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