2017 Oscar's Recap: An Awards Ceremony for the Ages

Oscar history was made last night during the finale of The 89th Academy Awards ceremony. If you’ve been off social media for the past 24 hours or somehow missed last night’s chaotic finale, then you would be unaware that two movies won Best Picture! Except in the end there was actually only one victor . . .Moonlight!

'La La Land' Producer Jordan Horowitz confirming 'Moonlight' is actually the Best Picture winner.

Warren Beatty explaining why he announced 'La La Land' as the Best Picture winner.

It hasn’t even been 24 hours yet and there are numerous conspiracy theories popping up every second and of course many unanswered questions. Basically, film legends, Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were getting ready to make the announcement and ended up calling out La La Land because that’s what the card said. The only problem is that they’re card was apparently the “Best Supporting Actress” card and read “Emma Stone, La La Land.” After the entire La La Land team took stage and finished up giving their speeches, it was announced that the wrong card was given to Beatty and Dunaway, and the real winner of the night was Moonlight!

What makes this story so interesting is that Emma Stone claims that she was holding her Best Actress card the entire time and even though the Academy makes duplicates of each card, they are always supposed to be packed away in a suitcase. Whether or not this was set up or just a rare occurrence that happened by mere coincidence, Moonlight will always be remembered for this moment, for better or for worse.

There were quite a few other surprises throughout the night. The other big category that seemed to be the closest race was Best Actor in a Leading Role, which went to Casey Affleck (and deservedly so). There was speculation that Denzel Washington could snag the award for his powerful performance in Fences and apparent “sexual harassment allegations” that were claimed against Casey that started to make critics say that it was Denzel’s award to lose at that point, but in the end Casey took home the gold!

Casey Affleck giving his Best Actor in a Leading Role acceptance speech.

Emma Stone accepting her award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

Emma Stone of course took home the gold for Best Actress in a Leading Role for the performance of her career in La La Land. This was almost a guarantee, but there was minor competition against Isabelle Hubert for her performance in Elle, but in the end Stone took home all of the major awards including her first Oscar!

Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Support Role went to Mahershala Ali (Moonlight) and Viola Davis (Fences). There’s not much to say about these two because they had been winning all of the major awards up until the last night, but both actors showed class and gave great speeches.

An emotional Viola Davis giving a memorable acceptance speech for Best Actress in a  Supporting Role.

Even though La La Land received the unfortunate side of Oscar History last night, it’s director, Damien Chazelle made history by becoming the youngest person to ever win the Oscar for Best Director! So all in all La La Land took home a total of 6 Academy Awards, which was the most out of any other nominee!

Damien Chazelle taking home the Oscar for Best Director and becoming the youngest Director in history to win the award.

Jimmy Kimmel hosted the 89th Academy Awards.

All in all, it was a well-put together ceremony with one of the best hosts yet: Jimmy Kimmel! Kimmel was fast, smart, witty, and did I say witty? There were many funny and memorable moments, but the best part of the night was the ongoing “feud” between Kimmel and Damon. The jokes were well written and the buildup of each joke was executed perfectly. It will be interesting to see how the Oscars are next year and after one of the biggest mishaps in television history. I’m not a betting man, but I can almost 100% guarantee that Warren Beatty will be back to present an award next year for redemption!