The 2021 Oscars

It took 93 years for the Academy to name an Asian woman as best director. And until this year, only five women, all White, had ever been nominated and only one had won — Kathryn Bigelow, in 2010, for “The Hurt Locker.”

But all of this changed Sunday evening, with Chloé Zhao taking home the Academy Award for the critically-acclaimed “Nomadland,” which depicts a woman in her 60s (played by Frances McDormand) traveling through the American West as a van-dwelling nomad. (In an Oscars first, another woman director, Emerald Fennell, was also nominated in the category in the same year).

The Chinese director’s win acknowledges the impact Asian women can exert on the entertainment industry — one that has historically objectified them.

Read more about Zhao’s win here.

Sound of Metal.

The film “Sound of Metal” took home the Oscar tonight for Achievement in Sound.

The award was coincidentally presented by the film’s star, Riz Ahmed, who is also nominated for best actor.

The sound crew included Nicolas Becker, Jaime Baksht, Michelle Couttolenc, Carlos Cortes and Phillip Bladh.

Chloé Zhao won best director Sunday night for “Nomadland.”

She was one of two women nominated in the category — a first for the Academy Awards.

Zhao became the first woman of color and the first woman of Asian descent to earn best director at the Academy Awards.

The Chinese filmmaker said she has “been thinking a lot lately of how I keep going when things got hard.”

Growing up in China she and her father would play a game of memorizing classic Chinese poems and texts which they would recite together. One in particular stood out to her which was titled “The Three Character Classics.”

Zhao recited the first line in both her native language and English.

She said she has “always found goodness” in the people she has met in the world and held up her Oscar, saying, “This is for anyone who has the faith and the courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves and to hold on to the goodness in each other no matter how difficult it is to do that.”

Her film centers on a community of people who travel around the US seeking out gig work.

Bob Beitcher, president and CEO of the Motion Picture and Television Fund, picked up the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for the group’s help and assistance to productions during the coronavirus pandemic.

Beitcher thanked the frontline workers and everyone who helped his group feed those in need.

Actor Bryan Cranston, who presented the award, also applauded 70 vaccinated frontline workers who were at the Dolby Theatre tonight.

Ann Roth won best costume design for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.”

Roth was not present to give a speech.

The other movies in the category were “Emma,” “Mank,” “Mulan” and “Pinocchio.”

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

The crew from “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” took home the Oscar tonight for best makeup and hairstyling.

The crew included Mia Neal, Jamika Wilson, and Sergio Lopez-Rivera.

His role as Black Panther leader Fred Hampton in “Judas and the Black Messiah” won Daniel Kaluuya the best supporting actor award.

“Thank you God. Thank you God,” he said while accepting his award.

The category boasted three Black actors nominated this year, including Kaluuya’s co-star LaKeith Stanfield and “One Night in Miami” star Leslie Odom Jr.

Kaluuya paid tribute to Hampton, saying, “How blessed we are that we lived in a lifetime where he existed.”

“When they played divide and conquer, we say unite and ascend,” he added.

Kaluuya also thanked Hampton’s son Fred Hampton Jr. and his namesake’s mother, Akua Njeri.

The actor may have some explaining to do to his own mom after the camera caught her stunned response to his joke about being so happy to be alive given that his parents had sex.

Another Round.

The Oscar for best international feature film went to Denmark’s “Another Round” at the 93rd Academy Awards on tonight.

Actress Laura Dern presented the award and said she’s had a love for foreign language films since she was a little girl.

He also began to cry while saying that he lost his daughter while filming the movie. “We ended up making this movie for her, as her monument … you’re a part of this miracle maybe you’ve been pulling some strings somewhere but this one is for you.”

The Father.

A film about a man struggling with Alzheimer’s disease won for best adapted screenplay.

Co-writer Florian Zeller thanked his co-writer Christopher Hampton.

Promising Young Woman.

Emerald Fennell took home the Oscar tonight for best original screenplay for her movie “Promising Young Woman.”

