely hires women as editors (Thelma Schoonmaker was also nominated for “Killers of the Flower Moon”), so it’s nice to see a tiny bit of diversity here. — Candice

I’m always here for reunions. Happy to see Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger represent for the great 1988 comedy “Twins.” — Candice

I think this was the only nomination for “Godzilla Minus One,” sadly,” but it was SO earned. I wish the academy cared about genre movies, because this one was one of many that was deserving of so much more recognition. Exquisite. — Candice

I still haven’t seen this and really want to!

I love that the team behind the film brought up little Godzilla statues onstage! — Marina

Robert Downey Jr. wins Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in "Oppenheimer."

Probably the best performance I’ve seen from Robert Downey Jr., though I’ve seen a number of terrific performances from him in the last several decades. As always, I’m most interested in seeing the academy shake things up with unexpected wins — i.e., Ryan Gosling or Mark Ruffalo. But hey, happy to see a deserving performance win. — Candice

I was high-key rooting for “The Teachers’ Lounge” here. “The Zone of Interest” has so much technical merit, but is an extremely distant movie that I couldn’t really jump into as a viewer. I am happy to see another Sandra Hüller film win tonight (she also stars in “Anatomy of a Fall”), and satisfied to see director Jonathan Glazer mention the Gaza conflict in his acceptance speech. — Candice

Happy to see director Jonathan Glazer talk about Gaza, which I’d been anticipating. The team behind the film has been virtually the only award winners this season to explicitly talk about Gaza on stage and point out the present-day parallels to the themes of their film. — Marina

Holly Waddington wins for best costume design for "Poor Things."

I now have a feeling that “Poor Things” is going to sweep these more technical, behind-the-camera awards, and not win any acting or directing awards. That’s not to take away from any of these achievements, which are deserving and just as important, but… I just get that feeling. — Candice

I thought the production design of “Poor Things” was so colorful and elaborate and imaginative and indicative of the journey Stone’s character goes on, and I’m happy to see it win for that. — Candice

Yes, and capturing all of the period details and the location shifts as the movie goes on: very impressive work. — Marina

I mean, I think “Poor Things” is great. Emma Stone looks regal and magnificent in a very pretty feminine character kind of way. But when I think about makeup and hairstyling, I think of something a bit ore dramatic and difficult. And maybe I’m wrong about that. But I think “Society of the Snow” should have won for its use of makeup and prosthetics to show the skin deterioration et al of survivors of a plane crash. — Candice

This was a surprise win to me because I thought “Maestro” was going to win, given the whole nose debacle, and so much of the film’s awards campaign had been about the makeup and hairstyling (however you may feel about said debacle). — Marina

I don’t even know what else to say except that the screenplay was the worst part of “American Fiction,” which is already a deeply flawed movie. — Candice

Unrelated, I raised an eyebrow at the “Based on Barbie by Mattel” as their justification for putting “Barbie” as an adapted screenplay. Like, yes, technically, it is adapted from a toy? But the point is, however you feel about the movie, Greta Gerwig managed to make something original out of it. But the academy has a history of weird rules for adapted vs. original screenplays (e.g. a sequel is almost always considered “adapted” from the first movie). — Marina

I will say, Cord Jefferson’s speech was so heartfelt. I worked with him many moons ago in journalism so it is pretty incredible seeing him win an Oscar. — Erin

Hear, hear. And since leaving journalism, he’s had such an incredible career, working on basically all of the best TV shows of the last few years. — Marina

OK, I’m here for them playing the steel drum version of “P.I.M.P.” like in the movie for Justine Triet’s walk-up music to accept the award for Best Original Screenplay. — Erin
Congratulations to Justine Triet and her husband Arthur Harari — and 50 Cent! Truly a phenomenal screenplay that I haven’t stopped thinking about since I watched it in Toronto last year. Such a deserving, and actually surprising, win (because I don’t think anyone really predicted this one). — Candice

Erin, I was about to say the same thing! Good work, Oscars presenters. Lol at Triet saying this will “help me through my midlife crisis.” What an incredibly written movie, easily one of the best of the year.

Original Screenplay was such a strong category this year. I weep a little for Celine Song and Samy Burch, whose films (“Past Lives” and “May December”) were also two of the best, and the writing is a particular strength of both films. — Marina

So, I admittedly haven’t seen any of these films. But I had a hunch that anything Beatles-related — Yoko Ono and John Lennon are both name-dropped in the subtitle — was absolutely going to win. — Candice

I’ve seen all of these, actually! For the first time ever in my many years of Oscar-watching, I decided to watch all of the shorts this year, which is a fun challenge for anyone who’s into the Oscars. I recommend it. (Luckily, many are available online these days.)

