94th Academy Awards Winners and Review: (Almost) Exactly What You Thought It Would Be
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
The Academy Awards has invited a lot of heat this year, thanks to its decision to cut eight categories from the live production (they would show these wins taped throughout the ceremony), have three hosts, a slew of presenters that have little to do with film, and so many other faux-pas. In the end, everything was predictable, from the winners to the success rate of these changes, all in hopes of garnering many new viewers and reigniting interest in the Academy Awards. During these uncertain times, nothing could have been more certain than the 94th Academy Awards (outside of maybe that one event: keep reading, in case you missed it).
The first massively poor decision made by the Academy (outside of neglecting to include a whopping eight important categories in the live revelation of the awards ceremony) was to burst-announce these winners via Twitter with little to no regard or decency (including all of the short films, Dune’s technical takeover, and a win for The Eyes of Tammy Faye for its makeup and hairstyling). If the whole part of the Academy’s deal was to show these winners during the live ceremony nonetheless (as recordings), then why squander their moments to shine by farting out their wins by Twitter like an angry ex leaking DMs? This was a harbinger of things to come this wonky evening.
The show kicked off with the Williams sisters introducing Beyoncé’s tennis ball green-clad prerecording of “Be Alive”: the strongest Original Song nomination of the evening told via a stunning performance full of enough camera-based choreography to make this feel like a tribute to the medium beyond just its song nomination (if anyone can make a party pop, it’s Beyoncé). This vibe is squashed by the announcing of the three hosts of the evening (Wanda Sykes, Regina Hall, and Amy Schumer) being crashed by DJ Khaled, who didn’t really need to be there for these mere seconds whatsoever. “This year the Oscars hired three women to host because it was cheaper to hire than one man,” quipped Schummer. After a slew of predictably woke jokes (socially conscious jokes are great, but so many of these tried to reach and fell flat), the ball finally got rolling, sort of. A lengthy unveiling of every single announcer to come was dished out, and I couldn’t help but think that some of this time could have been devoted towards, you know, showing an actual award (hell, they even re-introduced people who already were there this evening, like Serena and Venus Williams).
Ariana DeBose won the first telecast award of the evening for West Side Story, and her speech was beautifully said and her years of not giving up could be felt; it was at this time I noticed we were already twenty-five minutes in, and we only had one award given (so much for wanting to really work well with our time, huh Academy?). Regina Hall proceeded with hosting duties afterwards to proclaim that certain eligible bachelors (ahem, I mean random people) were tested positive for COVID (because joking about a virus that has killed millions is fine now two years into this pandemic), and I was now watching my watch for two reasons (again, we could have had a few of those cut winners announced now). We’re now half an hour into this thing, and we’ve had the one sole win so far. At this point, that’s when the first cut category — Best Sound — was shown with the recorded winner (Dune), and the implementation into the awards show was actually done quite well (however, why bother spoiling the winners before the Awards with those tweets?).
Afterwards was a mostly predictable evening (my predictions were all correct except for Best Production Design. One wrong: a new record for me!), outside of Will Smith pacing towards Chris Rock to slap him for making off-colour remarks about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith’s alopecia condition; Smith would apologize during his acceptance speech for his Best Actor win, stating that the devil comes out at just the wrong moments. Jessica Chastain picked up a win for Best Actress: a previously unpredictable category until The Eyes of Tammy Faye’s final awards season push. Jane Campion won Best Director for The Power of the Dog, but the film picked up zero other wins; it is incredibly rare for a film to win for its direction and nothing else (the last time was Mike Nichols for 1967’s The Graduate). Dune swept most of the technical and artistic awards with six wins, but it did not win Best Picture. A massive number of Best Picture nominees (Don’t Look Up, Nightmare Alley, Licorice Pizza) didn’t pick up a single Oscar this evening. Belfast won one (for screenplay), and so did West Side Story (Best Supporting Actress), Drive My Car (Best International Feature Film), and King Richard for Will Smith’s award.
