Notable Moments from the 2024 Oscars Ceremony
A look at one of the best Oscars ceremonies in years.
There’s a classic episode of The Simpsons where Homer becomes an astronaut. In the episode, Bart describes unfamiliar feelings he’s experiencing as a result of this development:
Bart: Wow. My dad an astronaut. I feel so full of ... what's the opposite of shame?
Marge: Pride?
Bart: No, not that far from shame.
Homer: Less shame?
Bart: Yeah.
I felt something similar watching the 96th annual Academy Awards last night. Whereas the broadcasts of recent years have felt like a nonstop cavalcade of incompetence or unsavory behavior, the 2024 Oscars felt like…a really well-run, enjoyable telecast? That gave awards to good, popular movies and featured a bunch of heartfelt, meaningful speeches? With great musical numbers? And that actually ended early for once?
Is this actual pride and enjoyment I’m experiencing? It may well be.
This Oscars will likely go down as a highly competent evening that accomplished what it set out to do. It delivered some nice moments that Barbie and Oppenheimer fans might’ve tuned in for. And it projected the image of an industry that was thriving and vital.
Before I get into any specific observations, I want to mention that right after the telecast, @joyonapping and I discussed our reactions live on YouTube. Check out that conversation below (Patrons get the convo as an audio podcast).
Below are a few moments from the telecast that I think are worth highlighting. As usual, this list is not exhaustive and I’d love for you to share your thoughts in the comments below!
The Best Supporting Actress presentation
One of the first categories of the evening was Best Supporting Actress. This year, the producers of the telecast brought up multiple winners from years past to pay tribute to each of the nominees this year. These tributes were beautiful, heartfelt, and moving, and they were immediately followed by Da’Vine Joy Randolph taking home the Best Supporting Actress Oscar while delivering a powerful speech about how difficult her journey to this stage has been.
While the other actor categories tried something similar, none of them felt quite as emotional or touching as the first time around. It was a great way to kick off the evening.
Oppenheimer wins the night
As many predicted, Oppenheimer took home awards in most of the major categories, including Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Cinematography, Best Score, Best Director, and the biggest award of the evening, Best Picture. While the latter was a bit anticlimactic (with a relatively rote speech and Christopher Nolan awkwardly declining to say anything) I really appreciated Nolan’s speech for Best Director.
Nolan has been nominated eight times (his first nomination was for 2000’s Memento screenplay) but this is only his first time winning an Oscar. While I don’t love all of his films, you cannot deny that Nolan is one of very few directors on this planet that can is still making big-budget, adult-oriented blockbusters on a massive scale. He’s single-handedly helped to keep the movie industry and the concept of theatrical filmgoing alive. He’s one of the few people keeping the idea of great, original movies alive in a business environment that is highly inhospitable to them.
Regardless of any issues I may have with his films, I deeply admire his accomplishments and his approach to filmmaking, and this award was well-deserved.
Ryan Gosling performs “I’m Just Ken”
Each of the song performances was solid this year, but Ryan Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken” was one of the highlights of the evening. Gosling oozes charisma while moving from the audience to the stage while amidst elaborate choregoraphy and set changes. We already knew he was a triple threat from La La Land but seeing him command a room like he did here really made me feel like we are witnessing a star at the height of his powers.
Cord Jefferson asks Hollywood to take more chances
Cord Jefferson took home the award for Best Adapted Screenplay for American Fiction. During his speech, he shared some of his frustrations in getting the film made. Even though Fiction was not exactly a big-budget film, it seems like Jefferson still got a lot of “no’s” on his journey to Oscar gold. It was an important reminder that an industry that doesn’t nurture exciting up-and-coming talent will not have a future.
“I understand this is a risk-averse industry,” Jefferson said. “$200 million movies are also a risk.”
