New Oscar Records!
Monday, April 26, 2021 at 9:32AM Refresh your screen as we'll add to this list as we discover things. And we trust that you'll let us know if we got anything wrong.
PICTURE
• Chloe Zhao is the third Asian to win Best Picture and the first of Chinese descent. (The only previous Asian winners were Koreans, Bong Joon-Ho and Kwak Sin-Ae, both for Parasite)
DIRECTOR
• Chloe Zhao is the first woman of color to be nominated for AND to win Best Director. (She is the third Asian to win Best Director following Ang Lee, twice, and Bong Joon-ho last year). She is the 7th woman to receive a nomination in this category after Lina Wertmüller, Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola, Kathryn Bigelow (the only previous female winner), Greta Gerwig, and Emerald Fennell. Interestingly enough all but one of those women have Oscars (sorry Greta Gerwig), most of those in the Best Original Screenplay category...
ACTRESSES
• With her third win following Fargo and Three Billboards, Nomadland's Frances McDormand is now the second biggest winner of Best Actress of all time, trailing only Katharine Hepburn who won 4 times in her career. McDormand was previously in an enormous tie for second place with 12 other two-time winners and now she has second place all to herself.
Frances McDormand also joins Hilary Swank, Sally Field, Luise Rainer, and Vivien Leigh in this weird factoid: they're the only multiple Best Actress winners who never lost a Best Actress prize they were nominated for.
• Youn Yuh-jung is the second Asian woman to win an acting Oscar. The only previous was Miyoshi Umeki for Sayonara (1957)
• Glenn Close is now tied with Peter O'Toole as Oscar's biggest acting 'loser'. They were both nominated 8 times competitively without ever winning (Peter O'Toole received an Honorary Oscar but Glenn so far has not). In second place is Richard Burton with 7 nominations. In third place are Amy Adams, Deborah Kerr (Honorary Oscar presented by Glenn Close herself!), and Thelma Ritter who were all nominated 6 times without winning.
ACTORS
• Sir Anthony Hopkins is now the oldest acting winner of all time in any of the four categories at the age of 83 and obviously by extension the oldest Best Actor winner (the previous record in the latter regard was held by Henry Fonda who won at 76 for On Golden Pond.)
• Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah) is the first Black British actor to win an Oscar. Most of the black nominees in the past have been African-Americans. He's also the first Black British person to receive multiple acting nominations having previously been up for Get Out.
• Kaluuya is also the first regular cast member of the British series Skins to win an Oscar. Dev Patel was also nominated and a few other performers from that British series have gone on to big film and TV careers. (Olivia Colman also appeared on Skins before winnig an Oscar but she was only in one episode.)
CRAFT AWARDS
• Costume Designer Ann Roth is now the oldest person to win in a visual craft category at 89. She's the second oldest winner of all time in any category, just slightly younger than James Ivory was when he won Adapted Screenplay for Call Me By Your Name also at 89 years of age.
• With his win for Soul, Pete Docter breaks the previous five way tie for "most wins" in Best Animated Feature. He now has three, making him the clear leader in the category. He leaves Brad Bird, Jonas Rivera, Andrew Stanton, and Lee Unkrich tied for second place (with two wins each.) He also holds the record for most nominations in this category with four.
• Mia Neal and Jameika Wilson are the first black people to win Best Makeup and Hairstyling. They were also the first ever nominated in that category. They mentioned that 'glass ceiling' in their acceptance speech. (Sergio Lopez-Rivera, from Spain, shared the award with them)
• With his win for Best Film Editing, Sound of Metal's Mikkel E.G. Nielsen is the first Nordic winner in this category. He's from Denmark.
• Sound of Metal's re-recording mixer Jaime Baksht is the first Latinx person to win in Sound. He's from Mexico. (He shared the award with Nicolas Becker, Michelle Couttolenc, Carlos Cortes Navarrete, Phillip Bladh
• Travon Free is the first black winner of Live Action Short Film with Two Distant Strangers, an award he shared with his co-director Martin Desmond Roe.
• With 12 nominations and another loss, Diane Warren extends her reign as the most nominated songwriter never to have won an Oscar. Her nearest rival in "always losing" is a VERY distant second. That would be the songwriter Mack David (1912-1993) who was nominated 8 times including for "Bibbidy-Bobbidi-Boo" from Cinderella and the title song from Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte.
• With her win for Best Original Song H.E.R. (Judas and the Black Messiah) is now the youngest living Oscar winner. She was born in 1997 and is 23 years old at the time of this writing. (The youngest living nominee is Quvenzhané Wallis from Beasts of the Southern Wild, who is 17 years old currently.)