Oddly enough, the Best Picture nominee with the least amount of nominations won them all. It was a battle between two streaming service giants, much to the Academy’s chagrin (they have seemingly refused to reward a streaming service original this award in the past) and Netflix’s The Power of the Dog went up against the winner: Apple TV+’s CODA, which won Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor additionally (the only categories it was even up for). It was a mighty win for the smallest film (in terms of budget, awards season race, and nomination amount), but it was one that was hoped for my many fans these last few weeks.
Outside of these wins and, well, the slap, the ceremony was either as shoddy as expected (I was less bothered whenever hosting or shenanigans were kept to a minimum) or a rather fluid experience in these few moments: a brief reminder of that could have been. The biggest highlights came from the powerful speeches (particularly of all four acting winners; Troy Kotsur’s devastating tributes; Ariana DeBose’s words of wisdom; Jessica Chastain’s appreciation and opportunity to highlight the often neglected crises of suicide; Will Smith’s outpouring of emotion) or from the presenters themselves (Youn Yuh-jung and her grace particularly, and then Lady Gaga and Liza Minnelli showed up for the Best Picture reveal as the perfect team [Gaga will always have your back]). There were tributes to films like The Godfather, Pulp Fiction, Juno, White Men Can’t Jump, and the James Bond franchise, and these were the only asides that didn’t feel completely arbitrary. At the end of the day, in a world full of divide, with such a miasma of anguish and confusion, the Oscars couldn’t have been safer and more predictable as showcased by the winners, and more appropriately dishevelled (it’s fitting, but can we not do these awards like this again?).
BEST PICTURE
Belfast
CODA — WINNER
Don’t Look Up
Drive My Car
Dune
King Richard
Licorice Pizza
Nightmare Alley
The Power of the Dog
West Side Story
BEST DIRECTOR
Belfast-Kenneth Branagh
Drive My Car-Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Licorice Pizza-Paul Thomas Anderson
The Power of the Dog-Jane Campion — WINNER
West Side Story-Steven Spielberg
BEST ACTRESS
The Eyes of Tammy Faye-Jessica Chastain — WINNER
The Lost Daughter-Olivia Coleman
Parallel Mothers-Penélope Cruz
Being the Ricardos-Nicole Kidman
Spencer-Kristen Stewart
BEST ACTOR
Being the Ricardos-Javier Bardem
The Power of the Dog-Benedict Cumberbatch
tick, tick… BOOM!-Andrew Garfield
King Richard-Will Smith — WINNER
The Tragedy of Macbeth-Denzel Washington
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Lost Daughter-Jessie Buckley
West Side Story-Ariana DeBose — WINNER
Belfast-Judi Dench
The Power of the Dog-Kirsten Dunst
King Richard-Aunjanue Ellis
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Belfast-Ciarán Hinds
CODA-Troy Kotsur — WINNER
The Power of the Dog-Jesse Plemons
Being the Ricardos-J.K. Simmons
The Power of the Dog-Kodi Smit-McPhee
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
CODA-Screenplay by Sian Heder — WINNER
Drive My Car-Screenplay by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Takamasa Oe
Dune-Screenplay by Jon Spaihts and Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth
The Lost Daughter-Written by Maggie Gyllenhaal
The Power of the Dog-Written by Jane Campion
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Belfast-Written by Kenneth Branagh — WINNER
Don’t Look Up-Screenplay by Adam McKay, Story by Adam McKay & David Sirota
King Richard-Written by Zach Baylin
Licorice Pizza-Written by Paul Thomas Anderson
The Worst Person in the World-Written by Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
Drive My Car-Japan — WINNER
Flee-Denmark
The Hand of God-Italy
Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom-Bhutan
The Worst Person in the World-Norway
