Oscars 2021 — Here Are the Winners of the 93rd Edition

Nomadland

As the night starts off, Nomadland is the favorite of the night, as has been the case for the last few months. The Father, starring Anthony Hopkins, is seen as the shark in Jaws, threatening to take a bite at several categories including Best Actor (against Chadwick Boseman) and Best Adapted Screenplay (against Nomadland). You can check out our predictions for the night here, and in the list below, how many we actually got right.

 

The show felt overall very smooth, with the producers allowing the winners to go at it with their long speeches, with almost no interruptions, and next to no mid-ceremony performances or interruptions of any kind (except for commercials). The pandemic was very present, and it did feel like a strange, while at the same time, familiar, which is probably the sensation the producers were aiming at. All five nominated songs for Best Original Song were performed while the red carpet was going on, which feels like a perfect touch, because they do tend to drag the ceremony overall, but this way they are not lost in the ceremony overall. However, not everything was as good as that, but more on it later.

 

The first two awards handed out were the screenplay ones. The Father did manage to upset Nomadland, which was highly expected, while Promising Young Woman gave Emerald Fennell her first Oscar. The latter was no surprise at all, and the former, at its core, wasn’t either. The Father has managed to gather a lot of love from the Academy, and has done nothing but gain momentum ever since the nominations came out.

 

Another Round took home the International Feature award, which was pretty much a lock, since its director, Thomas Vinterberg, also managed to grab a Best Director nomination. Besides that, the movie has gathered so much love from all over the world over the past six weeks. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom swept both Makeup and Costume Design awards, as was expected too.

 

The traditional schedule of presentation of the awards was turned upside down again when Bryan Cranston introduced Bong Joon-ho as the presenter of the Best Director Award. Chloé Zhao was then handed the award, to nobody’s surprise. And that didn’t even surprise her, because Zhao went on to deliver one of the most prepared and endearing speeches of the night.

 

Right after, Sound of Metal won Best Sound, as was expected, while Two Distant Strangers took home the Best Live Action Short. The outstanding (and highly-praised) If Anything Happens I Love You took home the Best Animated Short award, again, to nobody’s surprise. Both shorts can be found on Netflix right now. Soul, another film currently streaming (although this one is on Disney Plus) won Best Animated Feature after that.

 

Colette was then the first surprise of the night when it won Best Documentary Short, which was supposed to go to A Love Song for Latasha. Another Netflix documentary though, My Octopus Teacher, then went on to win Best Documentary Feature. Tenet, as expected, took the stage next to accept the Best Visual Effects Award.

 

Glenn Close had to sit in the crowd in yet another ceremony (the eighth for her), to see the excellent Yuh-Jung Youn accept the award. Once she got on stage, she told Brad Pitt (who had presented the award) “Nice to finally meet you.” Pitt produced Minari through his Plan B banner. Youn won everybody’s heart with her speech.

 

Another expected win was Mank in the category of Production Design, an area in which the movie had swept at all other ceremonies. That movie also took the next award in Best Cinematography, which was a tight race between Mank and Nomadland. While we predicted Nomadland winning it on our site, we did also say that Mank was a very real contender. That ended up being the case, which in hindsight makes sense because of the amazing job Erik Messerschmidt did with the lighting of the movie.

 

Sound of Metal won Best Editing as, once again, was widely expected. That, together with Best Director, Best Foreign Film, and a few others, was some of the biggest locks of the night. Soul won its second Oscar of the night in the category of Best Score, with Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross winning their second Oscar as well (the first one was for The Social Network). The ceremony stayed on the musical area, handing out next the award of Best Original Song to Judas and the Black Messiah’s Fight for You. This was the second upset of the night, as Speak Now, from One Night in Miami, was the one expected to win.

 

The In Memoriam was probably the most awkward I’ve ever seen the Oscars produce. 2020 did take a lot of beloved people from us, and the Academy showed that giving less than half a second to most of the people remembered (that is unless your names are Sean Connery or Chadwick Boseman). The music changed from the typical nostalgic or melodramatic tune to a song you could even dance to. It started off feeling like a joyful celebration of life, but ended up being very tone-deaf. Also, the typical short clip from some of the actors that passed away were missing in action.

 

After that, only three awards remained, with two of them being the most anticipated ones of the night — both Best Actor and Actress categories. But the Academy was not happy about respecting the traditional order of things, and they (very strangely) decided to hand out the award to Best Picture first. It’s as if they knew that the most anticipated categories were Best Actor and Best Actress and that everybody knew what was going to win Best Picture. But the Academy should remain the same, no matter what the predictions are saying. The ceremony traditionally ends with the Best Picture award for a reason — not only is it the most prestigious one, but it’s also the ultimate celebration of movies. It is the award every movie nominated aspired to win, from the short documentaries to every movie nominated for Best Actor/Actress.

 

In any case, Nomadland took home Best Picture, as everybody expected. The surprises came with the acting categories, with Anthony Hopkins winning in the male category, and Frances McDormand winning in the female category. The Academy, once again, turned everything upside down, when they had last year’s Best Actress (Renée Zellweger) present this year’s Best Actress, and last year’s Best Actor (Joaquin Phoenix) present Best Actor. Traditionally, they are swapped (like they were on the Supporting Acting categories).

 

Chadwick Boseman did not convince the Academy to give him a posthumous Oscar, which instead went to Anthony Hopkins (his second). Frances McDormand won the (very tight) Best Actress Race, which means she now has three acting Oscars on her mantle. After Phoenix announced that Anthony Hopkins was not present to accept the award, the ceremony was over in a very unceremonious way.