NOT A RECORD BUT JUST INTERESTING
• All four of the acting winners this year were unusual ages for their prizes. Anthony Hopkins is the oldest Best Actor winner of all time, Frances McDormand, the 3rd oldest Best Actress winner of all time, Youn Yuh-jung the 3rd oldest Supporting Actress winner, and Daniel Kaluuya the 7th youngest Best Supporting Actor winner
• Nomadland is the first film since Million Dollar Baby (2004) to win the combo of Best Actress / Best Picture which only happens about once a decade (there have been 12 in total from 93 years of history)
• Mank won more Oscars (2) than Citizen Kane (1) which it is about.
• Best Picture champs used to win more Oscars but the days of sweeps or near-sweeps seem long gone. We think this is good news as longtime proponents of spreading the wealth since one film is rarely the best of everything in a given year. Nomadland continues the 21st century tradition of Best Picture winning 4 or fewer Oscars. Here are the past 21 years...
NOMADLAND (2020) - 3
PARASITE (2019) - 4
GREEN BOOK (2018) - 3
THE SHAPE OF WATER (2017) - 4
MOONLIGHT (2016) - 3
SPOTLIGHT (2015) - 2
BIRDMAN (2014) - 4
12 YEARS A SLAVE (2013) - 3
ARGO (2012) - 3
THE ARTIST (2011) -5
THE KING'S SPEECH (2010) - 4
THE HURT LOCKER (2009) - 6
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE (2008) - 8
NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007) - 4
THE DEPARTED (2006) - 4
CRASH (2005) - 3
MILLION DOLLAR BABY (2004) - 4
LORD OF THE RINGS: FELLOWSHIP OF THE KING (2003) - 11
CHICAGO (2002) -6
A BEAUTIFUL MIND (2001) - 4
GLADIATOR (2000) - 5
Awards Yet To Be Broken
Lil Rel Howery joked that the 93rd Oscars were the "blackest" ever. But there are still some milestones to go in Hollywood's inclusiveness and racial diversity.
Only categories remaining that have never been won by a Black person
Cinematography, Editing, Director, International Feature, and Visual Effects
Only categories remaining that have never been won by an Asian person
Actress and Adapted Screenplay
Only categories remaining that have never been won by a Latinx person
Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Costume Design, Visual Effects, Documentary Feature, Animated Feature
Reader Comments (73)
Has Director ever been won by an openly gay director? I know there have been nominations like Almodovar, but I fail to remember and out director winning...
"Only categories remaining that have never been won by an Asian person: Actress, Adapted Screenplay, and Film Editing"
Which Asian had won Best Leading Actor??
Claran - Ben Kingsley (born Krishna Pandit Bhanji) won Best Actor for Gandhi.
Cukor - My Fair Lady?
Anthony Giacchino, who won Best Documentary Short Subject, is the brother of Oscar winner Michael, who won for Score for Up.
Claran: Ben Kingsley won for Gandhi, and if you count Yul Brynner, he won for The King and I.
The last time Best Actor and Best Actress were each won by previous winners of Best Actor and Best Actress was 1938 - Spencer Tracy and Bette Davis.
Does F. Murray Abraham count as Asian? He’s half Syrian.
Jesus - I don't know if he was out when he won, but Schlesinger was gay.
Chloe’s win should’ve been a bigger moment than it was.
Jesus -- to my knowledge no "out" director has won, no.
When the dust settles, Hopkins' Oscar will be remembered as the greatest Best Actor award since... Philip Seymour Hoffman in 2005, probably.
Scott Fisher, who won for Visual Effects, is the son of Thomas Fisher, who won the same category for Titanic in 1997.
David Marti and Montse Ribe won makeup for Pan's Labyrinth and both are Spanish too
Tom Cross who won an Editing Oscar for “Whiplash” is half Vietnamese.
I'm not sure if this is true but when H.E.R. won did she become the youngest winner by birth date? She was born in 1997. Shouldn't that make her the youngest living Oscar winner?
Very happy all those great female directors have Oscars, but Greta Gerwig Oscar when?!
Thx Ready n Lynn Lee for the clarification ☺️
I hav alws thot Sir Ben Kingsley is British... My bad
I really hope tt The Academy can give Glenn an honorary Oscar soon. It's getting v tiring to watch her keep getting nominations but ends up as also-ran, whereas their fav like McDormand keep winning w/o even trying.
@ Nathaniel: are you counting Lina Wertmuller's Honorary as her "win'?
Matty -- yes. notice i didn't type "won" but "have" Oscars there.
Claran -- he is British. British Indian.
Irvin & Jorge -- thanks! I shall fix.
This is the first time a film wins these three: Picture, Director and Actress.
Replaying my comment in the winners list post: Jaime Baksht, Carlos Cortés Navarrete and Michelle Couttolenc, the three are mexicans.
