Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water was the big winner at the 90th Academy Awards. It won four awards, including Best Film and Best Director, from a total of 13 nominations. Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk followed with three big wins, all in technical categories. Roger Deakins won his first Oscar this year for Blade Runner after getting nominated 13 times in the Best Cinematography category till date. Gary Oldman and Frances McDormand won the awards for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively.
10:18am: The Oscar for Best Picture goes to The Shape of Water. The film has won four Oscars from 13 nominations, so far. Del Toro, in his speech, spoke of his love for Hollywood films like ET: The Extra Terrestrial (1982) and those directed by Frank Capra, while growing up in Mexico. He spoke of how impossible he thought the prospect of winning an Oscar was during his early years in Mexico, and ended his speech by emphasising the use of the fantasy genre to tell stories about issues that are relevant to the world.
10:15am: Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway get a second chance at redeeming themselves for the goof-up they did last year when they announced the name of the wrong film for the Best Picture award. They are presenting the Best Picture award once again.
Here’s what happened last year.
10:05am: The Oscar for Best Actress goes to Frances McDormand for her performance as a grieving mother who wants to avenge her daughter’s rape and murder in Martin McDonagh’s Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. McDormand, as the foul-mouthed and singularly motivated Mildred Hayes, has won most of the major acting words for her work in McDonagh’s film, so far, including the Golden Globes and the BAFTA award for Best Actress. This is McDormand’s second Oscar win in the Best Actress category – she won the award the first time for her work in the Coen brothers’ Fargo (1996).
In a standout moment at the Oscars this year, McDormand asked for all the female nominees at the Academy Awards to stand up as an act of solidarity with all women working in Hollywood, and she left two words for them: “Inclusion rider” – referring to the need for women to be part of inclusion clauses in all Hollywood contracts.
9:55am: The Oscar for Best Actor goes to Gary Oldman for Darkest Hour where he plays newly appointed British prime minister Winston Churchill who has to fight bureaucracy and his own cabinet to take tough decisions while the British army is in peril on the beaches of Dunkirk in northern France in 1940. For the role, Oldman had to wear heavy make up and prosthetic, so as to appear as plump as Churchill. Oldman had won all major acting awards for this film in the run up to the Oscars.
9:45am: Guillermo Del Toro wins Best Director for The Shape of Water. He has been nominated in this category three times before. He had won the Best Director award at the Golden Globes and the British Academy of Film and Television Awards for The Shape of Water as well. Del Toro, whose filmography revolves primarily around monsters and fantasies, tells the story of a romantic relationship between a speech-impared woman and an amphibian creature in The Shape of Water.
In his speech, Del Toro said, “The greatest thing our art does, and our industry does, is erase the lines in the sand. We should continue doing that.”
9:20am: The Oscar for Best Cinematography goes to Roger Deakins for his work on Blade Runner 2049. Deakins has been nominated in this category 13 times before. Deakins has shot Villenueve has shot three films for director Denis Villeneuve, the other two being Prisoners (2013) and Sicario (2015).
This was also the first time in Oscars history that a woman, Rachel Morrison, was in the running for the Best Cinematographer award.
9:08am: The Oscar for Best Original Screenplay goes to Jordan Peele for his horror film Get Out. Peele, a comedian, made his directorial debut with this film which depicts the embedded racism among the liberal white elite of America. Peele is the fourth person in Oscars history after Orson Welles, Warren Beatty and James L Brooks to receive nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay for his directorial debut. He is also the first black individual to win the Best Screenplay Oscar.
9:02am: The Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay goes to James Ivory for Call Me By Your Name. He has written the screenplay based on the novel of the same name by Andre Aciman. The 89-year-old starts his speech by saying that the first rule of a screenwriter adapting someone’s work is to thank the author. The gay romance directed by Luca Guadagnino tells the story of a love affair between a 17-year-old boy and a much older man.
8:55am: Harvey Weinstein accusers Ashley Judd, Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek share the stage at the 90th Academy Awards ceremony.
8:50am: Rapper Common and singer Andra Dey perform the Oscar-nominated song Stand Up For Something from Reginald Hudlin’s film Marshall. Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman plays the first African-American Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in the film. Stand Up for Something is a rhythm and blues song that is interspersed with rap verses by Common.
8:45am: The Oscar for Best Short Film (Live Action) goes to The Silent Child directed by Chris Overton, and written by and starring Rachel Shenton. The film revolves around how a social worker, played by Shenton, trains a deaf four-year-old girl to communicate using sign language.
8:42am: The winner for Best Documentary Short Subject is Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405 directed by Frank Stiefel. The film looks into the life of a tortured but brilliant artist from Los Angeles, 56-year-old Mindy Alper, who channeled her battle with lifelong depression and anxiety into her art. The film can be watched on YouTube.
8:30am: Lee Smith wins the Oscar for Best Editing for his work on Christopher Nolan’s World War II film Dunkirk. Smith has been associated with Nolan since the director’s 2005 film Batman Begins. He was nominated in this category for Nolan’s The Dark Knight in 2008.
8:25am: The Oscar for Best Visual Effects goes to John Nelson, Gerd Nefzer, Paul Lambert and Richard R Hoover for Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049. The futuristic tech-noir is set in Los Angeles in 2049 and features an update of dark, cyberpunk architecture and state-of-the-art special effects first featured in Ridley Scott’s seminal science-fiction film Blade Runner (1982).
8:15am: Indie-pop artist Sufjan Stevens performs Mystery of Love from the Oscar-nominated film Call Me By Your Name. Laced by lush acoustic guitars, the song speaks of the the experience of encountering love for the first time.
