Oscar 2018 Wrap-Up

The 90th edition of the Academy Awards have come and gone and at the end of the night, Guillermo del Toro‘s The Shape of Water walked away with the Oscar for Best Picture, with the film also winning Best Director, Best Score and Best Production Design. The runner-up for the most number of wins was Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, which won three Oscars in the technical categories of Editing, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing. There were no real surprises at the ceremony this year, with most of those expecting to win awards, walking away with the prize.

I ended up getting 14 out of my 24 predictions correct, which is turning out to be my average number when it comes to Oscar predictions. The major areas where I stumbled included Best Picture, Best Cinematography, and Best Documentary. I was definitely pleasantly surprised that The Shape of Water walked away with Best Picture, even though I has expected Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri to get the prize. I also wasn’t expecting Roger Deakins to finally win as Oscar after 14 nomination and little known Netflix documentary Icarus won over the popular Faces Places.

If there were major snubs at the Oscars this year, it would be the fact that Greta Gerwig‘s Lady Bird was totally shutout of the awards, showing there is still a long way to go before the Oscars truly embrace diversity. At the very least, Jordon Peele won the Oscar for Original Screenplay for Get Out, which is an accomplishment, given the reports that many Academy members were ignoring the film.

However, change was definitely in the air at this year’s Oscars. The biggest example of this was when Frances McDormand won Best Actress, 21 years after her last Oscar for Fargo, and asked all the women in the room to stand up. We’ll see how the Oscars continue to evolve as the Academy seeks to become more diverse.

Well, that’s it for my coverage of the 90th annual Academy Awards. Until next year!