The pink carpet has been unfurled for the 96th annual Academy Awards, one of many film business’s oldest and most acclaimed ceremonies.
It’s an evening of glitz, artistry and controversy, as a number of the greatest movies in the USA and all over the world compete for the golden statuettes often called Oscars.
Happening in Los Angeles, California, this 12 months’s Academy Awards ceremonies are set to pit field workplace rivals Barbie and Oppenheimer in opposition to each other in a carefully watched race for Greatest Image.
Whereas Oppenheimer is an early favorite for the win, different classes are more durable to foretell, with tight races within the two main actor classes, as an illustration. And with Israel’s struggle in Gaza raging right into a sixth month, protests and politics are anticipated to make an look on the annual award present, too.
Right here’s what it’s worthwhile to learn about this 12 months’s Oscars.
How did the Academy Awards start?
Whereas the Oscars have turn into synonymous with glitz and glam, their origins had been comparatively humble.
It was Might 1929, and a crowd of black-tied celebrities crowded into the Roosevelt Lodge in Hollywood for the very first Academy Awards ceremony. Tickets had been solely $5. Hollywood heartthrob Douglas Fairbanks hosted the occasion, which lasted a grand complete of quarter-hour — a far cry from at the moment’s three-plus-hour runtime.
It helped, in fact, that the winners had been introduced three months prior in a bulletin.
The Oscars had been born on the cusp of a seismic change in Hollywood: the arrival of sound movies. One of many movies nominated in that first ceremony was 1927’s The Jazz Singer, thought of the primary “talkie” in cinema.
What organisation is behind the awards?
The “Academy” within the award identify refers back to the Academy of Movement Image Arts and Sciences, an organisation for filmmaking professionals that honours achievement within the business.
Based in 1927, the Academy was composed of 36 unique members, together with writers, administrators, producers and different business insiders. The swashbuckling actor Douglas Fairbanks was amongst them. So too was silent-movie darling Mary Pickford — although, tellingly, she was one in all solely three girls among the many 36.
Questions of illustration inside the Academy’s membership proceed to spur criticism, even to at the present time.
One of many central figures within the early Academy was the pinnacle of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studios, a robust determine named Louis B Mayer. A Russian-born movie producer, he feared how unions may intrude together with his work — and he conceived of the Academy partially to deal with labour points with out union participation.
Why are the trophies known as ‘Oscars’?
The nickname for the long-lasting golden statuette, “Oscar”, turned extensively utilized in 1934.
The origins of the identify stay unclear, however one in style story credit the moniker to a future govt director of the Academy, Margaret Herrick. She reportedly noticed that the statuette resembled her uncle, Oscar, and the nickname rapidly caught on.
What number of Oscar classes are there?
On the first Oscars ceremony in 1929, there have been solely 12 classes, plus two particular awards given. However that quantity tumbled to seven the very subsequent 12 months.
These unique classes included mentions for Greatest Actor, Greatest Actress, Artwork Path and Excellent Image. The directing class was cut up in two: one for comedy and the opposite for drama.
These days, there are 24 common classes, along with a number of particular classes that aren’t awarded yearly. However there’s just one Greatest Director class, not like in 1929.
How are the nominees picked?
To be eligible to be nominated, a movie should be proven at a business theatre in Los Angeles County throughout the calendar 12 months. Which means a whopping 321 characteristic movies had been eligible in 2023 throughout two dozen classes.
Members of the Academy take part in an preliminary vote to find out the nominees, primarily based on their particular business area. Actors choose the appearing nominees, for instance.
OK, what in regards to the winners? Who picks these?
As soon as the nominees are picked, all voting Academy members choose the winners. There are an estimated 10,500 members in complete, with almost 9,500 eligible to vote.
However advertising campaigns, significantly from giant studios, are widespread follow forward of the awards ceremony to rally assist for a given movie or artist.
Critics have due to this fact slammed the position cash performs within the choice course of. They’ve additionally pointed to the Academy’s membership as indicative of bigger range issues: A majority of members are white and male, resulting in questions in regards to the winners they choose.
What are a number of the greatest movies at this 12 months’s Oscars?
There was no greater second within the leisure world final 12 months than the odd-couple double characteristic often called Barbenheimer. That was the moniker followers gave to Oppenheimer and Barbie, two blockbusters launched on the identical day in July.
Each have continued to take pleasure in robust momentum going into Oscars season: Oppenheimer with 13 nominations, Barbie with 8.
However Oppenheimer, a sweeping biopic of nuclear physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, is anticipated to dominate classes like Greatest Image and Greatest Director, doubtlessly delivering a long-awaited win to director Christopher Nolan.
Barbie, in the meantime, was the highest-grossing movie of the 12 months, pulling in additional than $1.4b worldwide. However whereas it acquired nods for classes like Greatest Image and Greatest Supporting Actor, it was extensively seen as snubbed within the Greatest Actress and Greatest Director slots.
Legendary director Martin Scorsese can be a frontrunner on this 12 months’s competitors with Killers of the Flower Moon, a movie primarily based on the real-life story of a killing spree that focused the Osage Nation within the Twenties.
