The 2020 Academy Awards, a.k.a. the Oscars, will take place on February 9 at Los Angeles’s Dolby Theatre. ABC will air the ceremony live at 8 pm EST / 5 pm PST.
The ceremony will not have a host; this is the second year in a row that the Oscars have dispensed with the role, following last year’s hosting fiasco. Instead, the ceremony is likely to showcase celebrity presenters and star-studded performances. (And because ABC is owned by Disney, which owns franchises and properties ranging from Star Wars to the Marvel Cinematic Universe to Pixar to the X-Men, expect plenty of tie-ins.)
The Oscars are happening unusually early in 2020, after the Academy narrowed the window between nominations and the ceremony from about six weeks to just under a month, cutting the campaign season short. The nominations were announced on Monday, January 13.
There are nine nominees for Best Picture this year: Ford v Ferrari, The Irishman, Jojo Rabbit, Joker, Little Women, Marriage Story, 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and Parasite.
Once again, there is a startling lack of diversity among the nominees. Just like last year, no women were nominated for Best Director. In the acting categories, only one nonwhite actor earned a nod — Cynthia Erivo for playing Harriet Tubman in Harriet.
Across all the categories, Joker leads the pack with 11 nominations. Close behind are 1917, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, and The Irishman, with 10 nominations each. Parasite, Jojo Rabbit, Little Women, and Marriage Story each nabbed six nominations, while Ford v Ferrari earned four.
Alissa Wilkinson
The Golden Globes don’t “predict” the Oscars
The 78th Golden Globe Awards were handed out on Sunday, February 28 — about two weeks before the nominations for the 93nd Academy Awards, a.k.a. the Oscars, are set to be announced on Monday, March 15. (The Oscars will take place April 25; the usual timeline was pushed back by about two months this year because of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.)
The Golden Globes are known to be an oddball ceremony, partly due to their open bar. This year they were even weirder than usual, since the pandemic made the customary packed ballroom unsafe. Instead, hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler hosted from opposite coasts, joined by a small number of masked and socially distanced front-line workers as guests. Some of the awards presenters took the stage in person; others read nominees’ and winners’ names through a screen. And winners accepted their awards from home, beamed into the ceremony via videoconferencing software while all decked out in their ball gowns and tuxes and, in some cases, hoodies.
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Alissa Wilkinson
Long before Parasite, Bong Joon-ho was skewering bloodsucking social systems in 2006’s The Host
It’s noteworthy that the director of Parasite made a movie called The Host 14 years before his historic Oscars Best Picture win — even if the Korean title of the 2006 film translates more directly as “Monster.” What was only the third feature film from virtuosic writer and director Bong Joon-ho is, indeed, a monster movie, possibly even the defining monster movie of the century. But the resonance between the two English titles, which evoke similar themes of bloodsucking dependency, suggest a pairing. For those whose introduction to Bong’s work was through Parasite, The Host is an ideal place to start with the director’s other films.
In many ways, The Host embodies the same qualities that made Parasite so appealing to audiences, critics, and the Academy, who gave it four well-deserved golden statues on Oscar night. It bears all the imprint of a signature Bong film, with a romping, slyly funny genre-bending plot that jumps from comedy to horror to tragedy to drama and back again, while carrying a clear — but never too clear — social critique. Released between two of his masterpieces, 2003’s Memories of Murder and 2009’s Mother, it was wildly popular in its home country and well-respected abroad.
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Kelsey Piper
We don’t talk enough about animal suffering. That’s why Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscars speech matters.
Joaquin Phoenix has been speaking his mind as he’s made the rounds on the awards circuit. During his Golden Globes acceptance speech for his Best Actor win for Joker, he talked about climate change. At last week’s BAFTA awards, he talked about systemic racism in the acting community.
And at Sunday night’s Oscars, where he again won Best Actor, he talked about another enormous societal issue, one that seems to be gaining more visibility recently: the rights of animals.
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Alex Abad-Santos, Emily St. Jamesand3 more
6 winners and 5 losers from the 2020 Oscars
The 2020 Oscars ended on a triumphant note, with Parasite becoming the first non-English-language film to take home the trophy for Best Picture. The history-making moment felt as though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences might be moving forward from its often hidebound traditions, albeit incredibly fitfully. (This was still a year when diversity was discussed more than it was actually displayed, lest we forget.)
But Parasite’s unprecedented win also capped off a show that was weird and unfocused far too often, with a long run time that only added to the aggravation. Yes, many of the winners were cool, and Parasite’s Best Picture win retroactively gave the entire evening an air of historic importance. But in the moment, it was dull, dull, dull to watch.
