“Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Black Panther” and “Green Book” were among the winners at the 91st Academy Awards on Sunday.
“Bohemian Rhapsody” received the most awards with four, in the areas of Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Rami Malek’s performance as Freddie Mercury.
Malek is the first person of Egyptian descent to be awarded Best Actor.
“Green Book” took home the biggest award of the night, Best Picture, while also grabbing wins in Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Mahershala Ali’s performance as Don Shirley.
Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” also won three Oscars, in Best Director for Cuarón, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography. This is Cuarón’s second Oscar for Best Director after winning the award for his 2013 film “Gravity.”
Spike Lee made history after winning his first Oscar on Sunday. He took home Best Adapted Screenplay for the film “BlacKkKlansman.”
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” won Best Animated Feature. This is the first year since 2006 that Disney or Pixar did not win the Academy Award for this category.
Other notable winners include Olivia Colman for Best Actress for her performance in “The Favourite,” Mahershala Ali for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in “Green Book” and Regina King for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in “If Beale Street Could Talk.”
Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper won Best Original Song for “Shallow,” as featured in the film “A Star is Born.”
The ceremony went on without a host, making Sunday’s Academy Awards the first ceremony without a designated host since 1989. The ceremony adapted by having celebrities and previous Oscar winners present awards with a few of the Best Original Song nominees performing their nominated songs in between award presentations.
Every nominee for Best Original Song performed during the award ceremony except for Kendrick Lamar and SZA. Lamar and SZA were both nominated for their song, “All the Stars,” which was featured in “Black Panther.”
It was reported by NBC that Lamar and SZA would not perform in the award ceremony, despite the Academy attempting to secure a spot for their performance.
Reactions were mixed regarding the winners and the ceremony in general. One writer from the Los Angeles Times was upset about “Green Book” winning Best Picture, saying it is the worst Best Picture winner since 2004’s “Crash.”
This was following many issues the Academy ran across in preparation for the ceremony, including adding (and then removing) a Best Popular Movie category, failing to secure a designated host and then moving the award presentations for Best Cinematography and Editing to commercial breaks. However, the Academy put the presentations for said categories back into the broadcast after receiving backlash from movie fans and filmmakers, alike.
As of Feb. 25, ratings for this year’s Academy Awards show an increase in viewership from 2018’s ceremony at 29.6 million people, a 3.1 million increase.
Angel Ortega can be reached at [email protected] and @AngelOrtegaNews on Twitter.
