For a night with relatively few surprises but some very enjoyable winners, it was a solid show that honored an awful lot of good movies, and movies that drew significant audiences.
Nolan took home the Oscar for best director for the sprawling biopic Oppenheimer; it was Nolan's second nomination for directing and first win in the category.
Randolph has been on a hot streak this awards season, garnering accolades from BAFTA, the Screen Actors Guild, the National Board of Review, and many critics' circles.
Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer capped off a big night at the Oscars by being the popular and highly regarded director's first film to win the top prize.
Follow along with NPR film critics as we watch the 96th Academy Awards: We'll have award predictions, last-minute menu ideas for your Oscars party, updates from the red carpet, and much more.
This year's Academy Awards ceremony is shaping up to be one of the most audience-friendly, well-rounded Oscar nights in a long time. Still, a critic can dream.
When you sit down to watch the Oscars, what you are really watching is the final battle in a months-long war of financial engineering and campaign strategy. Because in Hollywood, every year is an election year. A small army of Oscars campaign strategists help studios and streamers deploy tens of millions of dollars to sway Academy voters. And the signs of these campaigns are everywhere — from the endless celebrity appearances on late night TV to the billboards along your daily commute.
On today's show, we hit the Oscars campaign trail to learn how these campaigns got so big in the first place. And we look into why Hollywood is still spending so much chasing gold statues, when the old playbook for how to make money on them is being rewritten.
This episode was hosted by Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi. It was produced by Emma Peaslee and edited by Jess Jiang. It was engineered by Cena Loffredo and fact checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer.
From a perceived Barbie snub to the notching of a few significant historical firsts, this awards season has magnified the flaws in how art is celebrated and valued.
Does climate change exist? And does a character know it? Barbie,Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Oneand Nyad met the criteria for a new challenge inspired by the famous Bechdel Test.
From war to injustice and religious extremism, the documentary finalists are thematically harrowing stories from around the world. Each is a triumph of storytelling and craft.
They range in themes, languages and political urgency, but this year's stellar five nominees for the Best International Feature Film Oscar are each deserving of your time for their distinct pleasures.