They are all previous winners in the Ariel Award:
-Carlos Cortés Navarrete for Tempestad
-Michelle Couttolenc for La Jaula de Oro, Güeros, Gloria, La 4ª Compañía and for the most recent best picture winner Ya No Estoy Aqui (I'm no Longer Here)
-Jaime Baksht share the wins with Michelle Couttolenc and also won for Cuentos de Hadas Para Dormir Cocodrilos, Zurdo, Cuates de Australia and in 2007 he wins for En el Hoyo losing to himself being nominated twice for another film named El Laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth)
Cukor was as out as a director could be when he won in ‘65.
Absolutely glorious.
I am still over the moon. NOMADLAND, Frances McDormand (!!!!), and Youn Yuh-jung --- the first time my picture, actress, and supporting actress choices fully matched the Oscars-- ever.
Also thrilled for Anthony Hopkins. My first choice would've been Riz Ahmed, but Hopkins was so worthy and brilliant.
Also, I don't wanna hear any more discussion about how 29 is the golden age for Best Actress winners. It's clear that this is a shallow, useless statistic. This year it drove people to think really stupid/crazy things about who wasn't winning.
EIGHT of the last 12 Best Actress winners have been over 40. And most of that set were over 50!
Yes, I know that Cukor and Schlesinger were gay, but I am unsure if they were as out as Haynes or Almodovar or van Sant...
Cukor and Schlesinger probably were well known as gay, but they were not completely out for the mainstream at the time, that was still extremely homophobic.
Trivia: Schlesinger made a small cameo in one MAGNIFICENT British TV Movie, "The Lost Language of Cranes" starring Brian Cox and Eileen Atkins in a terrific and touching acting duel, after their son comes out to them. Check it out, if you never saw it, love that film.
Terrible telecast -- great winners. Daniel Kaluuya winning for a leader isn't the worst thing that could have happened. When 'My Octopus Teacher' winning best doc is the worst award of the night, you know the Academy did well with their choices!
At this point they should just give Close an honorary Oscar
The Glennfan cult who thinks that Frances keeps on winning without trying is exactly the reason why they believe that Hillbilly Elegy performance is an awards worthy performance.
By the end, I was hoping that Viola and Chadwick would win. Those winners who were already winners in their category seemed . . . redundant?
I guess "Middle Eastern" needs to be separated from "Asian". otherwise not only F Murray Abraham, but all Israeli-born nominees, e.g. Natalie Portman.
Also Julie Christie, Vivien Leigh (India) and winners Olivia deHavilland, Joan Fontaine and nominee Liv Ullmann were all born in Asia. And Vivien Leigh may even have been part Asian - her mother's ethnic background (she was an orphan) was very sketchy.
Matty - Actually, it was 1994. Tom Hanks and Jessica Lange were already Oscar winners (for Philadelphia and Tootsie respectively) when they won for Forrest Gump and Blue Sky respectively.
Gilbert BJr: Do you mean first film to win only those three? Because there have been other films that have won Picture, Director and Actress (though this is the first one since Million Dollar Baby 16 years ago), but if it's ONLY those three, then I believe yes.
Does Rami Malek count as Asian? He's Middle Eastern, but he's from Egyptian descent, so maybe that doesn't count.
Another fun fact: this is the seventh year in a row in which Supporting Actress is the sole win for the film that won. It's also the eighth year in a row in which Film Editing correlates with at least one Sound award (which in this case is the only Sound award).
Amy -- yes i thought about putting an asterisk and explaining Natalie Portman. As for the others, I don't think deHavilland and Fontaine and Christie would consider themselves Asians just because of where there parents were stationed when they gave birth, though. Interesting note about Leigh. I guess I could see it. Especially in the Golden Age of HOllywood when peoples heritage and countries of origin were sometimes blatantly fictionalized or purposely obscured (like Merle Oberon).
Jaragon -- been saying it for years!
Jesus -- i actually love that film!
JF -- we are happily seeing a shift to older actresses winning but facts are still facts and 29 is still the most common age to win Best Actress. If the current trend keeps up we'll definitely move away from it though.
Age groupings of all 93 BEST ACTRESS Winners
32 were in their Twenties
34 were in their Thirties
15 were in their Forties
3 were in their Fifties
8 were in their Sixties
1 was in her Seventies
1 was in her Eighties
Most common exact age
1. 29 years old - 8 winners
2. 26 years old - 7 winners
2. 33 years old - 6 winners
3. 28 / 35 / 41 years old - 5 winners each
Does James Newton Howard hold a record? He lost in the music categories 9 times.
Frances also has the distinction of winning for three really great performances, even if I do hate Three Billboards.
With Ma Rainey not getting into the Best Picture field and Boseman not winning best actor, my guess is Viola Davis probably finished third or fourth in this (thrilling) best actress race. Carey Mulligan probably came closer to winning than we’ll ever know.