What an opening.

After a walk that looked like she was a runway model, Regina King opened the Oscars with a hopeful monologue.

If things had gone differently in the trial of former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin, she says, she probably would have been out marching instead of presenting.

She mentioned that the ceremony was not masked because everyone there has been tested, retested, vaccinated.

“When we’re rolling masks off, and when we are not rolling, masks on,” she told the crowd.

The 93rd Academy Awards in Los Angeles is now starting.

You can watch it on ABC, which will stream the ceremony on its website, but you have to sign in with your cable TV provider or livestreaming service.

From center front to back: LaKeith Stanfield as William O’Neal and Daniel Kaluuya as Chairman Fred Hampton in "Judas and the Black Messiah."

Even before the envelopes are opened, the 93rd Academy Awards already have made their mark with some historic firsts.

Here are some of them:

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People wearing face masks on an escalator and stairs at a subway station on April 23, in Guangzhou, China.

One of this year’s Oscar nominees, “Do Not Split,” is a documentary about the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests. But residents of Hong Kong who participated in — or were affected by — the movement cannot watch the awards ceremony this year.

That’s because Hong Kong’s leading broadcaster, Television Broadcasts Limited (TBL), is not airing the Academy Awards for the first time in more than 50 years. A TBL spokesperson told CNN last month that it was “purely a commercial decision.” But that decision comes in the same year as “Do Not Split” and Chloe Zhao, the Beijing-born film maker who wrote and directed the Best Picture-nominated drama “Nomadland,” both faced criticism in mainland China.

Speaking with CNN’s John Avlon on “Reliable Sources” Sunday, “Do Not Split” director and co-producer Anders Hammer said his team expected the Chinese government to react to the documentary, but not in this way.

“It’s basically a movie about a big group of mostly young people standing up against Beijing,” Hammer said. “Beijing is known to react very strongly if they feel that their main political aims are creating resistance. In our documentary, we are portraying these protesters, so it was no surprise that Beijing reacted, but we didn’t know that it would be in this form of censorship which affects the whole Oscars.”

Hammer said “basic democratic rights were disappearing very fast from the city” when his documentary was filmed and that the crackdown has continued. Avlon noted 96 journalists were arrested and held behind bars in China in 2019 and 2020, citing data from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

“I hope the world will care because it’s really dark times in Hong Kong,” Hammer said. “I’m frightened by how fast the whole city has changed and how fast it’s actually possible to just remove all these political freedoms.”

The Academy did not respond to a request for comment.

From left to right: Mads Mikkelsen, Lars Ranthe, Magnus Millang and Thomas Bo Larsen in "Another Round."

In a just world, the booze-soaked function rooms of the annual awards circuit would have spent the last few months raising a glass to Thomas Vinterberg.

The Oscar-nominated director of “Another Round” has collected several garlands already, including a BAFTA, for his film about a quartet of Danish teachers who embark on a drinking experiment to shake off the ennui of middle age.

If ever a movie was suited to the bacchanalian rituals of Oscars season, his might be it. Alas, the pandemic.

Starring Mads Mikkelsen alongside other Vinterberg regulars Thomas Bo Larsen, Magnus Millang and Lars Ranthe, the film’s characters Martin, Tommy, Nikolaj and Peter test out a psuedo-scientific hypothesis that humans are born with less alcohol in their blood than required for optimum performance.

Seeking to rectify that (and then some) they drink through the day, swigging from sports bottles, sniffing spirits and downing heady Sazerac cocktails of cognac and absinthe, recording their findings as they go. But as they start seeing the benefits, issues arise in their personal lives.

Mads Mikkelsen and Thomas Vinterberg on the set of "Another Round."

At first blush, its good-natured look at learning to find happiness again appears a long way from Vinterberg’s roots in Dogme 95, the radical filmmaking movement he co-founded in the 1990s, which disavowed cinematic conventions, denounced the industry’s artifice and even disallowed directors a credit. And yet elements arguably linger in its DNA.

