The Film Experience

by Nathaniel R

A FEW FIRSTS!

Laura Dern became the first person in her highly acclaimed family to win the Oscar and is now (3/1) in her nomination/win stats. Her mother Diane Ladd (3/0) and father Bruce Dern (2/0), who she name checked as her heroes in her speech have never won.
Parasite became the first South Korean film to win ANY Oscars and it won 4 of them. The individual wins from Bong Joon Ho, Kwak Sin-ae, and Han Jin Won are the first times any Asian has won Best Picture or a writing category...

Karen Rupert Toliver is the first black woman to win the Best Animated Short category (shared with Matthew A Cherry who is the second black man to win this category after Kobe Bryant) .
Taiki Waititi became the first Maori artist to win any Oscar
Joaquin Phoenix became the first member of his acting family to win the Oscar (on his 4th nomination). His late older brother River was nominated once in Supporting Actor before his tragic death. His sisters Rain and Summer both act as well.
Hildur Gudnadottir is the first woman to win Best Original Score by herself or in a year with just one Original Score category (previous winners were co-writers or won while the category was split into two briefly for comic or dramatic scores).
Parasite is the first foreign-language film to win the most Oscar in its film year (with 4).

IT'S HAPPENED BEFORE BUT IT'S STILL COOL OR INTERESTING

Toy Story 4 is the first fourth movie in a series to win an Oscar since (the only other one) Thunderball (1965). It's also only the second time a film series has won the two top awards in its category (following Toy Story 3's win. (The only other instance is The Godfather Part II's Best Picture win)
Brad Pitt follows in the footsteps of... Michael Douglas? They both won their first Oscars producing (12 Years a Slave / One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) before eventually winning for their acting (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood / Wall Street). The chief difference is that Michael Douglas won his producing award before he was a movie star (he was a TV star at the time) and Pitt had long since been a headliner at the movies.
This is the second consecutive year that a Nordic composer has won Original Score (and before that there had been none who ever had) and both one for comic book films. Sweden's Ludwig Goransson won for Black Panther last year and Iceland's Hildur Gudnadottir for Joker this year.
Parasite ties Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000) and Fanny & Alexander (1983) records for most wins from a foreign-language film though neither of those films won Best Picture.

The Irishman is the second movie by Martin Scorsese to be nominated for 10 Oscars and lose every single category. That also happened with Gangs of New York (2002). In both years it was the only Best Picture nominee to go home Oscarless.
Joker is the only comic book character to ever lead to an Oscar win and it's happened twice now, first with Heath Ledger (2008) and now with Joaquin Phoenix.
Bong Joon Ho is the second Asian man to win Best Director. The first and only other is Ang Lee (who has won it twice).
Kazu Hiro had previously won the Makeup Oscar for Darkest Hour. He's now a two timer winner due to Bombshell. He's also the only Asian ever nominated in the category (four nominations now)
Jane Fonda is the 15th woman to present Best Picture solo. The only previous instances are Ethel Barrymore (1948), Mary Pickford (1952), Audrey Hepburn (1955, 1960, 1966, and 1975), Janet Gaynor (1956), Ingrid Bergman (1958), Olivia de Havilland (1962), Julie Andrews (1967), Elizabeth Taylor (1969 and 1973), Lillian Gish (1980), Loretta Young (1981), Carol Burnett (1982), Cher (1988), Barbra Streisand (1990), and Julia Roberts (2018).

ALSO OF NOTE

Thomas Newman (1917) is now the most nominated film composer to never have won the Original Score Oscar. He previously was tied for that record with Alex North (Under the Volcano) who had 14 nominations in that category but now Newman holds the record alone with 15.
The new normal: This decade had 5 splits between Picture and Director and 5 instances of the prizes going to the same film. It's a 50% reality now when Picture/Director splits were uncommon up until the 21st century.

how often picture and director matched
1920s 0/2
1930s 5/10
1940s 7/10
1950s 7/10
1960s 9/10
1970s 9/10
1980s 8/10
1990s 9/10
2000s 7/10
2010s 5/10
The new normal part 2: Sweeps are also passe. No Best Picture winner this decade won more than 5 Oscars.
There is still no Oscar for best stunts but now there is an Oscar winning performance where the role is a stuntman (Brad Pitt). Ryan Gosling was of course not nominated for Drive and Peter O'Toole was not the titular character in The Stuntman (1980) though he was nominated for that film.

Can you think of any other cool new trivia?