Richter Scale: no, re-read what Matty wrote. Last time Best Actor and Best Actress went to people who had already won in *those* categories was 1938. Lange had previously won in Supporting Actress.
I believe the only other time the Actor and Actress victors were both previous winners was 1973? Glenda Jackson and Jack Lemmon.
I thought Coco was co-directed by a Latinx person. Does only one director win the Oscar for best animated feature? So confused.
"Nomadland" is only the second Best Picture winner ever to begin with the letter "N." The other is "No Country for Old Men," directed by... McDormand's husband!
"Nomadland" is only the third BP to have a word in its title that is not a real world. The others are "Braveheart" and "Slumdog Millionaire." Funnily enough, they're all compound words.
was pleased with both screenplay wins, the first time every both my preferences won in the same year. I'm still disheartened for Glenn, though, even tho her loss wasn't really stolen from her.
Technically, Slumdog Millionaire isn't a compound word, just Slumdog. ;)
I haven't watched the Oscars live for almost a decade now (I made a kind of exception when my main squeeze, Ms. Rachel Weisz, was nominated for The Favourite), but I did watch Another Round while it was happening and then detoxed by visiting Twitter and enjoying the delicious meltdown over the last two wins.
McDormand's win is so lazy, but actors love her for not giving a hen's tooth about anything. I find that delectable about her, even if she's probably not my type of person in real life (she seems overly thorny and caustic, and there are times her "I don't care" attitude just seems put-upon as well). That moment where she corrected Zhao over being Fran and not Fern read like a dry joke, but since none of that reads well unless you really know the person, she just came off as a bitch, or at the very least, someone with Asperger's, who are known to correct those types of gaffes or jokes since they are unable to decipher or understand social cues or intent.
I'm not criticizing people with Asperger's, just stating what I know from teaching experience in the autism spectrum field where I encountered many such moments.
BOY THAT HOPKINS WIN THOUGH. So happy for him! It would've been grand if Riva had won for Amour and these two could have been paired wins.
As for the show? Hahahahahahahaha. You reap what you sow, Oscar, baby.
That is all.
Frances McDormand, Charlize Theron, Tom Hanks, and Saoirse Ronan have been nominated twice for performances directed by women (did I miss anyone?). No actor has been nominated three times for performances directed by women yet.
I believe Trent Reznor is now the third rock singer (after Randy Newman and Elton John) to win two Oscars and the first to win twice in the Best Original Score category.
McDormand is the only woman to win for both acting and producing.
jules: Holly Hunter was nominated twice for performances directed by women as well (The Piano and Thirteen).
Also, of the actresses who have won 3 or more Oscars, Frances McDormand now holds the record for shortest time between first and third win. It took her 24 years since her first win to get her third. The previous record was Ingrid Bergman, who won her third 30 years after her first.
How’s this:
The only two Best Picture winners that begin with N come from the same household: No Country for Old Men (Joel Coen) and Nomadland (Frances McDormand).
The average age of the last 40 Best Actress winners is 40.625. I didn't include the 70s but it looks like the average then was mid-late 30s.
That's what's been happening in the last 50 years—really happy for Janet Gaynor but I don't think her age at the time of winning has anything to do with the Oscars today.
Another record: After 93 years, only one Black actress has won Best Actress. No Latino, Asian, or Native actress has ever won.
I know these are usually fun, but something about the lead wins this year, even if it was a close year, merit a broader discussion about the Academy's bias about who should win lead vs. supporting Oscars. I don't think I've ever truly appreciated why Viola went supporting in 2016 until now. I always thought she would beat Emma Stone head to head.
You shouldn't be counting Spanish as Latinx, it's like mixing USA and UK actors.
A new record...of low viewership of less than 10 million (probably before Hulu, ABC.com, etc are included). I think they did the best they could and clearly tried different things the telecast normally doesn't do, but overall I was underwhelmed. I need some levity occasionally more than Glenn doing Da Butt.
My first problem was each presenter never speaking directly to the camera if on stage. Each time a presenter looked around the room, I felt disconnected from the proceeding and nominees turning their bodies to face the effusive praise from presenters felt off. It was nice to hear interesting descriptions and camera focus on each nominee for once, but I missed the award nominee packages that showed brief but interesting tidbits of the process of designing costumes or the makeup process. Bring that back please. I missed seeing the film clips of each nominated actors performance too, but we did get brief glimpses during the Best Picture reels.
While I loved seeing Marlee Matlin present, it felt like bad taste to not put her sign language efforts in a box on screen as the camera panned to each nominee as well. I think I heard more from her interpreter than getting to see her sign. The filmed Best Song performances were superb though in the pre-show, do that again next year if possible.