Fellow auteur Yorgos Lanthimos is again within the working as effectively with Poor Issues, a feminist-inspired Frankenstein story with steampunk aesthetics. Poor Issues obtained 11 nominations, and Killers of the Flower Moon 10.
Which 10 movies are up for Greatest Image?
- The Holdovers
- American Fiction
- The Zone of Curiosity
- Barbie
- Oppenheimer
- Poor Issues
- Previous Lives
- Anatomy of a Fall
- Maestro
- Killers of the Flower Moon
Are there any history-makers this 12 months?
One of many stars of Killers of the Flower Moon, Lily Gladstone, is main the race for Greatest Actress, after selecting up trophies on the Golden Globes and the Display screen Actors Guild Awards.
A member of the Nez Perce and Blackfeet nations, Gladstone is the primary Native American to be nominated within the Greatest Actress class. A win would likewise be historic.
The movie additionally obtained historic nods for its music, which featured Indigenous artists. Osage Nation member Scott George obtained the primary Native American nomination for Greatest Music, whereas the late composer Robbie Robertson, whose mom was Cayuga and Mohawk, is believed to be the primary Indigenous particular person nominated for Greatest Authentic Rating. Robertson died in August 2023.
The social satire American Fiction additionally garnered a nominating first: By no means earlier than have two Black males from the identical movie obtained appearing nods. Stars Jeffrey Wright and Sterling Okay Brown are honoured within the Greatest Actor and Greatest Supporting Actor classes, respectively.
Colman Domingo, the star of the civil rights biopic Rustin, made historical past as effectively, changing into the primary Afro-Latino man to attain a Greatest Actor nod.
This 12 months additionally marks the primary time three woman-directed movies landed Greatest Image recognition. They embody Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, Celine Music’s Previous Lives and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie.
What was the largest snub?
Barbie could have been a narrative of feminist awakening for its titular doll, however the movie’s followers have criticised the Academy voters for displaying no such consciousness on their half.
The most important field workplace hit of the 12 months, Barbie was snubbed within the Greatest Director and Greatest Actress classes, regardless of earlier recognition in these domains on the Golden Globes.
Director Greta Gerwig and star Margot Robbie had each generated vital buzz for his or her roles within the movie, too: Gerwig, as an illustration, turned the primary lady to direct a billion-dollar movie.
Robbie, nonetheless, might nonetheless obtain Oscar gold as a producer if Barbie wins Greatest Image — an extended shot, however not not possible.
However whereas the ladies on the helm of the movie acquired comparatively little Oscar love, Barbie’s male lead, Ryan Gosling, earned a nod for Greatest Supporting Actor. He addressed the obvious snub in February with a press release supporting Robbie and Gerwig.
“There is no such thing as a Ken with out Barbie,” he wrote. “And there’s no Barbie film with out Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie, the 2 folks most liable for this history-making, globally-celebrated movie.”
What protests are anticipated this 12 months?
As stars parade down the pink carpet at this 12 months’s Oscars, protesters are anticipated to collect on Los Angeles’s Sundown Boulevard to exhibit in opposition to Israel’s struggle in Gaza — and remind viewers of the devastation occurring concurrently in cities like Rafah.
The movie Oppenheimer has likewise prompted some backlash, significantly with its depiction of the primary profitable atomic bomb check in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Some viewers have criticised the movie for failing to painting the long-term devastation Japan skilled on account of the bomb. Others hope the movie’s prominence on the Oscars will help shine a light-weight on the New Mexico residents who suffered radiation publicity on account of the exams, lots of them Hispanic and Indigenous.
Tina Cordova, a most cancers survivor who grew up close to the check web site, advised the AFP information company she felt tales like hers had been largely ignored.
“They knew about us after they made the movie,” she advised the information company. “They simply selected to disregard us once more.”
The Washington-based Nuclear Risk Initiative (NTI) additionally launched a marketing campaign within the days main as much as the Oscars ceremony, entitled “For Your Consideration: Make Nukes Historical past”, leveraging the eye Oppenheimer obtained. It revealed a letter within the Los Angeles Occasions calling for nuclear disarmament, with signatures from actors like Jane Fonda, Michael Douglas, Emma Thompson and Lily Tomlin.
Who’s internet hosting?
The notoriously thankless job has once more gone to comic Jimmy Kimmel. It is going to be his fourth time internet hosting.
In an interview with the Related Press, Kimmel stated he didn’t plan to make use of overtly political materials, regardless of the US dealing with a heated election 12 months.
“It’s probably not the main focus of the Oscars. It doesn’t imply I received’t have a joke or two about it. Nevertheless it’s probably not my purpose to invoke the identify of he-who-shall-not-be-named on the Oscars,” Kimmel stated, in an obvious reference to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
When are this 12 months’s Oscars?
The Oscars will likely be held on Sunday, March 10, on the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The ceremony is ready to start at 7pm Jap Time (22 GMT), an hour sooner than traditional.
How can I watch?
The ceremony will likely be broadcast stay on the ABC community and on stay TV streaming platforms within the US.
The Academy additionally has worldwide listings right here.