Whatever reading of the film you make, its success at the box office and recognition at the Oscars — the heart of the establishment, where it is nominated for best international film and Vinterberg for best director — represents a remarkable career arc for the Dane.

It’s also remarkable that the film exists at all. In 2019, Vinterberg experienced a terrible personal tragedy when his daughter Ida died in a car accident. She had been set to perform in the movie, which was filmed on location at her school. The project went on hiatus; when the director returned, he would go on to make the most uplifting film of his career.

Ahead of the Academy Awards on April 25, CNN spoke with Vinterberg about what makes a good drunk performance, how “Another Round” connects with his other work, and finding a higher purpose on a film set.

Read the full interview here.

 Questlove performs onstage during the 92nd Annual Academy Awards at Dolby Theatre on February 09, 2020 in Hollywood, California.

If you’ve never been on the red carpet for the Academy Awards, you may not understand that you have got to make sure your footwear is up to the task.

There can be a whole lot of standing and walking around and the awards show’s musical director Questlove came prepared in his gold Crocs.

That’s right, The Roots drummer and everyone’s favorite DJ was sporting all black everything except for his comfy footwear.

He said during the pre-show that “Essentially The Roots are the house band tonight.”

“But of course because of the life that we’re living now…the life that we’re in we basically pre-did all the music beforehand and I’m DJing that music,” he said. “Anything musical you hear tonight that’s me controlling that.”

Pixar Animation Studios’ "Soul."

We asked some of our friends around CNN what was the best movie they’ve streamed this year. Here’s what they said:

Bill Weir, correspondent

Laura Jarrett, Early Start anchor

Miguel Marquez, CNN national correspondent

Kate Bolduan

Fredricka Whitfield, CNN Newsroom anchor

Phil Mattingly, senior White House correspondent

Stephanie Elam

An Oscar statue is displayed on the eve of the 92nd Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, in February 2020.

Hong Kong’s leading TV broadcaster will not air the Academy Awards for the first time in more than half a century.

Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB) has been home to the awards in Hong Kong since 1969. Its decision not to broadcast the ceremony this year was “purely a commercial decision,” a spokesperson said.

But the decision to drop the Oscars comes as two nominees — “Do Not Split,” a documentary about the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and Chloe Zhao, who wrote and directed the drama “Nomadland” — face heated criticism in mainland China. Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg reported earlier this month that China’s propaganda department ordered all local media outlets not to broadcast the ceremony live and to downplay coverage of the awards.

More background: Hong Kong has several other major local broadcasters, including Now TV, Cable TV, Viu TV and Open TV.

CNN Business has reached out to all four for comment. Open TV said it doesn’t have the broadcast rights to the awards show. It wasn’t immediately clear whether one of the others has acquired them.

Zhao, who was born in China, recently made history as the first woman of Asian descent to win a Golden Globe for best director. Her film “Nomadland” is nominated for several Oscars, including best picture, best director, best actress and best adapted screenplay.

Academy Awards crew member Mike Morrisroe cleans an Oscar statue design on the red carpet at Union Station, one of the locations for Sunday's 93rd Academy Awards on April 24, in Los Angeles. 

The Oscars have always been an ad for going to the movies, but as we head into this year’s ceremony on Sunday, the future of movie-going and the Academy Awards themselves are as uncertain as they’ve ever been in the show’s 93-year history.

Popular box-office hits have been few and far between when it comes to winning Best Picture in recent years, so the films that have won may not be as familiar to general audiences as they once were. Now — following a year that saw streaming emerge as a lifeline for studios with no other way to distribute their movies — that seems to be even more the case. Going forward, some of the biggest winners of an awards show that celebrates going to the movies may be films that never see the inside of a theater.

This year, five of the eight movies vying for best picture premiered via streaming, on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and HBO Max, which is owned by CNN’s parent company WarnerMedia. Disney also bypassed theaters with its nominee for best animated film, “Soul,” as it dealt with the realities of lockdown and sought to built up its nascent streaming platform, Disney+.