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Ascension
Attica
Flee
Summer of Soul (…or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) — WINNER
Writing With Fire
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Encanto — WINNER
Flee
Luca
The Mitchells vs. the Machines
Raya and the Last Dragon
BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
Ala Kachuu-Take and Run
The Dress
The Long Goodbye — WINNER
On My Mind
Please Hold
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Audible
Lead Me Home
The Queen of Basketball — WINNER
Three Songs For Benazir
When We Were Bullies
BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Affairs of the Art
Bestia
Boxballet
Robin Robin
The Windshield Wiper — WINNER
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Dune-Greig Fraser — WINNER
Nightmare Alley-Dan Lausten
The Power of the Dog-Ari Wegner
The Tragedy of Macbeth-Bruno Delbonnel
West Side Story-Janusz Kaminski
BEST FILM EDITING
Don’t Look Up-Hank Corwin
Dune-Joe Walker — WINNER
King Richard-Pamela Martin
The Power of the Dog-Peter Sciberras
tick, tick… BOOM!-Myron Kerstein and Andrew Weisblum
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Dune-Paul Lambert, Tristan Myles, Brian Connor and Gerd Nefzer — WINNER
Free Guy-Sven Gillberg, Bryan Grill, Nikos Kalaitzidis and Dan Sudick
No Time to Die-Charlie Noble, Joel Green, Jonathan Fawkner and Chris Corbould
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings-Christopher Townsend, Joe Farrell, Sean Noel Walker and Dan Oliver
Spider-Man: No Way Home-Kelly Port, Chris Waegner, Scott Edelstein and Dan Sudick
BEST SOUND
Belfast-Denise Yarde, Simon Chase, James Mather, Niv Adiri
Dune-Mac Ruth, Mark Mangini, Theo Green, Doug Hemphill, Ron Bartlett — WINNER
No Time to Die-Simon Hayes, Oliver Tarney, James Harrison, Paul Massey, Mark Taylor
The Power of the Dog-Richard Flynn, Robert Mackenzie, Tara Webb
West Side Story-Tod A. Maitland, Gary Rydstrom, Brian Chumney, Andy Nelson, Shawn Murphy
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Don’t Look Up-Nicholas Britell
Dune-Hans Zimmer — WINNER
Encanto-Germaine Franco
Parallel Mothers-Alberto Iglesias
The Power of the Dog-Jonny Greenwood
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
King Richard-”Be Alive”, Music and Lyric by Dixon and Beyoncé Knowles-Carter
Encanto-”Dos Oruguitas”, Music and Lyric by Lin-Manuel Miranda
Belfast-”Down to Joy”, Music and Lyric by Van Morrison
No Time to Die-”No Time to Die”, Music and Lyric by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell — WINNER
Four Good Days-”Somehow You Do”, Music and Lyric by Diane Warren
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Dune-Production Design: Patrice Vermette, Set Decoration: Zsuzsanna Sipos — WINNER
Nightmare Alley-Production Design: Tamara Deverell, Set Decoration: Shane Vieau
The Power of the Dog-Production Design: Grant Major, Set Decoration: Amber Richards
The Tragedy of Macbeth-Production Design: Stefan Dechant, Set Decoration: Nancy Haigh
West Side Story-Production Design: Adam Stockhausen, Set Decoration: Rena DeAngelo
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Cruella-Jenny Beavan — WINNER
Cyrano-Massimo Cantini Parrini and Jacqueline Durran
Dune-Jacqueline West and Robert Morgan
Nightmare Alley-Luis Sequeira
West Side Story-Paul Tazewell
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Coming 2 America-Mike Marino, Stacey Morris and Carla Farmer
Cruella-Nadia Stacey, Naomi Donne and Julia Vernon
Dune-Donald Mowat, Love Larson and Eva von Bahr
The Eyes of Tammy Faye-Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram and Justin Raleigh — WINNER
House of Gucci-Göran Lundström, Anna Carin Lock and Frederic Aspiras
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from X University (formerly known as Ryerson), as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.