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The cast of La La Land visibly confused and handing their awards to the cast of Moonlight.Credit: Getty Images
Confusion and shock ensued today at the final and most anticipated award of the 2017 Academy Awards, after presenter Warren Beatty incorrectly announced the winner of the Best Picture category to be La La Land, rather than the true winner Moonlight. Beatty was given the envelope and card for the previous gong, the Best Actress Award, which read “Emma Stone – La La Land”. He assumed that must mean La La Land had won Best Picture.
Moonlight
Moonlight has officially won the 2017 Academy Award for Best Picture, the final and most anticipated award of the evening. Directed by Barry Jenkins, Moonlight centres on the moving story of a gay black man’s coming of age. It has proved itself to be a critical hit film since its premiere at the Telluride film festival in 2016. Earlier tonight, Moonlight scored Mahershala Ali the Best Supporting Actor award for his role as Juan, a drug dealer who acts as a father figure to the protagonist Chiron. Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney were awarded the winners of the Best Writing Adapted Screenplay category. Moonlight was nominated for a total of eight awards tonight. For the Best Picture Award at least, Moonlight will certainly be a memorable victory.
These were the other incredible nominees:
LA LA LAND
La La Land, the record-breaking original musical tells the story of Mia (Emma Stone), an aspiring actress, and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a dedicated jazz musician, who fall in love in the “city of stars”, Los Angeles. The film itself is an ode to musicals, love and the city of L.A. Critics and fans alike have been singing its praises since its release. La La Land’s 14 nominations tonight equals the most ever received by a film. The film already made history at the Golden Globes earlier this month when it won all seven of the awards for which it received nominations. Tonight, La La Land won Damien Chazelle the award for Best Director, Emma Stone the award for Best Actress, Justin Hurwitz that for Best Original Music Score, Linus Sandgren the award for Best Cinematography, and David Wasco and Sally Reynolds-Wasco the award for Best Production Design.
Fences
Fences centres on a family in Pittsburgh in 1957. Troy Maxson is bitter about missing the integration of professional baseball, and his attitudes towards life and race relations upset his relationships with his wife Rose (Viola Davis) and son Cory (Jovan Adepo), an aspiring football player. At tonight’s ceremony, Viola Davis was awarded Best Supporting Actress for her role. Davis paid tribute to the original Fences’ playwright, August Wilson, who “exhumed and exulted the ordinary people”.
Lion
Based on Saroo Brierley’s autobiography A Long Way Home, Lion tells the true story of how five-year-old Saroo (the impossibly cute Sunny Pawar), gets lost on the streets of Calcutta, thousands of kilometres from home. He survives many challenges before being adopted by an Australian couple. 25 years later Saroo (Dev Patel) sets out to find his lost family. Lion was nominated for 6 Oscars tonight.
Arrival
Denis Villeneuve’s stunning alien invasion film Arrival is one of a very small handful of science fiction films to have become nominated for the Best Picture category. The film follows the struggles of linguistics professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams), who U.S. officials have asked to team with theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly to learn how to communicate with the aliens. While Louise races to learn the aliens’ language, the governments around the globe debate military action. Arrival has already won Sylvain Bellemare an award tonight for Best Sound Editing.
Hacksaw Ridge
Hacksaw Ridge is the extraordinary true story of Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) a Seventh-day Adventist from rural Virginia, who enlists in the army during World War II despite his pacifist beliefs. After Desmond’s desire to serve as an unarmed medic is approved, he is sent to the Pacific arena, where he saves many lives during the Battle of Okinawa. Hacksaw Ridge has already won John Gilbert the award for Best Film Editing, and the award for Best Sound Mixing was won by Andy Wright, Peter Grace, Kevin O’Connell and Robert Mackenzie. Australian Kevin O’Connell has now broken his unique record: the most Oscar nominations without a win, which was 20 in all.
Hell or High Water
Hell or High Water, the acclaimed Western that became a surprise indie hit, focuses on the bank robberies of Toby Howard (Chris Pine) and ex-con brother Tanner (Ben Foster), who attempt to obtain enough money to prevent the foreclosure of their family ranch. As the seasoned Texas Ranger Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) is soon to be on the case, the brothers attempt one last score. It’s a film about the old Texas clashing with the new, and about how far people will push the boundaries of the law to do something they think is right.
Hidden Figures
Hidden Figures is a film about three mathematically and technologically gifted women of colour battling protocols and social constructs at NASA in the early 1960s. As the U.S. seeks to surpass the Soviet Union in the space race, the women must cope with racism and sexism while performing vital tasks at NASA’s segregated Virginia facilities. Hidden Figures was nominated for three awards tonight, including Best Supporting Actress for Octavia Spencer.
Manchester by the Sea
Manchester by the Sea follows the story of handyman Lee Chandler. When Chandler’s beloved older brother dies, he returns to his hometown, a close-knit fishing community in Massachusetts. There, Lee struggles to deal with his grief and another tragedy from his past whilst also finding the strength to comfort his teenage nephew, who has been left in his care. At tonight’s awards, Kenneth Lonergan won the Best Original Screenplay for Hacksaw Ridge.
