95th Oscars: The Academy Award Winners - Live Updates

Solzy at the Movies will be providing live updates as the 95th Oscars are broadcast live from the Dolby Theatre on ABC.

Glenn Weiss and Ricky Kirshner are producing the 95th Oscars while Jimmy Kimmel returns for his third hosting stint. Kimmel previously hosted in 2017 and 2018. If you recall, Kimmel was on hand during Envelopegate, which is covered in Michael Schulman’s new book, Oscar Wars. Here’s to hoping nothing controversial happens tonight, even if it might back for exciting television.

Legendary composer John Williams has his 53rd nomination tonight, winning five Oscars to date. He is the composer for 25 of Steven Spielberg’s 27 films. At 91 years old, he is the oldest living Oscar nominee. Could his score for The Fabelmans win tonight or might Justin Hurwitz repeat with his score for Babylon? We’ll see what happens.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the film with all of the momentum heading into tonight. If you go off of the last few weeks, it’s the film to beat. Aside from BAFTA, which skews towards British films, the film has won all the awards it needs to win. If Jamie Lee Curtis wins Supporting Actress tonight, it will mean a big night for the film. The other question of the night is Best Actress. Will Michelle Yeoh become the first person of color since Halle Berry or will Cate Blanchett repeat tonight? This is certainly one of the big questions going into the show. In any event, it is one of the final awards so we’ll be waiting a while.

While I’ll be updating the winners throughout the telecast, we already know the order of the awards. As usual, they’re starting out with one of the supporting awards while saving the big four for the end.

The 95th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 12, 2023, at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood and will be televised live on ABC at 8 p.m. EDT/5 p.m. PDT.

Live Show Updates/Analysis

Jimmy Kimmel enters by way of the Top Gun: Maverick theme. Check out my interview with Lorne Balfe to see how they brought back the “Danger Zone” last year. Kimmel’s monologue includes a Nicole Kidman joke about her being let out of an abandoned AMC.

“Steven Spielberg and Seth Rogen…the Joe and Hunter Biden of Hollywood.” But in all seriousness, the first director to be nominated in six different decades.

Now we’re getting onto jokes about the finances. James Cameron isn’t at the show tonight. “How does the Academy not nominate the guy who directed Avatar? What do they think he is-a woman?”

Kimmel plus two films not nominated tonight: The Woman King and Till. Tom Cruise isn’t at the show either or maybe he’s wearing a Judd Hirsch mask.

Of course, there are jokes about the slap and the crisis team on hand. Kimmel points out everyone that must be tackled should someone try to make their way to the stage. “There will be no nonsense tonight. We have no time for shenanigans.” “I saw all your movies. Now it’s my turn to make you sit in a theater for three and a half hours.”

The Oscars are on ABC so of course they pull out the Disney100 ad and make me start crying.

With Jamie Lee Curtis winning Best Supporting Actress, I feel confident in saying Everything Everywhere All at Once is winning Best Picture. It’s safe to say right now that Michelle Yeoh will also repeat her SAG win for Best Actress. Angela Bassett had a lot of momentum heading into the BAFTA Awards. The Black Panther: Wakanda Forever star was never able to get it back as Curtis took the award at SAG.

The new trailer for The Little Mermaid is online now. Halle Bailey and Melissa McCarthy debuted the trailer during the broadcast. Rob Marshall directs from a screenplay written by two-time Oscar nominee David Magee. You can be part of this world on May 26, 2023.

As a transgender woman, I do want to thank the Academy for not giving the win to trans trauma porn. At a time when transphobia is so bad, it still begs the question of why trans trauma porn is even getting nominated.

It’s Creed vs. Anderson in what is otherwise the year of Jonathan Majors. How Greig Fraser didn’t get nominated for The Batman is beyond me. Roger Deakins was right to speak out.

David Byrne is wearing hot dog fingers as Stephanie Hsu joins him in singing “This Is A Life.”

The Oscars are celebrating 100 Years of Warner Brothers. There are a pair of books celebrating the anniversary this year: Warner Brothers: 100 Years of Storytelling (Mark A. Vieira, Running Press) and The Warner Brothers (Chris Yogerst, University Press of Kentucky). Anyway, the studio is using Oscar night to premiere a new ad for the anniversary.

