“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

– J. Robert Oppenheimer

The Oscars, also referred to as the Academy Awards, recognize artistic and technical excellence in the film industry. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the US bestows these awards each year to honor outstanding contributions to cinema, as judged by the Academy’s voting membership. Most people believe that the Oscars are the most prestigious honor in the film industry.

This remarkable award ceremony is usually held in late February or early March following the relevant calendar year. The major awards are presented at a live televised ceremony six weeks after the announcement of the nominees. This film awards season, which often starts in November or December of the prior year, comes to an end with it. It is the most renowned entertainment awards ceremony in the world. The first Academy Awards ceremony took place in 1929, the first radio broadcast of the ceremony occurred in 1930, and the first television broadcast was held in 1953. It is also the oldest of the four main annual entertainment honors in the United States. The Grammy Awards for music, the Emmy Awards for television, and the Tony Awards for theatre are all based on the Academy Awards. The “Oscar statuette” features an Art Deco-styled knight.

This event is an elaborate extravaganza, with the guests walking up the red carpet in the creations of the most prominent fashion designers of the day. Black tie dress is the most common outfit for men, although fashion may dictate not wearing a bow tie, and musical performers are sometimes not required to adhere to this (the artists who recorded the nominees for Best Original Song quite often perform those songs live at the awards ceremony, and the fact that they are performing is often used to promote the television broadcast).

For this year’s Oscar Award ceremony, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) presented the 96th Academy Awards, which were held on March 10, 2024, in Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Comedian Jimmy Kimmel hosted the ceremony for the fourth time in his career.

The nominees for the 96th Academy Awards were announced on January 23, 2024, by actors Zazie Beetz and Jack Quaid at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on March 10, 2024. Oppenheimer was the most nominated film, followed by Poor Things with 11 and Killers of the Flower Moon with 10. Leading with seven honors was Oppenheimer, including Best Picture and Best Director. Other significant winners were The Zone of Interest with two and Poor Things with four. American Fiction, Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, The Boy and the Heron, Godzilla Minus One, The Holdovers, The Last Repair Shop, 20 Days in Mariupol, War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko, and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar are among the films that took home one Oscar award each. Twenty-one nominations were made for the cultural phenomenon known as “Barbenheimer” (six for Barbie and thirteen for Oppenheimer). Six categories saw the two films pitted against one another, including Best Picture.

Moreover, Steven Spielberg, who now has thirteen nominations for Best Picture; Martin Scorsese, who is the oldest nominee in the category with his tenth nomination for Best Director; Thelma Schoonmaker, who has been nominated nine times for Best Film Editing; John Williams, the composer, who is nominated for the 54th time; and Willie D. Burton, a below-the-line crew member, are among the other noteworthy nominees. This year, ten actors were nominated for Oscars for the first time. Three openly LGBTQ+ actors—Colman Domingo, Jodie Foster, and Lily Gladstone—were represented among the acting candidates. Gladstone was also the first actress of Native American descent to receive a nomination. Scott George, the composer and lyricist of “Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People),” made history by being the first Osage Nation nominee to receive an Academy Award nomination.

This year was the fifth time that a woman had directed at least one Best Picture nominee, with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, Celine Song’s Past Lives, and Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall. Additionally, Triet was the eighth female nominee for Best Director. In total, six pairs were nominated together in their respective categories. After winning the prize in 2022, Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell became the youngest two-time Oscar winners in history, at 22 and 26 years old, respectively, for Best Original Song. Following Gangs of New York and The Irishman, Killers of the Flower Moon became Scorsese’s third picture to receive nominations in 10 or more categories without winning a single prize. The Zone of Interest emerged as the inaugural British film to secure the title of International Feature winner. Godzilla Minus One won the Best Visual Effects category, making it the first non-English, Japanese film to do so. At the age of 83, Hayao Miyazaki, the director of The Boy and the Heron, became the oldest director to win Best Animated Feature. Furthermore, The Boy and the Heron won Best Animated Feature for the first time for an animated picture with a PG-13 rating; all previous winners had a G or PG rating.

Other than the awards, the 2024 Oscars were one to remember, bringing the audience to tears at some moments and laughter at others with unscripted scenes. Briefly, Ryan Gosling and Mark Ronson took the stage to perform their Barbie hit “I’m Just Ken.” Gosling kicked off the performance from his seat in the audience behind co-star Margot Robbie, decked out in a hot pink, bedazzled custom Gucci suit, matching leather gloves, and Gucci sunglasses. Gosling was joined by Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa, and more of the Kens from the Barbie film, who took the stage alongside their onscreen leader, donning suits with tails and top hats. Secondly, Messi the Dog, the Anatomy of a Fall star and awards season darling, did make an appearance at the Oscars on Sunday. A source had previously told The Hollywood Reporter that Messi would not be appearing at the Academy Awards after his Los Angeles press tour that saw him attend the Oscars nominees’ luncheon and partake in a press junket. Finally, the most bewildering scene happened as John Cena may have not run across the Oscars stage nude, but he did awkwardly walk to present the award for Best Costume Design.

However, this extravagant ceremony of the film industry ended by giving awards for 24 categories, honoring the films released in 2023, and becoming the most-viewed award ceremony in the United States with 19.5 million viewers on the evening of March 10, 2024.

Written by: Rtr. Lakna Elvitigala