The most talked about Oscars moments of 2024
Hollywood’s night of nights went by in a shimmering haze of metallic red carpet looks, nostalgic pairings, exciting musical numbers – and one nude run. Here are the best moments from Oscars 2024…
Jimmy Kimmel opened the 96th Academy Awards with a fairly tame monologue, forgoing the usual montage of movie skits in favour of just one odd scene in which he inserted himself into the moving Barbie moment between Margot Robbie’s Barbie and costume designer Ann Roth’s Woman On The Bench. In the original clip, Barbie tells the woman she is beautiful and the woman replies, “I know it”. Somehow it doesn’t land the same way with Kimmel on the receiving end.
It was the late-night talk show host’s fourth time fronting the prestigious event, which began an hour earlier this year to offset the inevitable late run of proceedings. Kimmel name-checked all the major nominees, and recalled a year of challenges for the Hollywood film industry with the long-running SAG-AFTRA and Writer’s Guild strikes.
STRAIGHT TO THE HEART
It was a surprisingly emotional ceremony, beginning with a gut-punch as not one, not two, but five previous Best Supporting Actress winners welcomed a new contemporary to the fold. Speaking directly to each nominee – as a friend would – with emotional and personal messages of support, Mary Steenburgen, Lupita Nyong’o, Jamie Lee Curtis, Regina King and Rita Moreno brought tears to the eyes of Jodie Foster, Emily Blunt, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, America Ferrera and Danielle Brookes. Randolph won the award for her performance in The Holdovers as Mary Lamb, a chain-smoking school cook who provides hearty meals while nursing a broken heart for the son she lost in the Vietnam War.
The moving new presenting format repeated for the major awards of Best Supporting Actor, Best Actor and Best Actress with a quintuplet of high-profile winners gifting the statue to this year’s recipient. This included the heartwarming moment Jennifer Lawrence presented her friend Emma Stone with Best Actress for Poor Things, complete with proud tears streaming down her face. A true example of women lifting each other up.
Cord Jefferson also won his first Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar for American Fiction, making an impassioned plea in his acceptance speech to the “risk averse” studios to put more resources into backing rising and diverse filmmaking talents. “Instead of making one $200 million movie, why not make 50 four million dollar movies?” he said.
Meanwhile, Oppenheimer cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema begged fellow directors of photography to “please try shooting on this hip new thing celluloid, it’s easier than you think and it looks so much better”.
PERFECT PAIRINGS
Beetlejuice co-stars Michael Keaton and Catherine O’Hara reunited onstage to present Best MakeUp and Hairstyling to Nadia Stacey, Mark Coulier and Josh Weston for their work on Poor Things. While Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito joked about why they were paired to present the awards for Best Visual Effects and Best Editing – not because they co-starred in the iconic comedy Twins, but because they “both tried to kill Batman”. The duo went on to remind everyone that Schwarzenegger played Mr Freeze in Batman and Robin and DeVito was Penguin in Batman Returns before they hilariously singled out their caped crusader nemisis (aka Michael Keaton) in the audience.
COMEDIC MOMENTS
Despite the stand-up pedigree of Kimmel, the funniest moments of the night came from the presenters. Where usually there would be forced banter, the pairings brought humour as well as heart to the event.
During a shout-out to the often overlooked stunt teams, Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling poked fun at the Oppenheimer and Barbie box office rivalry nicknamed ‘Barbenheimer’. Oppenheimer star Blunt claimed they should put it all behind them, saying: “The way this awards season has turned out, it wasn’t that much of a rivalry… so LET IT GO!”
Gosling fired back, quipping the reason it was dubbed ‘Barbenheimer’ instead of ‘Oppenbarbie’ was because “Oppenheimer has been riding Barbie’s coattails all summer!” Then Blunt dropped the proverbial atomic bomb that at least “Robert Downey Jr didn’t need to paint on his abs”.
Speaking of RDJ, the Oppenheimer actor took home his first Oscar from three previous nominations and thanked his wife, saying, “You found me a snarling rescue pet and you nursed me back to life”.
The most shocking and amusing moment of the night came from John Cena’s presentation of Best Costumes. Cena, who stars in Ricky Stanicky, side-stepped onstage naked with a well-placed envelope, saying, “Costumes are SO important. Maybe the most important thing there is!”
FEEL THE KENERGY
Perhaps the most anticipated moment of the Oscars (besides the top gongs, of course) was Ryan Gosling’s performance of nominated Original Song from Barbie ‘I’m Just Ken’. Beginning in the audience, where his co-star Margot Robbie and Oscar-winning singer Billie Eilish stifled giggles, Gosling sauntered onstage in a dazzling pink suit to perform alongside his fellow Kens: Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Ncuti Gatwa and Scott Evans, as well as the song’s writers Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt, and surprise special guest guitarist Slash. The impressive musical number was a sparkling cherry on top of the evening and an homage to Marilyn Monroe’s iconic ‘Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend’ number from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.