If 2020 was in some respects a lost year for the movie industry — and certainly for theaters — there’s still little sense of what the new normal will be. It could be a future in which blockbusters play primarily in theaters while smaller awards fare skip theaters entirely.

However, Dergarabedian added, “The currency of whatever ‘bump’ the Oscars provide will likely never be the same.”

Read more here.

CNN’s Chloe Melas speaks to top entertainment editors about their Oscar predictions.

Watch:

Preparations continue for the 93rd Academy Awards at Union Station in Los Angeles on April 24.

Before the Grammys, producer Ben Winston — eyeing recent history for such events during this pandemic year — conceded that he was anticipating a major rating decline, a prediction that came true.

Organizers of the Academy Awards are avoiding crystal balls, but they too appear resigned to the grim prospect that, for all their efforts and precautions, a disappointing number of viewers will tune in Sunday night. The question, in fact, seems goes beyond just how low ratings will go in this lost year to whether award shows can rebound from the declines already witnessed in 2020 and 2021 if and when the world returns to a semblance of normalcy.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, director Steven Soderbergh, who is among this year’s Oscar producers, dismissed ratings concerns by saying, “We’re worrying about things that we can control and that’s not on that list.” The priority, he added, was to provide the winners “the opportunity to stand up in a room, be handed an Oscar and have that moment. Even though it’s been an incredibly challenging year, we didn’t want to cheat them out of that experience.”

Yet focusing on the nominees and winners overlooks that these award shows are themselves commercial enterprises, faced with the task of attracting an audience. If they don’t, advertising for such events will slide, and the spigot of revenue the organizations behind them rely on will gradually dry up.

More context: The New York Times reported that ABC, which airs the Oscars, is still seeking $2 million per each 30-second spot, a double-digit decline from last year’s ads, but almost assuredly less than the overall audience will fall.

In terms of solutions, the process of righting the ship, if that’s still possible, might begin with clearly identifying the problems. Even before the pandemic, the persistent slide in award-show ratings prompted ABC and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to toy with the idea of a “popular film” category, a proposal that was nixed after considerable criticism in 2018.

Still, while the Academy has recognized several very good films this century, “popular” generally hasn’t described them. As Variety reported, not one best-picture winner has cracked the top 10 box-office-wise since “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” capped off that trilogy in 2004.

Oscar statuettes are backstage during the Academy Awards in Hollywood, California, in February 2020.

Seventy women received a total 76 nominations, according to the Academy Awards, a record for a given year.

Two women, Emerald Fennell and Chloé Zhao, were nominated in the directing category in the same year for the first time.

Zhao is the first woman of color to be nominated in the category.

“Mank,” Netflix’s black and white drama about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz’s development of the screenplay for the legendary film “Citizen Kane,” led among the nominated films with 10 nods.

In light of the discussion around diversity and the Oscars, it is notable that three Black men, Leslie Odom Jr. for “One Night in Miami” and Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield for “Judas and the Black Messiah,” were all nominated in the best supporting actor category.

Husband and wife stars Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra Jonas announced the nominations live from London.

See a full list of nominees here.

CNN’s Chloe Melas interviews Suzy Amis Cameron, founder of Red Carpet Green Dress, and CEO Samata Pattinson ahead of the 2021 Oscars.

Watch:

Frances McDormand in "Nomadland."

In years past unless you made it to a theater multiple times, you probably didn’t get a chance to see all the films nominated for best picture at the Oscars.

But Covid-19 changed that.

With most theaters closed due to the pandemic, streaming became the way to enjoy many of the latest films.

The 93rd Academy Awards are happening tonight and here’s how you can watch this year’s movies nominated for movie of the year:

An Academy Awards crew member prepares a backdrop for the red carpet at Union Station in Los Angeles on April 24.

Amid a global pandemic, shuttered movie theaters and after a two-month delay, this Sunday’s 93rd Academy Awards are already poised to feel very different than in previous years.

Here’s what we know about the show:

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