History was made at the 92nd Academy Awards, as Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite became to first non-English film to win Best Picture, with the film also winning the awards for Best Director, Best International Film, and Best Original Screenplay. There were very few surprises in the rest of the major categories, as Joaquin Phoenix won Best Actor for Joker, Renée Zellweger winning Best Actress for Judy, Brad Pitt winning Best Supporting Actor for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Laura Dern won Best Supporting Actress for Marriage Story. Rounding out the wins in the major categories was Taika Waititi taking home Best Adapted Screenplay for Jojo Rabbit.
When it came to my predictions, I ended up correctly choosing 15 out of the 24 categories, which is a relatively average result for me. One thing that hurt my choices was that this was the first year in a while I didn’t get to see the nominated short films beforehand and I also never saw any of the nominated documentaries. There were also a few unexpected wins, such as 1917 winning Best Visual Effects over films such as Avengers: Endgame and The Irishman and there was a rare split in the, soon to be merged, sound categories, with Ford v Ferrari winning for Sound Editing and 1917 winning for Sound Mixing.
The Oscars ceremony itself again decided to go hostless, save for an opening monologue by Steve Martin and Chris Rock. One notable surprise during the ceremony was Eminem appearing to perform his 2002 Oscar-winning song “Lose Yourself,” which seems to be him making up for the fact that he never showed up when the song was actually nominated. The ceremony also had a very upbeat opening number by singer Janelle Monae, which featured the disturbing image of dancing Jokers. This year’s Best Song Oscar went to Elton John and Bernie Taupin for their song “I’m Going to Love Me Again,” from the biopic Rocketman.
Well, that wraps up this wrap up of the 92nd Academy Awards. Until next year!