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Alissa Wilkinson
Parasite absolutely deserved to win Best Picture. I didn’t think it could.
I hoped it would happen. I thought it absolutely deserved it. But I never truly thought Parasite could pull out a Best Picture win at the Oscars.
The deck was stacked against the film from the start, for reasons that its good-natured and much-beloved director Bong Joon-ho cheekily joked about all season as he collected awards from critics’ groups and industry guilds. “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles,” Bong bantered after collecting his Golden Globe for best foreign language film in January, “you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”
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Emily St. James
On second thought, maybe the Oscars do need a host
For the second year in a row, the Oscars went hostless. But where the 2019 awards were sprightly and largely entertaining, the 2020 awards felt like they had absolutely no focus. As it became clearer and clearer that the Academy would award Best Picture to an international film for the first time, less-anxious viewers could instead focus on the curious choices in how the show was staged and produced.
The chief advantage of ditching an Oscars host in 2019 was that the show leapt quickly from item to item, rarely leaving viewers with too much time to get bored. The 2020 awards tried to do something similar with its hostless format, but the ceremony frequently felt like it was distracted by shiny objects off in its peripheral vision.
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Aja Romano
Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscars speech was a sprawling sociopolitical epic
Joaquin Phoenix used his Best Actor win at the 2020 Oscars on Sunday to continue his awards-season trend of putting sociopolitical issues in the spotlight. In a sprawling acceptance speech, he touched on social inequality, the cruelty of the food industry toward animals, systemic inequality, and even cancel culture. He closed out by quoting his late brother, River Phoenix.
Phoenix began his speech by expressing his gratitude that his career gave him the opportunity “to use [my] voice for the voiceless.”
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Constance GradyandAlissa Wilkinson
Parasite’s Best Picture win was a major milestone for the Oscars. Here are 5 more.
Every year, there’s a bit of mingled joy and sorrow in counting out the Oscars’ biggest milestones: happiness that we’re finally making progress but sorrow that it took so long. This year, the Academy achieved one of its biggest milestones ever when it awarded the trophy for Best Picture to Parasite. But there are a few other milestones to celebrate from the awards, too: some joyous, some tragic, and some that are just a little bit quirky. Here are the six biggest milestones from the 2020 Academy Awards.
The Oscars have consistently struggled to recognize films not made in English. Only 10 international feature films have even been nominated for Best Picture, and before Sunday night, none had won. This year, some Academy members and critics argued that it was actually unfair for international films to be eligible for Best Picture. “I don’t think foreign films should be nominated with the regular films,” said one of the anonymous Academy members whom the Hollywood Reporter interviews every year in its most reliable hate-read of a recurring feature, Brutally Honest Oscar Ballot. “Regular films” in this context presumably means English-language films, which is honestly just more xenophobia than we have time to unpack here.
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Alex Abad-Santos
Here are all the 2020 Oscar winners
The 2020 Oscars took place on Sunday night, and during an evening devoted to honoring the best and brightest cinematic accomplishments of the previous year, director Bong Joon-Ho’s Parasite was the big winner.
Bong’s dark thriller scored four wins, including the biggest prize of the night, Best Picture. And in doing so, it became the first International Feature Film in the Oscars’ 92-year history to win that award. Previously, only 10 non-English-language films had ever been nominated for the prestigious prize.
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Terry Nguyen
The 2020 Oscars red carpet, explained by 5 looks
While the Oscars is first and foremost an awards show, it’s also a huge fashion event for the celebrities walking the red carpet and the designers who fight to dress them. Attendees are expected to put their most glamorous foot forward, as their outfits will likely be memorialized (or mocked) on social media and the best-dressed lists circulating around the internet.
This year’s red carpet saw a lot of pink, ruffles, and sparkles — fashion elements that would help the stars stand out on a crowded carpet. Many male stars also found a look they could agree on, ditching the traditional black tux and white shirt for an all-black look.
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Alex Abad-Santos
Parasite wins Best Picture and makes Oscars history
Parasite made history at the 2020 Oscars on Sunday, becoming the first non-English-language film to win the grand prize of Best Picture.
Only 10 films that the Academy has classified as “international feature films” (previously recognized as foreign language films) have ever been nominated for Best Picture. Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, nominated in 2019, was the most recent before Parasite.
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Aja Romano
Eminem singing “Lose Yourself” was the most baffling Oscars moment. It was also a milestone.
