The 96th Academy Awards took place on March 10th and was an extremely exciting night. This Oscar’s held historic nominations including Lily Gladstone being the fourth Native American woman nominated for the Best Actress category and Martin Scorsese surpassing Steven Spielberg’s Best Director nominations at a whopping 10 nominations throughout his career. Diane Warren also furthered her lead in the Best Original Song category with 16 nominations. These historic nominations are just the tip of the iceberg of the exciting moments that the awards ceremony had in store for us. 

Oppenheimer received a whopping 13 nominations and managed to take awards in 7 different categories. Oppenheimer received awards in Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director, Best Picture, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, and Best Film Editing. This was Cillian Murphy’s first Oscar for his incredible portrayal of Robert Oppenheimer. Robert Downey Jr. also won his first Oscar in the Best Supporting Actor category. This outstanding sweep ended with Christopher Nolan winning Best Director making it his first win in the category. 

The Best Actress category was a very close race as many talented actresses were nominated. The nominees for this category consisted of Emma Stone for Poor Things, Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon, Carey Mulligan for Maestro, Annette Bening for Nyad, and Sandra Hüller for Anatomy of a Fall. The race was extremely close between two women in general: Emma Stone and Lily Gladstone. Lily Gladstone, an indigenous woman from the Blackfeet Nation, was favored to be the winner by many. She would’ve been the first Native American woman to ever win the category. Both woman had outstanding preformces in their respective movies. Emma Stone’s name was announced and the entire crowd went quiet with shock. Stone was visually shocked that she won the award. During her heartwarming speech, she congratulates all the women nominated and acknowledges all her team’s hard work by saying, “This exciting category makes us excited to see the competition for next season”. 

There were several show stopping performances at this year’s Oscars performed by nominees for the Best Original Song category. Ryan Gosling had a spectacular performance of his hit song “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie. Gosling was seen in a sparkly pink suit and was accompanied by Guns N’ Roses’ guitarist Slash, Wolgang Van Halen, and several actors from Barbie. Becky G also sang her song “The Fire Inside'' written by Diane Warren who was nominated for her 16th Oscar for Best Original Song. Billie Eilish and Finneas performed their song “What was I Made For?” from Barbie. This dynamic sibling duo ended up taking the Oscar home for Best Original Song. The rest of the nominees also had amazing performances that made this one of the hardest categories in history to decide!

This Oscar’s season leaves us with records broken by the inductees. Cillian Murphy became the first actor born in Ireland to win the Best Actor award. Billie Ellish and Finneas also have broken the record for youngest two-time Oscar winners in any category. These are just some of the many historic wins during this Academy Awards. We can’t wait to see what historic moments will happen during the next Oscar’s season!