‘Godzilla Minus One’ wins for Best Visual Effects
Godzilla Minus One was nominated for a single Academy Award and in a surprising turn of events, it won. For many of us, this is the little movie that could — a Godzilla movie that cost around $10-12MM that came out of nowhere in late 2023 only to make over $100MM and become a critical darling (it was one of my favorites of 2023).
The speech given by director Takashi Yamazaki (who also worked on the visual effects of the film) wasn’t easily comprehensible but it was clearly heartfelt and you could feel how this moment was one of the crowning achievements of his career. He also got to pay tribute to films that inspired him like Close Encounters of the Third Kind while directors like Steven Spielberg were in the room with him. A magical moment!
The director of ‘20 Days in Mariupol’ sets the record straight
20 Days in Mariupol won the Best Documentary film award and in his speech, director Mstyslav Chernov shared how bittersweet the moment was. While it was a historic occasion for Ukraine to take home its first Oscar, it came as a result of a horrifying invasion that continues to this day. Chernov also emphasized how important it is that a movie like 20 Days in Mariupol gets recognized in a misinformation-rich environment where everyone has a different version of events. During a ceremony often ridiculed for its self-importance, Chernov touched upon the one actual thing that movies can help us do: Define what is remembered.
“Cinema forms memories. And memories make history.” Amen.
Other observations
I would’ve loved for Anatomy of a Fall to get more love but I was thrilled to see it get some recognition in the Best Screenplay category (the only award it won for the evening).
It feels odd that Killers of the Flower Moon got completely shut out of any awards, but it’s a testament to how stacked this year’s categories were. (Similarly Barbie only took home one award for Best Original Song).
It was a strange moment for Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt to introduce a clip package about stunts while the Academy continues to refuse to honor stuntwork in an official category.
The Zone of Interest beat out heavy favorite Oppenheimer to take home the Oscar for Best Sound. Zone of Interest was not one of my favorites but its use of sound is in fact remarkable, creating an entire parallel film to the one the viewer is actually watching.
Emma Stone seemed as surprised as anyone that she was going to be taking home a second Best Actress award. While I think any of the actresses in the category were deserving (Sandra Hüller was who I was personally rooting for), Emma Stone is one of my favorite actresses working today. Her work on The Curse is incredible and I hope this award gives her even more juice to make whatever weird off-kilter stuff she wants to next.
I continue to admire how John Cena always commits to the bit — in this case, by presenting the award for Best Costume while completely naked.
What were some of your most notable moments from this year’s Oscars? Let me know in the comments below.
Other Stuff David Chen Has Made
Over on my Patreon page, I discuss a project that has consumed my life for the past two weeks.
On Decoding TV, Patrick Klepek and I are continuing to cover Shogun, which is one of the best shows on TV.
On the Filmcast, we reviewed Dune: Part Two, which is likely already a frontrunner for next year’s Best Picture award.
I had to leave an Oscars party early, and missed my window to rewind on Hulu…which meant ignoring any and all media until I could catch a rerun online.
Now that I’ve caught up: I’m mostly happy with the awards. I’m sad about the Flower Moon shut out (Gladstone most crucially, but also I was really rooting for the late Robbie Robertson to pull an upset and win for score, and Prieto to win cinematography) and wish Barbie had won Production Design at least. But otherwise I can’t really complain. My favorites (Past Lives and Perfect Days) didn’t win anything, but I never seriously expected them to—despite being my personal picks, I do think these awards are also about honoring high impact achievements, and I’m not convinced I’d have voted differently if I were in the Academy’s shoes. I genuinely liked all 10 Best Picture Nominees this year! Even my least favorite, Poor Things, was totally deserving in my opinion. And while I’d have awarded Gladstone and Hüller over Stone, her performance was truly undeniable. There’s no Green Book or Bohemian Rhapsody in the whole bunch.
Jonathan Glazer's speech when Zone of Interest won International Feature! It's noticeably missing from the Academy's YouTube page.
I found the performance of Wahzhazhe to be very powerful, and in that moment, I was sad knowing that it was going to lose.