8:12am: The Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film goes to the Disney-Pixar production Coco directed by Lee Unkrich. He has won an Oscar before in this category for directing Toy Story 3 (2010). Coco is the story of a 12-year-old Mexican boy who goes into the underworld to meet his musician great-great-grandfather and get his blessings and become a top musician himself. Circumstances take the boy down a road of adventure and self-discovery.
8:08am: The Oscar for Best Animated Short Film goes to Dear Basketball directed by Glen Keane and retired American basketball player Kobe Bryant.
Daniela Vega is a transgender actress and has so far featured in two films, both in which she plays transgender roles. Her film, A Fantastic Woman, has won the Oscar for Best Film in a Foreign Language. Vega is also the first publicly transgender person to present an Oscar this year. Here, the cast and crew of A Fantastic Woman talks about their film.
7:58am: The Oscar for Best Actress in a Supporting Role goes to Allison Janney for her performance in Craig Gillespie’s I, Tonya. Janney plays LaVona Fay Golden, the demanding and often-abusive mother of disgraced American figure skater Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie).
7:55am: The Oscar for Best Film in a Foreign Language goes to A Fantastic Woman (Chile) directed by Sebastian Lelio. The film revolves around the trials and tribulations that a trans woman, Maria Vandal (Daniela Vega), has to face in contemporary Chilean society following the death of her lover, an older man.
7:45am: Gael Garcia Bernal, Miguel and Natalie Lafourcade perform the Oscar-nominated song Remember Me from Coco. The song exists in several versions in the animated film. Bernal begins with the simple, acoustic, downtempo version before Miguel and Lafourcade launch into the celebratory version with backup dancers.
7:42am: The Oscar for Best Production Design goes to Paul Denham Austerberry, Shane Vieau and Jeff Melvin for their work on The Shape of Water. The Guillermo Del Toro-directed film has just won its first Oscar – it has nominated in 12 other categories. The film is set the cold war era in America and revolves around the relationship between a speech-impared janitor and an amphibian creature.
7:40am: Lupita Nyong’o and Kumail Nanjiani are on stage. Both actors make reference to their history as immigrants and spoke of their Hollywood dreams – “and dreams are the foundation of America,” Nyong’o said, making a reference to American president Donald Trump’s relationship with the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act is a legislative proposal meant to give permanent residency in the United States to immigrant minors.
They are presenting the Oscar for Best Production Design.
7:32am: Dunkirk wins big in both sound categories. It has won the Oscar for Best Sound Mixing as well. Mark Weingarten, Gregg Landaker and Gary A Rizzo are responsible for mixing the sound of the Nolan film. “Christopher Nolan encouraged us to make a difference to the soundtrack,” Landaker said, in praise of his director.
7:30am: The Oscar for Best Sound Editing goes to Richard King and Alex Gibson for Dunkirk. The Christopher Nolan-directed film is a fast-paced World War II drama that deals with the survival of British soldiers on the beaches of Dunkirk in northern Frances while they were being attacked by German forces from all sides in May and June 1940.
7:26am: Though Jimmy Kimmel has made references to the most in-vogue social and political topics, from #MeToo and #TimesUp to the representation of minorities in movies, including mentioning the box-office success of Black Panther, he has not said anything risque so far. Here’s Kimmel’s opening monologue.
7:15am: Mary J Bilge performs Mighty River from Mudbound. The song has been nominated in the Best Song category. Blige has been nominated in both the Best Supporting Actress category as well as the Best Song category. The lyrics and music for Mighty River are by Blige, Raphael Saadiq and Taura Stinson.
7:11am: The Oscar for Best Documentary goes to Bryan Fogel’s Icarus. The film explores the Russian state-sponsored doping programme that enhances the performance of the country’s players at the Olympics. The film is currently available for streaming on Netflix.
7:10am: Greta Gerwig and Laura Dern are presenting the award for the Best Documentary. They speak about the importance of authentic and true stories in times such as this, making a reference to the fake news phenomenon rampant across the globe.
Phantom Thread has been nominated in six categories in total. It was expected to be the clear winner in the Best Costume Design category.
7:03am: The Oscar for Best Costume Design has been awarded to Mark Bridges for Phantom Thread. The film is set in ‘50s London and revolves around a dressmaker played by Daniel Day-Lewis. The film’s costumes plays an integral role in the plot.
6:57am: The Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling has been awarded to Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski and Lucy Sibbick for their work on Darkest Hour. The film involved heavy prosthetic work to make Gary Oldman look like British prime minister Winston Churchill.
6:50am: And the Oscar for the Best Actor in a Supporting role goes to: Sam Rockwell for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. This is Rockwell’s first Academy Award nomination and win.
6:45am: The Oscar for the Best Supporting Actor will be awarded now. Viola Davis announces the nominees: Willem Dafoe (The Florida Project), Sam Rockwell and Woody Harrelson (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), Richard Jenkins (The Shape of Water) and Christopher Plummer (All The Money In The World).
6:35am: Jimmy Kimmel moves on to talk about the Harvey Weinstein sexual harassment scandal. He adds that he expects speakers to talk about the #MeToo and #TimesUp campaign. He jokingly adds, “If you are a nominee tonight that’s not making history tonight, shame on you.”
6:30am: The 90th Academy Awards ceremony begins. Jimmy Kimmel starts with the opening speech and immediately makes a reference to the goof-up the presenters made last year while erroneously awarding the Best Picture award to La La Land.