Jenny, the star of The Banshees of Inisherin, attends the Oscars as an emotional support donkey.

During one of the commercial breaks, FX aired a spot to let audiences know that The Bear returns for season 2 in June.

Jimmy Kimmel jokes that because of Daylight Saving Time, they’ve added an hour to the telecast. He then introduces Academy President Janet Yang, who introduces Academy CEO Bill Kramer. There’s an Academy Museum promo, which mentions something about honoring the Jewish founders. Is the exhibit open yet? It wasn’t open in November!

I’m not scanning the QR code and you can’t make me!

Tom Cruise might have saved movies but he isn’t at the show tonight. Lady Gaga represents the film on stage by singing “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick.

Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant raise the vital awareness of using a good moisturizer.

Academy CEO Bill Kramer uses his time to discuss Academy’s Governors Awards that are no longer presented during the Oscars telecast. They haven’t been televised since before the first Governors Awards ceremony in November 2009. Bring them back or televise it on its own!

Elizabeth Banks presents visual effects with the Cocaine Bear. With a hoarse voice, Banks mentions which ones aren’t real and which ones are real. Tom Cruise flying is real as is Wakanda. The Cocaine Bear keeps dancing–identify yourself at once!

“If anyone’s interested, the Visual Effects Afterparty is at CGI Fridays.”

Leave Chris Pine, Harry Styles and the Don’t Worry Darling premiere out of this.

“I didn’t really have a lot of scenes with him so it’s fine” – Jessica Chastain on working with Matt Damon. Hey, who let the bear out into the audience?

Jimmy Kimmel asks the audience to vote on if they think Robert Blake should be a part of the In Memoriam montage.

John Travolta introduces the In Memoriam montage. The internet will soon get loud over who got snubbed. He’s fighting back the tears.

Only three awards remain for the evening. Everything Everywhere All at Once is almost certainly going to win the big prize. Michelle Yeoh goes into her category with a slight lead over Cate Blanchett.

It’s official. For the first time since Halle Berry over twenty years ago, another person of color has won Best Actress. Oscars makes history again as we also have the first Asian woman to win Best Actress.

Everything Everywhere All at Once finishes with seven wins out of eleven nominations for the night. All Quiet on the Western Front is next with four wins out of nine nominations.

And the Oscar goes to…

Best animated feature film of the year: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio; Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson, Gary Ungar, and Alex Bulkley
Performance by an actor in a supporting role: Ke Huy Quan, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Performance by an actress in a supporting role: Jamie Lee Curtis, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Best documentary feature: Navalny; Daniel Roher, Odessa Rae, Diane Becker, Melanie Miller, and Shane Boris
Best live action short film: An Irish Goodbye, Tom Berkeley and Ross White
Achievement in cinematography: James Friend, All Quiet on the Western Front
Achievement in makeup and hairstyling: The Whale; Adrien Morot, Judy Chin, and Anne Marie Bradley
Achievement in costume design: Ruth Carter, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Best international feature film of the year: All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany)
Best documentary short subject: The Elephant Whisperers, Kartiki Gonsalves and Guneet Monga
Best animated short film: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, Charlie Mackesy and Matthew Freud
Achievement in production design: All Quiet on the Western Front; Production Design: Christian M. Goldbeck; Set Decoration: Ernestine Hipper
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score): Volker Bertelmann, All Quiet on the Western Front
Achievement in visual effects: Avatar: The Way of Water; Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, and Daniel Barrett
Original screenplay: Everything Everywhere All at Once, Written by Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert
Adapted screenplay: Women Talking, Screenplay by Sarah Polley
Achievement in sound: Top Gun: Maverick, Mark Weingarten, James H. Mather, Al Nelson, Chris Burdon and Mark Taylor
Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song): “Naatu Naatu” from RRR; Music by M.M. Keeravaani, Lyric by Chandrabose
Achievement in film editing: Paul Rogers, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Achievement in directing: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Performance by an actor in a leading role: Brendan Fraser, The Whale
Performance by an actress in a leading role: Michelle Yeoh, Everything Everywhere All at Once
Best motion picture of the year: Everything Everywhere All at Once; Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert, and Jonathan Wang, Producers