Eminem’s seemingly out-of-nowhere performance of his iconic hit “Lose Yourself” at the Oscars on Sunday night capped off a montage of legendary songs from famous films. But it also allowed the rapper the chance to perform his Oscar-winning song live at the awards show for the first time — 17 years after it won the trophy for Best Original Song.
Despite the audience’s obvious surprise when Eminem took the stage, it’s pretty hard to mess up a ditty as tightly constructed and powerful as Eminem’s anthem to overcoming stage fright, and thus the stage was duly lit:
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See AlsoOscars 2020: The winners in fullEmily St. James
Did the Obamas win an Oscar for Netflix’s American Factory?
The Netflix documentary American Factory was the first film released under Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground. It also won the 2020 Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, marking the first time that legendary documentarian Julia Reichert has won an Oscar in her storied 50-year career.
Reichert and her co-director Steven Bognar both won Oscars for their work on the film. But did the Obamas? In a word: No.
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Constance Grady
Laura Dern wins her Oscar, cementing the Dernaissance
Laura Dern won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar on Sunday night for her turn as the man-eating lawyer Nora in Marriage Story. And with that, Dern has officially achieved the crowning glory that anoints the age in which we now live: the Dernaissance.
The Dernaissance arguably began with the premiere of HBO’s Big Little Lies in 2017. Back then, Dern was one of the smaller names in a star-studded cast. Co-producers Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon were the headliners, Shailene Woodley represented the rising wave of young Hollywood stars, and Dern was playing the role of beloved character actress filling out the supporting cast.
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Terry Nguyen
Natalie Portman’s Oscars cape honors the women directors the Academy ignored
Natalie Portman’s Oscars outfit might not seem like anything out of the ordinary at first glance. Upon closer inspection, the lining of the actress’s elegant Dior cape carries a subtle dig at the Academy. Portman’s cape features the last names of eight women directors of critically acclaimed 2019 films — none of whom were nominated (in fact, no women were nominated by the Academy for the Best Director category).
“I wanted to recognize the women who were not recognized for their incredible work this year in a subtle way,” Portman said on the red carpet. The women directors on her cape are: Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers), Lulu Wang (The Farewell), Greta Gerwig (Little Women), Mati Diop (Atlantics), Marielle Heller (A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood), Melina Matsoukas (Queen & Slim), Alma Har’el (Honey Boy), and Céline Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire).
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Constance Grady
Janelle Monáe’s opening number for the Oscars featured Mr. Rogers and Nazis
In future years, audiences will look back at the opening number of the 2020 Oscars as either a delightful high-water mark for the hostless ceremony or an infamous travesty — and in all honesty, I am not sure which one it will be.
The whole musical performance was mixed from the beginning. We start with an unimpeachable concept: Janelle Monáe as Mister Rogers! How can we go wrong! But as soon as she started undoing her tux jacket to don a classic Fred Rogers red cardigan, a button on her shirt popped open — and she found herself stuck in her jacket for longer than she wanted to be.
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Constance Grady
The best awards show segment of the weekend is LA’s Gay Men’s Chorus celebrating Laura Dern
At the Oscars, true awards show buffs know that the biggest question of the night isn’t “Who will win Best Picture?” but instead “What will be the best random movie reference song kind of skit thing?” What will be this year’s answer to Neil Patrick Harris tap-dancing down the stairs in a sequined tux in 2010 or — admittedly an oldie here but imo a surprising goodie — Jack Black and Sarah Michelle Gellar singing about how movies kick ass at the MTV Movie Awards in 2002?
But in a dramatic upset, the best movie song skit thing of awards season arrived ahead of the Oscars.
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Terry Nguyen
Spike Lee’s purple and gold Oscars suit pays tribute to Kobe Bryant
Director Spike Lee paid tribute to basketball player Kobe Bryant on the Oscars red carpet, dressed in a royal purple Gucci suit with the number “24” embroidered on his front lapels and underneath his backa collar. He wore a pair of Nike Kobe 9 high-top shoes, along with purple-rimmed glasses and a cap. The suit, which both references Bryant’s iconic number 24 and his daughter Gianna’s jersey number 2, is a “tribute, honor, and homage,” Lee told ABC7 on the red carpet.
Lee has known the former Los Angeles Lakers player for over a decade before his untimely death on January 26, 2020. Bryant, 41, was killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California, along with his daughter Gianna, 13, and seven others.
