At an Oscars ceremony where there was as much talk about who was not nominated as about who was, there were a number of big surprises, not least in the top category.
Spotlight, about the Boston journalists who exposed the scale of child sex abuse within the Catholic church in the city, surprised many awards watchers by snatching the Best Picture Oscar from the grasps of The Revenant.
Spotlight also won the Best Original Screenplay prize for its director Tom McCarthy and his co-writer Josh Singer. But it was The Revenant that made most of the headlines; Leonardo DiCaprio won his first Oscar, as the film’s lead, the Mexican Alejandro González Iñárritu became only the third director to win back-to-back Oscars, after last year’s Birdman, and won his third successive Oscar for cinematography, following Birdman and Gravity. With a nod to the diversity row as he collected his award, Iñárritu said “What a great opportunity to our generation to really liberate ourselves from all prejudice and this tribal thinking and make sure for once and forever that the colour of your skin
becomes as irrelevant as the length of our hair.”
But the film to walk away with the most awards on the night was Mad Max: Fury Road, which took six prizes in the technical categories, including Film Editing, Make Up and Costumes, for the British designer Jenny Beavan.
There was more British success for Ex Machina, which beat Mad Max and Star Wars to the Visual Effects Oscar, Asif Kapadia’s documentary Amy and Sam Smith’s Writing’s On The Wall, the theme song from SPECTRE, became the second Bond song to win an Oscar, after Adele’s Skyfall, despite being poorly reviewed at the time of the film’s release. Smith used his win to add a little diversity, dedicating his award to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.
There was also an unexpected acting award for the Britain’s Mark Rylance, whose turn as a Russian spy in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies saw him trump the favourite in his category, Sylvester Stallone. What made this category particularly unpredictable was that – as the OscarSoWhite campaign highlighted – the Screen Actors Guild winner, Idris Elba, missed out on an Oscar nomination, and the SAG Awards, traditionally an accurate predictor of the acting honours, got the other three right; Brie Larson was named the Best Leading Actress for Room and The Danish Girl‘s Alicia Vikander repeated her SAG success in the Best Supporting Actress contest.
One of the pre-awards favourites, The Big Short, could manage only the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, while Pixar added to its Academy Award tally with Inside Out joining seven former winners, including Up, Toy Story 3, Wall-E, and The Incredibles. The Hungarian Holocaust drama Son of Saul won the Best Foreign Language Film and Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight picked up one of the three awards it was nominated for, earning the veteran composer Ennio Morricone his first Oscar, at the age of 87, for the film’s score.
This was a year of much-anticipated winners, such as Leonardo DiCaprio, and surprises, including Spotlight – whose success was foreseen by only the Screen Actors Guild – making it the most accurate of predictors.
But the 88th Academy Awards will go down in history as the year that prompted the most prestigious organisation in the industry to announce changes to increase the number of minorities among its members – and it includes women in that category. But when it’s only two years since 12 Years a Slave earned nine nominations and three wins, it could be that changing the make-up of the Academy might have little effect on the films whose excellence it hopes to celebrate.
A full list of the 2016 Oscar winners:
BEST PICTURE
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room
Spotlight – WINNER
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ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Matt Damon, The Martian
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant – WINNER
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl
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ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Cate Blanchett, Carol
Brie Larson, Room – WINNER
Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn
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ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies – WINNER
Sylvester Stallone, Creed
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ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara, Carol
Rachel McAdams, Spotlight
Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl – WINNER
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs
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WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
The Big Short – WINNER
Brooklyn
Carol
The Martian
Room
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WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
Bridge of Spies
Ex Machina
Inside Out
Spotlight – WINNER
Straight Outta Compton
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ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Anomalisa
Boy and the World
Inside Out – WINNER
Shaun the Sheep Movie
When Marnie Was There
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CINEMATOGRAPHY
Carol
The Hateful Eight
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant – WINNER
Sicario
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COSTUME DESIGN
Carol
Cinderella
The Danish Girl
Mad Max: Fury Road – WINNER
The Revenant
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DIRECTING
The Big Short
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Revenant – WINNER
Room
Spotlight
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DOCUMENTARY (FEATURE)
Amy – WINNER
Cartel Land
The Look of Silence
What Happened, Miss Simone?
Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom
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DOCUMENTARY (SHORT SUBJECT)
Body Team 12
Chau, beyond the Lines
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah
A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness – WINNER
Last Day of Freedom
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FILM EDITING
The Big Short
Mad Max: Fury Road – WINNER
The Revenant
Spotlight
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
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FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Embrace of the Serpent
Mustang
Son of Saul – WINNER
Theeb
A War
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MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
Mad Max: Fury Road – WINNER
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out
the Window and Disappeared
The Revenant
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MUSIC (ORIGINAL SCORE)
Bridge of Spies
Carol
The Hateful Eight – WINNER
Sicario
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
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MUSIC (ORIGINAL SONG)
“Earned It,” Fifty Shades of Grey
“Manta Ray,” Racing Extinction
“Simple Song #3,” Youth
“Til It Happens To You,” The Hunting Ground
“Writing’s On The Wall,” Spectre – WINNER
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PRODUCTION DESIGN
Bridge of Spies
The Danish Girl
Mad Max: Fury Road – WINNER
The Martian
The Revenant
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SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)
Bear Story – WINNER
Prologue
Sanjay’s Super Team
We Can’t Live without Cosmos
World of Tomorrow
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SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
Ave Maria
Day One
Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut)
Shok
Stutterer – WINNER
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SOUND EDITING
Mad Max: Fury Road – WINNER
The Martian
The Revenant
Sicario
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
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SOUND MIXING
Bridge of Spies
Mad Max: Fury Road – WINNER
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
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VISUAL EFFECTS
Ex Machina – WINNER
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Star Wars: The Force Awakens