This one wasn’t my favorite, but as you said, Candice, I think the name recognition often helps in this category. This film is also quite sentimental, so I imagine that worked on a lot of voters. — Marina

I’ve been really excited about the show reviving this presenter format of bringing back previous winners to talk about each acting nominee. They did this years ago, and while, yes, it makes the show a bit longer, I think it’s worth it. It’s really touching to see the nominee seem genuinely moved by a previous winner praising their work. I mean, Da’Vine Joy Randolph moved to tears by Lupita Nyong’o’s tribute? The Rita Moreno telling America Ferrera “from one woman to another, congratulations on your tour de force”? Wonderful. — Marina

I really hate this presentation so much. It’s so overly sentimental and long. Like, give us the nominated clips instead, PLEASE! — Candice

I take your point, Candice. I admit the general audience, especially people who haven’t watched many of the movies, would be better served by the clips, rather than this format, which might be better for the people in the room. — Marina

OK, I’m here for Jimmy dragging folks for these long-ass movies. Bring back really good and tight 90-minute movies! My attention span is terrible! But speaking of brevity, it feels like this opener is going on and on and on. It seems like he’s addressing damn near every nominee! I keep thinking he has so many more films to talk about. — Erin

It’s not going so great, dare I say? Some of these jokes are not landing, like the bit with Robert Downey, Jr. I LOL'ed at the person who groaned at his joke about “Yorgos is good as mine” (referring to whether “Poor Things” director Yorgos Lanthimos and his editor, who is also named Yorgos, will both win). He also made a joke connecting Emma Stone to Katie Britt’s widely mocked State of the Union response the other night, which I did not fully understand. — Marina

I mean, I enjoy that Robert Downey Jr. is one of very few of these very entitled people in this room that can take a joke. Him and Robert De Niro, who has taken many shots at being, basically, a geriatric new dad. You should come prepared to be roasted — like at any comedy show — so, I appreciate that they played along. — Candice

This is true, RDJ is always game!

I am glad to see Kimmel mention the strikes though. Not enough people have during awards season. This standing ovation for the Teamsters is really great. — Marina

One of the most fun storylines I’ve been following this awards season is director Sean Wang’s grandmas, the stars of his wonderful Oscar-nominated documentary short “Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó” (available on Disney+ and Hulu), becoming red carpet sensations. Wang and his producing partner, Sam Davis, have been bringing them to different events all season, and tonight, they are their plus-ones to the Oscars. (Or as he told me a few weeks ago, it’s more like his grandmas are bringing them.) Judging from the photos, they look like they’re having a great time, and their outfits are fabulous. — Marina

I loved this film so much; I laughed and boo-hoo cried during parts of it. So glad to see them winning on the carpet tonight. — Erin

On Friday, I wrote about something I’ve been thinking about all awards season: Hollywood’s relative silence about what’s happening in Gaza, which, as I wrote, is unfortunately unsurprising, but still very jarring for several specific reasons. Award winners often use their speeches to make stirring rallying calls — but only for selective causes. I suspect that silence will continue tonight, particularly given the major career consequences people across many industries, including in entertainment, have faced when calling for a cease-fire or expressing various forms of support for Palestinians.
A handful of stars this season have used red carpet moments to at least attempt to say as much as they can, such as wearing 'Artists for Ceasefire' pins. That seems to be continuing tonight: So far, I’ve spotted Ramy Youssef and Billie Eilish wearing them, and we’ll likely see some others as well. — Marina

I’m keeping my eye on this too, though I don’t expect a whole lot, considering what we’ve seen so far this season, as you’ve said, Marina. It did, however, strike me to read that there would be a greater police presence at this ceremony, on the heels of the Independent Spirit Awards where protesting could be heard during the live telecast. Considering how most people who took to the stage at the Spirit Awards tried to move forward with what were probably pre-planned speeches that had no acknowledgement of the conflict, I am interested to see if any Oscar winners tonight will engage with this real-life conflict as they accept their awards. So many people have faced severe repercussions for speaking out against the war, as you said, it would be interesting to see winners who could be at the height of their careers tonight also have to confront what has been considered a career killer just for speaking out. — Candice