fbpx

Oscar The Ouch: Best Picture flub caps off a wild finish at 89th Academy Awards

Well, that was certainly the weirdest Oscars ever. 



In what might be the craziest upset since the Patriots came back and won Super Bowl LI in an overtime thriller, universal favorite La La Land was announced the Best Picture Winner by a perplexed Warren Beatty and a calm Faye Dunaway. Once the cast and crew of that film took the stage, the accountants from PricewaterhouseCoopers ran out and told the producers of La La Land that they’d actually lost the award to underdog and indie favorite Moonlight. All involved were extremely classy, and Beatty offered up a pretty solid explanation for the flub — he was given the wrong envelope, one actually for the Best Actress award.

And everybody in the world lost their minds.

Five of your 10 friends made a joke about how they wished the election had gone this way. Three of your 10 friends celebrated Moonlight’s win as a victory for all Americans, especially for those previously underrepresented in Hollywood. One friend claimed it was all fix done by the prank-happy host, Jimmy Kimmel. A final friend claimed that she was happy Moonlight won, but felt terrible for the La La Land people. But all agreed that this was probably the best outcome for the night, aside from the people from the La La Land cast and crew on stage. But, even then, history may be kinder to them than if they’d won Best Picture. Pray that’s the last time that ever happens. Could you imagine what it’d be like if someone lost in the acting category like that?

Up until that point, it was one of the most boring Oscars televised.

Kimmel, to put it lightly, ranged from mediocre to downright offensive (The Lion King gag he did involving poor Sunny Pawar from Lion was particularly tasteless), and a long diversion involving a tour bus group coming through the Oscar ceremony provided the night’s best meme (a still of Ryan Gosling whispering to one of the women in the group found itself captioned with everything), sweetest moment (Denzel “marrying” a couple in the group) and most cringe-worthy moments (everytime Kimmel re-named a person in the group). The political comedy was half-baked, emphasising “unity” in the face of an administration with such crazy immigration policies that the Iranian filmmaker who won the Best Foreign Film award, Asghar Farhadi (The Salesman), wasn’t even allowed to attend. Kimmel was tactless enough to pull in gimmicks from his show, like his “Mean Tweets” segment, and it’s a pretty decent bet that he won’t be hosting next year.

Favorites dominated the three hours of the show. La La Land’s Damien Chazelle won Best Director making this the fourth time since 2010 that the category split. The acting prizes went to the Vegas favorite each time, with well-deserved awards going to Viola Davis (Fences), Mahershala Ali (Moonlight), and Emma Stone (La La Land).

Ali is particularly notable for his win, given that he’s the first Muslim actor to ever win an acting award at the Oscars. Kenneth Lonergan received Best Original Screenplay for his work on the Massachusetts-set Manchester by the Sea, while Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney won for Moonlight’s adapted screenplay.

La La Land won Best Cinematography, Production Design, Score, and Original Song (“City of Stars”), and Kevin O’Connell, nominated 20 times previously, finally won for his work sound mixing Hacksaw Ridge. Disney’s Zootopia took home Best Animated Feature, while Pixar’s Piper won the Best Animated Short award. To the chagrin of Film Twitter, the much maligned Suicide Squad won for best make-up.

All in all, it was a pretty ridiculous night that left a lot for us to process. We can say this, however. It is wonderful to live in a world where a film as true and heartfelt as Moonlight can take home the biggest prize of them all. Our top filmmaking prize has gone to the small-yet-operatic story of a queer black man’s coming of age. The Academy made the right choice, and we’re super happy these Oscars didn’t disappoint.

Here’s the full list of winners and nominees:

BEST PICTURE
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
La La Land
Lion
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight (WINNER)

BEST ACTOR
Casey Affleck, Manchester by the Sea (WINNER)
Andrew Garfield, Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling, La La Land
Viggo Mortensen, Captain Fantastic
Denzel Washington, Fences

BEST ACTRESS
Isabelle Huppert, Elle
Ruth Negga, Loving
Natalie Portman, Jackie
Emma Stone, La La Land (WINNER)
Meryl Streep, Florence Foster Jenkins

BEST DIRECTOR
Denis Villeneuve, Arrival
Mel Gibson, Hacksaw Ridge
Damien Chazelle, La La Land (WINNER)
Kenneth Lonergan, Manchester by the Sea
Barry Jenkins, Moonlight

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Mahershala Ali, Moonlight (WINNER)
Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges, Manchester by the Sea
Dev Patel, Lion
Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Viola Davis, Fences (WINNER)
Naomie Harris, Moonlight
Nicole Kidman, Lion
Octavia Spencer, Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams, Manchester by the Sea

ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTS
Deepwater Horizon
Doctor Strange
The Jungle Book (WINNER)
Kubo and the Two Strings
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM EDITING
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge (WINNER)
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Moonlight

ACHIEVEMENT IN PRODUCTION DESIGN
Arrival
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Hail, Caesar!
La La Land (WINNER)
Passengers

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Arrival, Eric Heisserer
Fences, August Wilson
Hidden Figures, Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi
Lion, Luke Davies
Moonlight, Barry Jenkins, story by Tarell Alvin McCraney (WINNER)

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Hell or High Water, Taylor Sheridan
La La Land, Damien Chazelle
The Lobster, Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou
Manchester by the Sea, Kenneth Lonergan (WINNER)
20th Century Women, Mike Mills

ORIGINAL SCORE
Jackie, Mica Levi
La La Land, Justin Hurwitz (WINNER)
Lion, Dustin O’Halloran and Hauschka
Moonlight, Nicholas Britell
Passengers, Thomas Newman

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Land of Mine (Denmark)
A Man Called Ove (Sweden)
The Salesman (Iran) (WINNER)
Tanna (Australia)
Toni Erdmann (Germany)

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Audition (The Fools Who Dream),” La La Land
“Can’t Stop The Feeling,” Trolls
“City of Stars,” La La Land (WINNER)
“How Far I’ll Go,” Moana
“The Empty Chair,” Jim: The James Foley Story

ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
Arrival
La La Land (WINNER)
Moonlight
Silence
Lion

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Fire at Sea
I Am Not Your Negro
Life, Animated
O.J.: Made in America (WINNER)
13th

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
Extremis
4.1 Miles
Joe’s Violin
Watani: My Homeland
The White Helmets (WINNER)

ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN
Allied
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (WINNER)
Florence Foster Jenkins
Jackie
La La Land

ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING
Arrival (WINNER)
Deepwater Horizon
Hacksaw Ridge
La La Land
Sully

ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING
Arrival
Hacksaw Ridge (WINNER)
La La Land
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
A Man Called Ove
Star Trek Beyond
Suicide Squad (WINNER)

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Ennemis Intérieurs
La Femme et le TGV
Silent Nights
Sing (WINNER)
Timecode

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Blind Vaysha
Borrowed Time
Pear Cider and Cigarettes
Pearl
Piper (WINNER)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
My Life as a Zucchini
The Red Turtle
Zootopia (WINNER)