Oscars 2021 – live: Winners, acceptance speeches and highlights from the Academy Awards
Chloé Zhao wins Best Director while Frances McDormand earns Best Actress prize
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Your support makes all the difference.Road movie Nomadland won the top prize at the 93rd Academy Awards, which fulfilled many expectations but threw in a couple of surprise wins in an unusual ceremony.
The film’s director Chloe Zhao also made history, becoming the first woman of colour to win the award for directing, and the second woman in history — and the film scooped the Best Actress prize for its star Frances McDormand.
Sir Anthony Hopkins won the Best Actor Oscar — his first since The Silence of the Lambs in 1992 — for his performance in The Father, about a man slipping into dementia, defeating presumptive favourite Chadwick Boseman, who died last year aged 43 following a private four-year battle with colon cancer.
Daniel Kaluuya, who was born in London to Ugandan parents, is the first black British winner of the best Supporting Actor prize for his turn as community organiser and member of the Black Panther Party Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah.
There were a number of surprise wins. David Fincher’s Mank led the pack with 10 nominations, but ultimately won two.
Due to coronavirus, the Oscars moved out of their usual venue, the Dolby Theatre, and were based out of Los Angeles’s Union Station instead. The ceremony’s format was overhauled too, with attendees observing social distancing and some joining via video link from other parts of the world.
Nomadland had been a favourite to win Best Picture; it fulfilled that expectation, beating The Father, Judas and the Black Messiah, Mank, Minari, Promising Young Woman, Sound of Metal, and The Trial of the Chicago 7.
Minari actor Youn Yuh-jung also won over the crowd in her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress, which was presented to her by Brad Pitt. “Mr Brad Pitt, finally, nice to meet you!” she told him after making her way onto the stage. She then proceeded to acknowledge the ways in which her name has been mispronounced throughout the awards season, telling the crowd: “Tonight, you are all forgiven.”
With her win, Youn became the first Korean actor to take home an Academy Award.
Follow our liveblog for highlights from the ceremony and the buzz-worthy aftermath.
Sound of Metal is one of the Best Picture nominees tonight. Our writer Annabel Nugent argues why Darius Marder’s revelatory meditation on deafness should win the top prize:
Sound of Metal: Why Darius Marder’s revelatory meditation on deafness should win the Oscar
Why Sound of Metal should win Best Picture
And here Pamela Hutchinson argues why Minari, another Best Picture contender tonight, should win the category. She writes that it “offers a consoling vision of resilience, with Emile Mosseri’s ethereal score guiding us through the warm, sunlit fields of Arkansas, as we share the mixed fear and optimism of a man who has sown his first crops in unfamiliar earth”.
Minari: Why Lee Isaac Chung’s fable of immigrant life should win the Oscar
Why Minari should win Best Picture
The ceremony is almost upon us! Time for a last-minute red carpet photo blast:
Aaaand here we go! The 93rd Academy Awards have officially begun. Regina King, in opening remarks, says that if things had gone differently this week in Minneapolis, she “might have traded her heels for marching boots”. This is in reference to the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who has been convicted in the death of George Floyd.
Here’s what the scene looks like at Union Station, where the ceremony is taking place:
And we’re on to our first winner of the night! Emerald Fennell wins Best Original Screenplay for Promising Young Woman. “They said write a speech and I didn’t because I didn’t believe this would ever happen!” Ferrell says, adding of her Oscar: “He’s so heavy and he’s so cold.” Carey Mulligan, who is up for Best Actress for her role in the film, is visibly moved as she listens to Fennell’s speech.
Also nominated in the category were Judas and the Black Messiah, Minari, Sound of Metal, and The Trial of the Chicago 7.
We’re now hearing the winner of Best Adapted Screenplay. The nominees are Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, The Father, Nomadland, One Night in Miami…, and The White Tiger. And the winner is... The Father, co-written by Florian Zeller (who directed the film) and Christopher Hampton! Zeller (who is French) is giving his acceptance speech from Paris, France.
Here is an excerpt from Regina King’s opening remarks at the beginning of the ceremony, stating that “if things had gone differently this past week in Minneapolis, I might have traded in my heels for marching boots”.
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