by Nathaniel R
Everything Everywhere All At Once swept the Oscars last night, winning 7 of its 10 categories (and 11 nominations). While it wasn't a "clean" sweep, it's the only sweep and the biggest haul for a Best Picture winner since the expansion of the Best Picture field changed the Oscar stats story in so many ways back in 2009. (The only other film to win that many Oscars in the current era was 2013's Gravity, which lost Best Picture). The most shocking element of EEAAO's big win in terms of the history books (if not the temperature of awards season) was the fact that it won 3 of the 4 acting Oscars. This has only happened twice before in Oscar's 95 years via A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), and Network (1976).
We'll talk about the ceremony later today but first the prizes and some stats / observations...
PICTURE - Everything Everywhere All At Once
It's the first sci-fi/action-comedy to win.
DIRECTOR -The Daniels, Everything Everywhere All At Once
They are the third directing duo to win after Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story (1961), and the Coen Brothers for No Country for Old Men (2007).
One really fun piece of trivia about this win is that they're now the 6th and 8th youngest filmmakers to win this prize but right inbetween them is Lewis Milestone for the ORIGINAL All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) which is a strange coincidence given this particular Oscar year.
Daniel Kwan, half of the Daniels, is the fourth Asian director to win this prize after Ang Lee (twice), Bong Joon Ho, and Chloe Zhao. All five of those wins are in the past 17 years so in the past 20 years of Oscar history, almost 25% of the winners for Best Director have been Asian.
ACTRESS - Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All At Once
She is the first Asian actress to win this category and the second woman of color after Halle Berry (Monsters Ball). She recently turned 60 so she doesn't quite make the list of "oldest" Best Actress winners since Frances McDormand (in 10th place) was a couple of months older when she won for Nomadland)
ACTOR - Brendan Fraser, The Whale
SUPPORTING ACTRESS - Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All At Once
She follows in Laura Dern's unique footsteps of being the child of two acting nominees (who had never won) who then went on to win the prize that eluded her parents. She also became the 8th oldest winner of Best Supporting Actress at 64 years of age (just one week older than Judi Dench was when she won for Shakespeare in Love)
SUPPORTING ACTOR - Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All At Once
He becomes only the second Asian actor to win this category after Dr Haing S Ngor (The Killing Fields, 1984)
NOTE OF INTEREST: All acting winners were over 50 years old this year with Ke Huy Quan the youngest at 51 and Jamie Lee Curtis the oldest at 64. And again, one film winning three acting Oscars is ultra-rare so this is going down in the history books and might not happen again for another 46 years.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY - Everything Everywhere All At Once
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY - Women Talking
CINEMATOGRAPHY - All Quiet on the Western Front
COSTUME DESIGN - Black Panther Wakanda Forever
The FIFTH sequel to win this category - it's becoming common. The others were Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Elizabeth the Golden Age, Fantastic Beasts, Mad Max Fury Road but this is the first sequel to ever win the category after the original film ALSO won the category. Designer Ruth E Carter has also become the first black woman to win a second Oscar.
PRODUCTION DESIGN - All Quiet on the Western Front
VISUAL EFFECTS - Avatar The Way of Water
James Cameron has made 9 narrative features in his career and six of them have won this category (his only features that didn't were: The Terminator, True Lies, and Piranha II.)
MAKEUP AND HAIR - The Whale
FILM EDITING - Everything Everywhere All At Once
ORIGINAL SCORE -All Quiet on the Western Front
ORIGINAL SONG - "Naatu Naatu" RRR
While Slumdog Millionaire won this category it was a British production. So RRR is the first Indian production to be nominated for and win in this category.
SOUND - Top Gun Maverick
Mirroring the fate of the original 1986 blockbuster, Top Gun Maverick went home with only one Oscar. But it won Sound instead of Song this time.
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE - All Quiet on the Western Front
With four wins All Quiet ties the record for most Oscars for a non-English language movie. It now shares that record with Fanny & Alexander, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and Parasite in a four-way tie. If you look at all-time stats in this category, Italy and France lead but in the 21st century (aka only counting 2000 and forward) Denmark and Germany have been in a race for dominance but now Germany has pulled ahead.
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT - An Irish Goodbye
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE - Navalny
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT - The Elephant Whisperers
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE - Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio
This is only the second stop-motion feature to win this prize (the Academy prefers CG above all else here) after Wallace & Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit
BEST ANIMATED SHORT - The Boy The Mole The Fox and The Horse
Now the longest animated short to ever win this category at its totally unreasonable 32+ minutes
NOTE OF INTEREST: Despite their big presence in the nominations, The Fabelmans, Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, and TAR all went home empty-handed which is a highly unusual outcome considering that they would all arguably have been nominated even in a 5-wide only Best Picture year. Instead Oscar voters were kinder to films with low nomination counts (Women Talking, Avatar The Way of Water) or films that weren't in the Best Picture race at all (Wakanda Forever, The Whale, RRR)