Paul Thomas Anderson’s countercultural caper, Battle After Battle, won the Oscar wars, taking home six awards after a hotly contested season.
The big-budget thriller comedy, inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, was named best picture and also won for director, supporting actor for Sean Penn, adapted screenplay, editing and the first Oscar for supporting cast, a highly sought-after category within the industry.
“I wrote this movie to make my children apologize for the mess we left in this world that we are handing them,” Anderson said in his first acceptance speech of the night. He also said he hoped a younger generation would help bring “common sense and decency” back to society.
Previously nominated for films such as Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread, tonight marks the first time Anderson has won an Oscar.
Penn beat co-star Benicio del Toro to win his third Oscar, but was not present to accept his award. “Sean Penn couldn’t be here tonight or didn’t want to,” joked host Kieran Culkin.
The season had become a two-horse race between One Battle After Another and Sinners, which entered the night as the most nominated film in history with a record 16 nominations.
The period vampire blockbuster won four awards: actor for Michael B. Jordan, original screenplay, original score and cinematography, making Autumn Durald Arkapaw the first female winner and the first black woman to win the award.
Jordan won his first Oscar for his lead performance in the film, beating Timothée Chalamet and Leonardo DiCaprio. “I’m here because of the people who came before me,” he said before listing past Black Oscar winners. He has become the sixth black winner in this category.
Coogler is only the second black winner of the Oscar for original screenplay, following in the footsteps of Jordan Peele, who won for Get Out. The 39-year-old brought his cast to their feet telling them “in my book, you are all winners” and apologized to his children “for all the time you were away.”
Jessie Buckley became the first Irish winner of the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in Chloé Zhao’s Shakespearean drama Hamnet. The 36-year-old actress was previously nominated for her role in The Lost Daughter.
She dedicated the award to the “beautiful chaos of a mother’s heart” and called it “the greatest honor.”
Amy Madigan was named best supporting actress for her role as a villain in the hit horror film Weapons, beating out Teyana Taylor and Wunmi Mosaku. It was the first time that the award was won by an actor who was the only one nominated for his film since Penélope Cruz for Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The 75-year-old actor, who had already been nominated in 1986, set a new record for the longest gap between nominations before winning.
Joachim Trier’s family drama Sentimental Value was named best international feature film, the first time Norway has won in this category. It surpassed The Secret Agent, It Was Just an Accident and The Voice of Hind Rijab. “I’m just a Norwegian film nerd,” Trier said on stage. At the end of his speech, he paraphrased James Baldwin saying: “All adults are responsible for all children and let us not vote for politicians who do not take this seriously.”
The award was co-presented by Javier Bardem, who said “no to war and free Palestine” on stage, while wearing prominent badges expressing the same message.
The Oscar for best documentary went to Mr Nobody Against Putin, which tells of a teacher who fights against the oppressive rules that are introduced in his Russian school, a film that, according to co-director David Borenstein, is “about how your country is lost.” He added: “When a government murders people in the streets of our major cities, when we say nothing, when oligarchs take over the media and control how we can produce and consume it, we all face a moral choice, but fortunately, even no one is more powerful than you think.”
KPop Demon Hunters, Netflix’s most-watched movie, won two Oscars for animated film and original song. This week it was officially confirmed that a sequel was on the way. “For those of you who look like me, I’m so sorry it took us so long to see each other in a movie like this,” co-director Maggie Kang said before dedicating the win to Korea and “Koreans around the world.” The smash hit Golden made history as the first K-pop song to win an Oscar.
Guillermo del Toro’s Netflix version of Frankenstein also won three awards for production design, costume design, and makeup and hair. The Oscar for visual effects went to Avatar: Fire and Ash, while F1 took the award for sound.
There was also an unusual tie in the live-action short film category, only the seventh time in Oscar history this has happened. The last time was in 2012 for sound editing.
It marks a big night for Warner Bros, with the studio taking home 11 awards and the first best picture award since Argo in 2013. The epic night for the studio comes as Paramount prepares to merge after a heated ownership battle.
Conan O’Brien returned as host for the second year in a row and kicked off the show with a pre-recorded segment dressed as Madigan’s character in Weapons, running through scenes from the year’s big movies. He joked that he will be “the last human presenter” at the Oscars (while presenting the animated short award, Will Arnett also made an impassioned plea against the use of AI, which received much applause).
He said anyone offended by politics during the ceremony should watch the “alternative Oscars presented by Kid Rock,” mocked that Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos was there for “his first time in a theater,” referenced the lack of British contenders to star as leading men by saying a spokesperson said “well, at least we arrested our pedophiles,” and joked about Amazon’s lack of nominations by asking “why is the website where I buy toilet paper Doesn’t he win more Oscars?
O’Brien also spoke about the “very chaotic and scary times” we find ourselves in and how the awards are “particularly resonant” given the large number of international nominees. “Let’s celebrate not because we think everything is fine, but because we work and hope for something better in the days to come,” he added.
Later that night, he also joked that he would come live from the theater “he has a small penis” before joking, “Let’s see how he puts his name in front of that.” In presenting the two documentary Oscars, Jimmy Kimmel also took aim at Amazon’s Melania documentary (“Oh, you crazy man, he’s going to be mad because his wife wasn’t nominated for this”) and the right-wing takeover of the media (“As you know, there are some countries whose leaders don’t support free speech. I’m not at liberty to say which ones. Let’s leave it to North Korea and CBS.”)
The night also saw a special tribute to the late Rob Reiner led by his long-time friend and collaborator Billy Crystal. He said his films “will last a lifetime” and that the loss of Reiner and his wife, Michele, is “immeasurable.” He was then joined by other stars from his films, including Meg Ryan, Carol Kane, Demi Moore and Annette Bening.
Rachel McAdams also remembered her compatriot Catherine O’Hara (“she made us laugh until we cried”) and her Morning Glory co-star Diane Keaton (“luminous on screen and indelible in life”), who died last year.
Barbra Streisand followed with a tribute to the late Robert Redford, an “intellectual cowboy” who had “a real backbone on and off the screen.” She also sang a section of The Way We Were, the title song of her much-loved romantic drama.
Among the nominated films that came up empty-handed tonight are Bugonia, Train Dreams, It Was Just an Accident and The Secret Agent.
Last year’s Oscars were led by major wins for Sean Baker’s low-budget comedy-drama Anora, which was named best picture and won four other awards.
