Oscars 2024 highlights: Oppenheimer bags 7 Academy's; Ryan Gosling performs with other Ken's

Our Oscars 2024 highlights cover Oppenheimer stealing the limelight at the event by winning Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, and more.

Kickstarting with the Golden Globes and closing it off with the Academy Awards, the 2024 award season of the West, including Emmys, BAFTA, Critics, and more, has finally ended. The 96th Academy Awards, recently held at LA's Dolby Theatre, might have started with a delay because of the pro-Palestinian protests but managed to wrap up a little before time. Oscars are the prestigious award that everyone, from the artist to the audience, eagerly looks forward to. Though the winners were more or less expected from what was predicted earlier, the eventful night had a lot in store for all of us.  

Many firsts were created this time with Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., and Da’Vine Joy Randolph picking up the trophy for the first time. The UK won for the first time in an international feature and Ukraine did in a documentary feature. The trophies were given out by a group of previous winners instead of just last year's and even though the pop culture phenomenon Barbie, except winning for Best Original Song, had a no show for winning the trophy, with Ryan Gosling's Kennergetic performance the night was written in pink! 

Here are some more highlights from the evening!

Also Read: Don’t miss out on the entire list of National Creator Awards 2024 winners!

Oppenheimer swept up all the trophies home! With Best Picture, the Christopher Nolan epic earned him his first Best Director award after being nominated eight times by the Academy earlier. It also earned Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. their first Oscars for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively. The film also won Best Cinematography, Film Editing, and Best Original Score. 

Emma Stone won her second Oscar for Best Actress for Poor Things, which also won Oscars for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design, and Costume Design. Da’Vine Joy Randolph won her first Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her film The Holdovers. 

The Zone of Interest won Best International Feature Film and Best Sound, making the UK win its first Oscar, while 20 Days in Mariupol won Best Documentary Feature Film, making it Ukraine's first Oscar. The Oscar for Best Documentary Short went to The Last Repair Shop. 

Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall won Best Original Screenplay, with director and writing partner Arthur Harari accepting the Oscar. Based on Percival Everett’s novel Erasure, American Fiction won the Oscar for Best-Adapted Acreenplay. Billie Eilish and O’Connell won the Oscar for Best Original Song for Barbie.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar earned director Wes Anderson his first Oscar for Best Live-Action Short. Hayao Miyazaki also won his second Oscar for Best Animated Feature with The Boy and the Heron. The team behind Toho’s Godzilla Minus One won the award for Best Visual Effects. And the Best Animated Short went to War Is Over! 

The night opened up with Jimmy Kimmel's hosting, who jokingly took a dig at the first few rows filled with nominees and gave a resounding reply to Donald Trump for his remark. The comedian, returning as an emcee for the Oscars for the fourth time, applauded the resilience of actors and writers who marched the picket lines during last year’s dual WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes.

Ryan Gosling, channeling all his Kennergey, brought the theatre alive with his and the other Ken's performing with him on I’m Just Ken with songwriter Mark Ronson, Slash on guitar and other Barbie co-stars Simu Liu and Kingsley Ben–Adir joining him on stage. Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell earned a standing ovation for their performance of Barbie’s “What Was I Made For?” 

American Symphony subject Jon Batiste performed the love song It Never Went Away from the Netflix doc, while Becky G performed 15-time nominee Diane Warren’s Flamin’ Hot tune The Fire Inside. The Osage Singers also performed the original tribal song Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People) from Killers of the Flower Moon.

This year, throughout the ceremony, last year’s acting Oscar winners were joined by previous winners to introduce the nominees from their respective categories. Nicolas Cage, Brendan Fraser, Ben Kingsley, Matthew McConaughey, and Forest Whitaker presented Best Actor; Sally Field, Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Lange, Charlize Theron, and Michelle Yeoh presented Best Actress. Jamie Lee Curtis, Regina King, Rita Moreno, Lupita Nyong’o, and Mary Steenburgen presented Best-Supporting Actress; Mahershala Ali, Ke Huy Quan, Tim Robbins, Sam Rockwell, and Christoph Waltz presented Best-Supporting Actor.

The Israel-Hamas war was directly referenced during the red carpet with stars like Billie Eilish, Finneas O’Connell, Ramy Youseff, Mahershala Ali, Mark Ruffalo, Mark Ronson, and Ava DuVernay wearing red Artists4Ceasefire pins in support to end the war and deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

We saw a Barbienheimer moment when Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling, who also starred in Fall Guy, came together to honor Hollywood stunt people and took jabs at each other. John Cena came on stage, nude, to announce Best Costume. Messi, the dog from the film Anatomy of a Fall, was the best dressed at the award ceremony! 

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Keeping the commentary rituals of the Oscar alive with many speeches including Nolan being thankful for being honored in a profession that isn't longer than 100 years, Murphy thanking him for the 20-year partnership between the two and Downey Jr. thanking his wife and agent for sticking with him and bringing him alive to many writer-directors asking to invest in more small budget films.

What are your thoughts on the winners and speeches? Talk to us in the comments below! 

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