The 2024 Oscars were a culmination of sorts, a finish line for a year in which I watched an exorbitant amount of movies and spent almost as much time ranking them and picking favorites. Sure, awards shows are meaningless in the scheme of things, but I have fun with them. I was broadly happy with the nominations and largely agree with Lauryn Moore’s, February 1, take on the “snubs and surprises,” although there were definitely a few favorite smaller movies that I had hoped would get more awards attention. Like in past years, the Oscars remain a great way to expand the kinds of movies you watch and see some of the best of what the year before had to offer. Coming up to the ceremony, I had watched 75% of the total nominated films (acknowledging that many of those were short films) and felt like I had much of my thoughts and hopes worked out.
And the results were positive, I would even say stellar given the lineup. Firstly, “Oppenheimer” definitely deserved best picture. “Barbenheimer” was the cinematic event of the summer and “Oppenheimer” was definitely the better and most deserving of the pair. I have no ill will towards “Barbie” and definitely think it deserved one of the three technical awards that instead went to “Poor Things,” especially production design. Its Best Original Song win for Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For” was also good to see. Nevertheless, I was happy to see “Oppenheimer” clean up this year, winning seven academy awards, including the awards for Directing, Best Actor for Cillian Murphy, and Best Supporting Actor for Robert Downey Jr.
Probably the biggest surprise of the night was Emma Stone beating out Lily Gladstone for Best Actress. This was the only major category that I saw as a true toss-up but I, like I think many people, assumed the voters would give the award to first time nominee Gladstone over Stone, who won for LaLa Land as recently as 2017. Gladstone had also made history as the first Native American woman nominated for Best Actress and had won other awards leading up to the Oscars for her performance. That said, I wasn’t upset with the decision. Both performances were stellar and Stone truly dominated the screen and the audience’s attention in her performance as Bella Baxter in “Poor Things.” Both actresses had incredible control over their performances and were the standouts of their respective films but I came away from both performances most impressed with Stone.
I was most impressed with the International options nominated this year. Both France’s courtroom drama “Anatomy of a Fall” and Poland’s “The Zone of Interest” were strong contenders for all their nominated categories. Personally, one of my favorite movies of 2023 was director Wim Wender’s Japanese slice–of–life movie ‘Perfect Days,” but I wasn’t expecting it to win. I loved that “Anatomy” won Best Original Screenplay and at least came away with one win (more than can be said of Martin Scorcese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which annoyingly walked away with nothing despite being my overall favorite of the year). “The Zone of Interest”’s win for Best Sound was a pleasant surprise. Its subtle but effective use of sound as the near exclusive reminder of the horrors of Auschwitz within the movie was the most deserving of the nominees and I would encourage everyone to seek out the director’s powerful acceptance speech for its Best International Feature win.
Other standout wins came from “The Boy and The Heron” winning best Animated Feature, Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s emotional Best Supporting Actress win, and “The Last Repair Shop” beating out the awful slideshow presentation that was “The ABCs of Book Banning.” I would also be remiss to leave unmentioned the incredible best performance of the night: Ryan Gosling’s show-stealing and much anticipated rendition of “I’m Just Ken.” There were quite a few funny bits by presenters this year, noticeably better than last year, although host Jimmy Kimmel was as average as ever and brought down the energy at times. I would not be surprised if he’s pushed out as host next year for a more popular choice like John Mulaney (whose Field of Dreams non-sequitur was one of my favorite moments of the show).
All in all though, I really enjoyed the Oscars this year. They did their job and picked solid winners without the ceremony being crazy long. I’d call it one of the best ceremonies I can remember and that’s a win in my book.
