The 92nd Academy Awards were held in Los Angeles on February 9th, 2020.
While there was still a lack of female nominees (mainly for the “Best Director” category), there was a lot of success for Joaquin Phoenix’s performance as Joker and for the esteemed international film, Parasite.
Parasite won “Best Original Screenplay”, “Best Director,” “Best International Film,” and “Best Picture,” which was the first non-English speaking film to win “Best Picture.”
The writer-director of Parasite, Bong Jon Ho, received four awards in a single night.
That number of awards won in one night has not happened since 1953 with Walt Disney.
Similar to the Golden Globes, Joaquin Phoenix won “Best Actor” for his Joker, Renée Zellwegerwon “Best Actress” for her portrayal of Hollywood actress Judy Garland in Judy.
Laura Dern won “Best Supporting Actress” for Marriage Story and Brad Pit won “Best Supporting Actor” for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Other Oscar winners include Elton John and Bernie Taupin for “Best Original Song” and Roger Deakins won “Best Cinematography” for 1917.
Eminem gave a surprising performance, who performed his Oscar-winning song “Lose Yourself” surprised both viewers and Martin Scorsese, who seemed greatly unimpressed.
While Hollywood still has a gender imbalance when it comes to filmmaking and award season, 44 percent of the nominees were women or part of a team, which is the highest it has ever been in Oscar history.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) was initially called the International Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, founded by Louis B. Mayer, who was the head of Metro-Goldwyn, in 1927.
The first Academy Awards were held in 1929 on May 16th with 13 awards, this year they presented in 24 categories.
The Governor’s Board of the AMPAS received hundreds of potential nominations and votes on which films to nominate.
Then, each member of the AMPAS votes within their respective field (e.g. cinematographers vote for “Best Cinematography” and producers vote for “Best Picture”).
The first and only female director to win “Best Director” was Katherine Bigalow for directing The Hurt Locker (2012).