Oscar moments: A minute-by-minute breakdown of the 90th Academy Awards
Sunday’s Oscars telecast clocked in at just under four hours. For this critic, here’s how the show broke down, minute by minute.
5:03 p.m.
Kimmel takes the stage
Jimmy Kimmel kicks things off with an acknowledgment of last year’s epic envelope snafu: “This year, when you hear your name called, do not get up right away.”
5:12 p.m.
In a “Price Is Right”-style giveaway, Kimmel offers a free jet ski to the winner who gives the shortest speech. A not-so-subtle way of saying “Hurry up, ski-daddle.”
5:16 p.m.
Supporting actor: Sam Rockwell
To absolutely no one’s surprise, Sam Rockwell wins supporting actor for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” I love it when the winners acknowledge the other nominees by name, as Rockwell did with so much class. (Yes, he had the names written down, but still.)
5:33 p.m.
By a ‘Phantom Thread’
Costume designer Mark Bridges wins for “Phantom Thread.” I don’t think there will be a more deserved win this evening, but I’m hoping to be proven wrong.
5:40 p.m.
When Russian rigging yields an Oscar
Netflix is officially on the board with a documentary feature win for the doping doc “Icarus.” I was hoping to see this go to Agnès Varda for “Faces Places” or Steve James for “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail,” but could the scalding anti-Russian sentiment expressed in “Icarus” possibly bode well for my favorite entry in the foreign-language film race, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Loveless”?
6:01 p.m.
The sound of Dunkirk
“Dunkirk” scores a double win for sound editing and sound mixing, suggesting a possible surge in the technical categories, similar to what Christopher Nolan’s “Inception” pulled off seven years ago.
6:10 p.m.
‘Shape’ of the night
And here come the nominees for production design, which means another garish visual reminder of that live-action “Beauty and the Beast” thing from last year. Fortunately, a much better beauty-and-the-beast movie wins: “The Shape of Water.”
6:23 p.m.
A ‘Fantastic’ win
No luck for “Loveless” in the foreign-language film category, but happily, it goes to my next favorite of the bunch, “A Fantastic Woman.” The gifted Chilean director Sebastián Lelio takes the stage with Daniela Vega, who plays the movie’s title role about a transgender woman whose way of life is threatened when she loses her partner, and her co-star Francisco Reyes.
6:30 p.m.
Allison Janney’s crowded mantle
To absolutely no one’s surprise, Allison Janney wins supporting actress for “I, Tonya.” If and when she wins an eighth Emmy, she can have them flank her Oscar on her mantle, four on each side.
6:41 p.m.
An animated moment
Disney/Pixar’s “Coco” wins the animated feature Oscar, and it takes nothing away from it to say that I wish more voters had seen “The Breadwinner.”
6:52 p.m.
Getting a visual on ‘Blade Runner 2049’
And the visual effects award goes to “Blade Runner 2049.” Does this bode well for the film’s cinematographer, perpetual Oscars bridesmaid Roger Deakins?
6:57 p.m.
Getting a visual on ‘Blade Runner 2049’
Lee Smith nabs the editing prize for finessing the time-hopping World War II thriller “Dunkirk” into a lean, mean 106 minutes. Imagine the wonders he could work with this broadcast.
7:05 p.m.
When the Oscars come to you
Kimmel, Gal Gadot, Lupita Nyong’o, Margot Robbie, Mark Hamill, Guillermo del Toro and others head to the multiplex next door — and interrupt a preview screening of “A Wrinkle in Time” — to surprise an audience of moviegoers. Must we really have one of these smarmy, faux-populist mingling-with-the-masses stunts every year? As others have pointed out, if these folks gave a hoot about the Oscars, they’d probably be at home watching.
7:35 p.m.
The Time’s Up moment
Deep respect to Ashley Judd, Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek, all of whom came forward to share their brutal stories of sexual harassment and/or abuse by Harvey Weinstein in recent months, and who now take the stage to highlight the #TimesUp movement.
7:32 p.m.
The Ivory toast
A standing ovation for 89-year-old James Ivory, a three-time director nominee, who wins his first Oscar, for adapting the “Call Me by Your Name” screenplay. He pays moving tribute to his late, great longtime partners, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Ismail Merchant.
7:36 p.m.
Jordan Peele’s historic Oscar win
Another standing ovation, this time for the original screenplay winner, “Get Out” writer-director Jordan Peele, who became the first black writer to win in the category. It’s glorious to see this year’s winning screenwriters get such raucous applause, and for entirely different reasons: one for a truly grand career, another for a startling new voice.
7:44 p.m.
Oscar’s military parade
It’s military-montage time as the telecast pays tribute to such seminal war movies as “Saving Private Ryan,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “The Hurt Locker,” “The Thin Red Line” and “The Deer Hunter.” A stealth dig at President Trump’s proposed military parade?
7:49 p.m.
Deakins’ lucky 13
As we all expected but almost didn’t dare to hope, legendary cinematographer Roger Deakins wins his first Oscar in 13 nominations, for “Blade Runner 2049.”
MORE: Roger Deakins reacts to winning an Oscar at long last »
8:04 p.m.
In Memoriam
Two recent untimely losses during the “In Memoriam” segment feel like a particular punch in the gut: producer Jill Messick and composer Jóhann Jóhannsson.
8:14 p.m.
Del Toro on art and erasing the lines
Nobody would expect a speaker as boisterous and effusive as Guillermo del Toro to compete for the jet ski, but he gives a relatively terse speech, albeit one filled with emotion. Acknowledging his friends and fellow winners Alfonso Cuarón and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, he pays tribute to his immigrant experience and the boundary-shattering power of the medium: “The greatest thing art does, and our industry does, is erase the lines in the sand.”
8:24 p.m.
Oldman on the home front
To absolutely no one’s surprise (sensing a pattern?), Gary Oldman wins lead actor for “Darkest Hour.” He takes the advice that J.K. Simmons gave a few years ago and thanks his mother.
8:25 p.m.
Just to clarify: Gary Oldman thanked his mother, not J.K. Simmons’ mother.
8:30 p.m.
JoFo and JLaw present
Jodie Foster and Jennifer Lawrence — or, as I like to think of them, “Silver Lambings Playbook” — arrive to present the award for lead actress. Foster’s on crutches, setting up a Meryl Streep/Tonya Harding joke that gets a somewhat guilty-looking laugh from “I, Tonya” nominee Margot Robbie.
8:34 p.m.
All the ladies in the house
To absolutely no one’s surprise, Frances McDormand wins lead actress for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” And in a moment that will surely go down in the Oscars history books, she quite literally brings every female nominee in the room to her feet.
MORE: How 'Shape of Water' took home the Oscar for best picture with its timely love story »
8:47 p.m.
Back to form: A no-flub Oscars ending
Del Toro retakes the stage, this time with his cast and crew in tow, as “The Shape of Water” wins best picture. After last year’s shocking surprises and a series of splits between picture and director, a lot of industry observers were predicting an upset by “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri,” “Get Out,” “Lady Bird” or “Dunkirk.”
But it didn’t happen this year. “The Shape of Water,” the nomination leader with 13 and the favorite of the producers and directors guild, was the obvious choice all along. While it wasn’t my favorite of the nominees, there’s something about this outcome that feels curiously right.
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