February 28, 2016 was one the biggest nights in the movie industry: The Oscars.
The 88th Academy Awards were held at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood. Female celebrities were dolled up in beautiful gowns, ranging from Dior to Versace to Louis Vuitton — the men were as handsome as ever in formal black tie suits.
Here’s a quick recap in case you missed the spectacular event:
Chris Rock opened the show with a comedic speech about the discriminatory problem at the Oscars. He even made a comment towards Jada Pinkett-Smith, who recently commented that she was going to boycott the Oscars because no African Americans were nominated.
“Everybody went mad [this year] … Jada [Pinkett Smith] got mad. Jada said she’s not coming. Isn’t she on a TV show? Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties. I wasn’t invited,” Rock says. Although the speech was borderline discriminatory, he had the audience applauding and laughing. He eased the situation with his comedic character and hosted the Oscars excellently.
A big leader of the night was the movie Mad Max: Fury Road. The movie won 6 Academy Awards, receiving the most awards of the night.
Brie Larson won Best Actress in a Leading Role for her performance in the movie The Room, beating out fellow contesters Jennifer Lawrence, Cate Blanchett, Charlotte Rampling and Saoirse Ronan. This was Larson’s first Academy Award.
A big surprise of the night was the winner of Best Picture. The award went toSpotlight, and it was a quite a shock to everyone. The award was thought to be going to The Revenant, but when the last award was given out, everyone in the building was on their feet clapping for the remarkable work of Spotlight.
Alejandro González Iñárritu took home the Oscar for Best Director for his work on The Revenant. He became the first back-to-back Mexican filmmaker to win this prestigious award. He won last year for his work on Birdman.
Another big uproar of the night was Sam Smith’s win for Original Song. He won for the song “Writing’s on The Wall” for the movie Spectre. He also performed it during the show and he commented afterwards that it was, “the worst moment of my life.”
For Animated Feature Film, Inside Out won. The film beat out fellow competitors Anomalisa, Boy and the World, Shaun the Sheep Movie and When Marnie Was There.
The biggest moment of the night was when Leonardo DiCaprio won for Best Actor in a Leading Role in The Revenant. DiCaprio has been nominated five other times for an Oscar and has been denied the honor every time. His first nomination was in 1993 for Best Supporting Actor in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Finally after 23 years, DiCaprio was appreciated for his craft in the film industry.
DiCaprio’s win was the highlight of the night as he single handedly had the most praise of the entire evening. Kate Winslet, who is a longtime friend and fellow actress in Hollywood, was the most congratulatory towards DiCaprio. The pair has been friends for nearly 19 years and have shown their support for one another openly over the years. The relationship between the two is the real definition of friendship goals.
Between DiCaprio’s long awaited win, the beautiful designer dresses and the dashing men, the 88th Academy Awards was truly a night that will go down in history.
