THE 88th ACADEMY AWARD WINNERS

The Complete List of Winners…and some commentary

BEST PICTURE
Spotlight

BEST DIRECTOR
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, The Revenant

BEST ACTOR
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant

BEST ACTRESS
Brie Larson, Room

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Josh Singer, Tom McCarthy, Spotlight

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Charles Randolph, Adam McKay, The Big Short

BEST EDITING
Margaret Sixel, Mad Max Fury Road

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Son of Saul, Hungary

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki,The Revenant
First to win three back to back Oscars in this category. Previously won for Gravity and Birdman

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Colin Gibson,Lisa Thompson, Mad Max Fury Road

BEST SOUND MIXING
Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo, Mad Max Fury Road

BEST SOUND EDITING
Mark Mangini and David White, Mad Max Fury Road

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Amy

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
Stutterer

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Inside Out

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
Bear Story

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett, Ex Machina

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Jenny Beavan, Mad Max Fury Road

BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin, Mad Max Fury Road

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Ennio Morricone, The Hateful Eight

BEST ORIGINAL SONG (name the song, not just the film)
Sam Smith, Jimmy Napes, “Writing’s On the Wall” from Spectre

Another awards season has come and gone as we celebrate some of the finer films from 2015. It was a season full of controversy with people talking about #oscarssowhite and the inevitable boycotting that ensued. Host Chris Rock had plenty to say about that in his opening monologue. Frankly, it was one of the best monologues in recent years. The whole Stacey Dash bit bombed and failed hard for a few reasons. 1) She’s made a mockery of herself in recent months for her comments on racism, BET, and everything in between. 2) No one really knows who she is unless you’ve been paying attention to her outbursts 3) She peaked at Clueless which was how many years ago now? There were a few surprises for the evening. MANY people thought Sylvester Stallone would win Best Supporting Actor for Creed. He seemed to have a career milestone with playing his role of Rocky Balboa again. He had recent momentum having won the Golden Globe, but lost to early favorite Mark Rylance for Bridge of Spies. Lady Gaga was expected to walk away winning Best Original Song for “‘Til It Happens to You”, an emotionally charged song about surviving sexual abuse. She gave a powerful performance during the ceremony, but lost the award to Sam Smith’s new Bond theme “Writing’s On the Wall”. Smith stirred up some controversy by claiming he was the first gay man to win an Oscar, which is untrue. Dustin Lance Black, Stephen Sondheim, and Joel Grey to name a few.

Mad Max Fury Road walked away the biggest winner of the night with six awards. The Revenant had three statues. Director Alejandro González Iñárritu became the third director to ever win two back to back directing awards. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki became the first to win THREE back to back Oscars. I had predicted The Revenant would win Best Picture due to all of the recent buzz, but I was screaming with elation when Spotlight won. It only took home two Oscars, which is the first time since 1951 a Best Picture winner only won two awards the whole evening. Hopefully, this will continue to get the message out there about Spotlight and its subject matter.