 

Here’s the complete list of winners:

 

Best Picture

Nomadland — WINNER

Mank

Trial of the Chicago 7

Promising Young Woman

Minari

Judas and the Black Messiah

Sound of Metal

The Father

 

Best Director

Chloé Zhao (Nomadland) — WINNER

David Fincher (Mank)

Lee Isaac-Young (Minari)

Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman)

Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round)

 

Best Actress

Carey Mulligan (Promising Young Woman)

Viola Davis (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)

Frances McDormand (Nomadland) — WINNER

Vanessa Kirby (Pieces of a Woman)

Andra Day (The United States vs. Billie Holiday)

 

Best Actor

Anthony Hopkins (The Father) — WINNER

Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom)

Gary Oldman (Mank)

Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal)

Steven Yeun (Minari)

 

Best Supporting Actress

Maria Bakalova (Borat Subsequent Movie Film)

Olivia Colman (The Father)

Yuh-Jung Youn (Minari) — WINNER

Amanda Seyfried (Mank)

Glenn Close (Hillbilly Elegy)

 

Best Supporting Actor

Daniel Kaluuya (Judas and the Black Messiah) — WINNER

Sacha Baron Cohen (Trial of the Chicago 7)

Leslie Odom, Jr. (One Night in Miami)

Paul Raci (Sound of Metal)

Lakeith Stanfield (Judas and the Black Messiah)

 

Best Adapted Screenplay

Nomadland (Chloé Zhao)

One Night in Miami (Kemp Powers)

The Father (Christopher Hampton, Florian Zeller) — WINNER

The White Tiger (Ramin Bahrani)

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Peter Baynham, Sacha Baron Cohen, Jena Friedman, Anthony Hines, Lee Kern, Dan Mazer, Nina Pedrad, Erica Rivinoja, Dan Swimer)

 

Best Original Screenplay

Trial of the Chicago 7 (Aaron Sorkin)

Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell) — WINNER

Minari (Lee Isaac Chung)

Judas and the Black Messiah (Will Berson, Shaka King, Keith Lucas, Kenneth Lucas)

Sound of Metal (Abraham Marder, Darius Marder, Derek Cianfrance)

 

Best Cinematography

Joshua James Richards (Nomadland)

Erik Messerschmidt (Mank) — WINNER

Dariusz Wolski (News of the World)

Phedon Papamichael (Trial of the Chicago 7)

Sean Bobbitt (Judas and the Black Messiah)

 

Best Editing

Mikkel E.G. Nielsen (Sound of Metal) — WINNER

Alan Baumgarten (Trial of the Chicago 7)

Chloé Zhao (Nomadland)

Yorgos Lamprinos (The Father)

Frédéric Thoraval (Promising Young Woman)

 

Best Score

Jon Batiste, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (Soul) — WINNER

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross (Mank)

James Newton Howard (News of the World)

Emile Mosseri (Minari)

Terence Blanchard (Da 5 Bloods)

 

Best Visual Effects

Love and Monsters

The Midnight Sky

Tenet — WINNER

Mulan

The One and Only Ivan

 

Best Sound

Sound of Metal — WINNER

News of the World

Greyhound

Mank

Soul

 

Best Production Design

Donald Graham Burt (production designer), Jan Pascale (set decorator): Mank — WINNER

David Crank (production designer), Elizabeth Keenan (set decorator): News of the World

Mark Ricker (production designer), Karen O’Hara and Diana Stoughton (set decorator): Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Nathan Crowley (production designer), Kathy Lucas (set decorator): Tenet

Peter Francis, (production designer), Cathy Featherstone (set decorator): The Father

 

Best Costume Design

Ann Roth (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) — WINNER

Alexandra Byrne (Emma)

Trish Summerville (Mank)

Bina Daigeler (Mulan)

Massimo Cantini Parrini (Pinocchio)

 

Best Makeup & Hairstyle

Mia Neal (hair and wig designer, makeup department head), Sergio Lopez-Rivera (personal makeup artist for Viola Davis), Jamika Wilson (personal hair stylist for Viola Davis) from Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom — WINNER

Eryn Krueger Mekash (makeup department head), Patricia Dehaney (hair department head), Matthew Mungle (prosthetic designer) from Hillbilly Elegy

Mark Coulier (prosthetic designer), Dalia Colli (makeup artist), Francesco Pegoretti (hair designer) from Pinocchio

Marese Langan (hair and makeup designer) from Emma

Gigi Williams (makeup department head), Kimberley Spiteri (hair department head), and Colleen LaBaff (assistant head hairstylist) from Mank

 

Best International Feature

Another Round — WINNER

Better Days

Collective

The Man Who Sold His Skin

Quo Vadis, Aida?

 

Best Animated Feature

Soul –WINNER

Wolfwalkers

Onward

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon

Over the Moon

 

Best Original Song

Speak Now (Written by Leslie Odom, Jr. and Sam Ashworth) from One Night in Miami

Io Si (Seen) (Written by Diane Warren, Laura Pausini, Niccolò Agliardi) from The Life Ahead

Fight for You (written by H.E.R., Dernst Emile II, Tiara Thomas.) from Judas and the Black Messiah — WINNER

Húsavík (Savan Kotecha, Rickard Goransson, fat max Gsus) from Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

Hear My Voice (Written by Daniel Pemberton and Celeste) from The Trial of Chicago 7

 

Best Animated Short

Burrow

Genius Loci

If Anything Happens I Love You — WINNER

Opera

Yes-People

 

Best Documentary Feature

Collective

Crip Camp

The Mole Agent

My Octopus Teacher — WINNER

Time

 

Best Documentary Short

Colette — WINNER

A Concerto Is a Conversation

Do Not Split

Hunger Word

A Love Song for Latasha

 

Best Live Action Short

Feeling Through

The Letter Room

The Present

Two Distant Strangers — WINNER

White Eye