Oscars 2021 – live: Winners, acceptance speeches and highlights from the Academy Awards
Chloé Zhao wins Best Director while Frances McDormand earns Best Actress prize
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Your support makes all the difference.Road movie Nomadland won the top prize at the 93rd Academy Awards, which fulfilled many expectations but threw in a couple of surprise wins in an unusual ceremony.
The film’s director Chloe Zhao also made history, becoming the first woman of colour to win the award for directing, and the second woman in history — and the film scooped the Best Actress prize for its star Frances McDormand.
Sir Anthony Hopkins won the Best Actor Oscar — his first since The Silence of the Lambs in 1992 — for his performance in The Father, about a man slipping into dementia, defeating presumptive favourite Chadwick Boseman, who died last year aged 43 following a private four-year battle with colon cancer.
Daniel Kaluuya, who was born in London to Ugandan parents, is the first black British winner of the best Supporting Actor prize for his turn as community organiser and member of the Black Panther Party Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah.
There were a number of surprise wins. David Fincher’s Mank led the pack with 10 nominations, but ultimately won two.
Due to coronavirus, the Oscars moved out of their usual venue, the Dolby Theatre, and were based out of Los Angeles’s Union Station instead. The ceremony’s format was overhauled too, with attendees observing social distancing and some joining via video link from other parts of the world.
Nomadland had been a favourite to win Best Picture; it fulfilled that expectation, beating The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, Mank, Minari, Promising Young Woman, Sound of Metal, and The Trial of the Chicago 7.
Minari actor Youn Yuh-jung also won over the crowd in her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress, which was presented to her by Brad Pitt. “Mr Brad Pitt, finally, nice to meet you!” she told him after making her way onto the stage. She then proceeded to acknowledge the ways in which her name has been mispronounced throughout the awards season, telling the crowd: “Tonight, you are all forgiven.”
With her win, Youn became the first Korean actor to take home an Academy Award.
Follow our liveblog for highlights from the ceremony and the buzz-worthy aftermath.
Losing an Oscar has got to be hard.
For every winner, there must be a handful of losers, deserving or sometimes undeserving also-rans whose work was collectively deemed to have fallen short.
While actors are often skilled at disguising their disappointment – this is show business, after all – sometimes they let their real feelings slip through.
Between side-eye glances to overly enthusiastic grins, here are the 10 best reactions to losing an Oscar.
The 10 best reactions to losing an Oscar
From Sally Kirkland’s facial gymnastics to a stone-faced Bill Murray
Hello and welcome to The Independent’s Oscars 2021 live blog!
It’s that time of year again and while the event itself isn’t until Sunday (25 April), the excitement is already building.
Here, you can follow all the awards chatter and talking points in the run-up to tomorrow’s ceremony.
As is customary on Oscars-eve, the “winner” of the Razzies – a ceremony that awards the worst films – has been announced.
Taking the crown this year is Sia’s controversial 2020 film Music.
The drama had picked up three “dishonours”, including Worst Director for Sia, Worst Actress for Kate Hudson and Worst Supporting Actress for Maddie Ziegler.
Music – which follows a teenager (Ziegler) with autism – attracted widespread controversy earlier this year for casting the neurotypical Ziegler as a neurodivergent character.
A petition to ban the film drew more than 60,000 signatures.
You can read The Independent’s one-star review of the film here.
It’s a year of record-breaking nominations.
At 83, Anthony Hopkins has become the oldest ever Best Actor nominee for his role in the play adaptation The Father, while Steven Yeun (Minari) is the first ever Korean-American actor to be nominated for the same prize.
British star and musician Riz Ahmed too, has made history as the first Muslim actor to receive a nod in that same category for his role in Sound of Metal.
2021 is the first time that more than one woman has been nominated for Best Director.
Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman) and Chloe Zhao (Nomadland) will go head-to-head with Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round), David Fincher (Mank) and Lee Isaac Chung (Minari).
Who will win tomorrow and who should win are two very different things...
Following the most unpredictable awards season in living memory, film critic Clarisse Loughrey goes through her predictions and hopes for this year’s ceremony.
We all know taste is subjective – but over the years there have been some Oscar winners that left us totally perplexed.
Jacob Stolworthy sorts through the last 92 years of ceremonies to find 19 films that never should have won – and the flicks which should’ve taken home the top prize instead.
From Dances with Wolves to Chariots of Fire, it’s a list not without controversies of its own.
Despite worthy attempts by Hilary Swank (Boy’s Don’t Cry), Adrien Brody (The Pianist) and Cuba Gooding Jr (Jerry Maguire), Greer Garson still holds the record for the longest ever Oscars speech.
Garson spoke for a total of four-minutes when she accepted the Best Actress award for her role in the romantic war drama Mrs Miniver in 1943.
Clemence Michallon takes a look at the story behind the longest Oscars acceptance speeches of all time.
The story behind the longest Oscars acceptance speech of all time
In 1943, English actor Greer Garson won the Academy Award for Best Actress and spoke for an undefeated four minutes. Clémence Michallon revisits this page in Oscars history
For most actors, winning an Oscar is seen as the absolute pinnacle of a Hollywood career. For a select group of performers, though, one simply isn’t enough.
Some manage to win every time they are nominated. Others, such as the inimitable Meryl Streep, have careers peppered with nominations, winning only when the so-called narrative dictates.
These are the actors to have won the most awards, from Mahershala Ali to Maggie Smith.
The actors who have won the most Oscars
Four actors are hoping to join the list at this year's ceremony
Despite not making an appearance as a nominee this year, Meryl Streep is a mainstay at the Oscars.
Across her decorated career, the New Jersey-born actor has received an impressive 21 nods, although has only taken home three awards for Kramer vs Kramer (1980), Sophie’s Choice (1983) and The Iron Lady (2012).
In praise of Streep, Adam White argues why – as ridiculous as it sounds – she has become Hollywood’s most underrated star.
Meryl Streep is the most underrated actor in Hollywood
The star of Netflix’s The Prom always seems to be working and is magnetised to awards. Yet there remains a cynicism about her acting, and a sense that her work is more exhausting to talk about than it is worth celebrating. As ridiculous as it sounds, Meryl Streep has become underrated, writes Adam White
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