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Terry Nguyen
Joaquin Phoenix wore the same tux all awards season
It’s a rare moment when a celebrity steps onto the red carpet in an outfit they’ve worn before. In recent awards ceremony history, only a few brave souls have done so. In 2018, the practice had a moment: Tiffany Haddish’s $4,000 Alexander McQueen gown became her punchline during the awards cycle, Cate Blanchett was praised for recycling her 2014 Armani gown that same year, and Rita Moreno wore her 1962 Oscars dress for the Academy Awards.
In January, Joaquin Phoenix announced that he would wear only one Stella McCartney tuxedo on the 2020 awards red carpet to promote sustainable fashion. For the Joker star — an awards favorite — this move fits in with other aspects of his moral philosophy; he’s an outspoken environmentalist and animal rights supporter.
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Alissa Wilkinson
The best movies the 2020 Oscars didn’t nominate
By nature, it’s impossible for the Oscars to honor every worthy movie in a year — especially since sometimes the best movies just don’t have the campaign muscle behind them to bring them to voters’ attention. It’s a bummer, but it’s unavoidable.
But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take notice. 2019 was full of well-crafted films that made audiences laugh, cry, and see the world in new ways. Here are 18 films that didn’t earn any Oscar nominations at all but are worth your time all the same.
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Alissa Wilkinson
I love movies. That’s why I hate the Oscars.
My table at the 85th New York Film Critics Circle gala in early January was near the back of the cavernous main room at the posh nightclub Tao Downtown, where the lights are kept dim. So I could see Antonio Banderas’s figure but only barely make out his features as he stood at the podium to collect the Best Actor award for Pain & Glory, which my colleagues and I had voted to give him.
His demeanor as he accepted his award spoke volumes. After talking about how delighted and honored he was, he explained that he had to get on a plane right away to leave for Spain, where he’s performing onstage in A Chorus Line. Those shows have meant he hasn’t been as aggressive on the Oscar campaign trail this season as his main competitors, including Joker’s Joaquin Phoenix, Marriage Story’s Adam Driver, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood’s Leonardo DiCaprio. Instead, he talked about getting off the flight and going straight to the theater, delirious with exhaustion and jet lag.
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Constance Grady, Alissa Wilkinsonand1 more
Marriage Story’s gently funny take on love and divorce has won plaudits. Will it win Best Picture?
Every year, between five and 10 movies compete for the Oscars’ Best Picture trophy. It’s the most prestigious award that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences gives out every year, announced right at the end of the ceremony. And there aren’t any set rules about what constitutes a “best” picture. It’s the movie — for better or worse, depending on the year — that Hollywood designates as its standard bearer for the current moment.
And so, the film that wins Best Picture essentially represents the American movie industry’s view of its accomplishments in the present and its aspirations for the future.
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Alissa Wilkinson, Joe Posnerand1 more
Ford v Ferrari feels like a classic Oscar movie. Can it win Best Picture?
Every year, between five and 10 movies compete for the Oscars’ Best Picture trophy. It’s the most prestigious award that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences gives out every year, announced right at the end of the ceremony. And there aren’t any set rules about what constitutes a “best” picture. It’s the movie — for better or worse, depending on the year — that Hollywood designates as its standard-bearer for the current moment.
And so, the film that wins Best Picture essentially represents the American movie industry’s view of its accomplishments in the present and its aspirations for the future.
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Alissa Wilkinson, Alex Wardand1 more
1917 vividly recreates WWI’s trench warfare. Is that enough to win Best Picture?
Every year, between five and 10 movies compete for the Oscars’ Best Picture trophy. It’s the most prestigious award that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences gives out every year, announced right at the end of the ceremony. And there aren’t any set rules about what constitutes a “best” picture. It’s the movie — for better or worse, depending on the year — that Hollywood designates as its standard bearer for the current moment.
And so, the film that wins Best Picture essentially represents the American movie industry’s view of its accomplishments in the present and its aspirations for the future.
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Alex Abad-Santos, Alissa Wilkinsonand1 more
Why Parasite deserves to win Best Picture
Every year, between five and 10 movies compete for the Oscars’ Best Picture trophy. It’s the most prestigious award that the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences gives out every year, announced right at the end of the ceremony. And there aren’t any set rules about what constitutes a “best” picture. It’s the movie — for better or worse, depending on the year — that Hollywood designates as its standard-bearer for the current moment.
And so, the film that wins Best Picture essentially represents the American movie industry’s view of its accomplishments in the present and its aspirations for the future.
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