We use affiliate links. If you purchase something using one of these links, we may receive compensation or commission.
The A24 film won seven of the eleven categories in which it was nominated, a feat not accomplished by any film since Silence of the Lambs in 2022. Best Actor, the only major award in which EEAAO was not represented, went to Brendan Fraser for another A24 release, The Whale. It was the biggest moment in Fraser’s long comeback after years of personal setbacks. The actor was visibly moved as he delivered his acceptance, providing a tearful bookend to Quan’s emotional speech earlier in the night. (John Travolta was similarly overcome with emotion introducing the In Memoriam reel, which opened with his friend and co-star Olivia Newton-John.)
Several new chapters to ongoing Hollywood stories were written last night. Kimmel paused to mention Till and The Woman King, two films directed by Black women and led by Black stars that did not receive nominations that once seemed likely. Sarah Polley won Best Adapted Screenplay for Women Talking, but did not receive a directing nomination. Everything Everywhere All at Once’s triumph brought awards to a diverse array of winners, but diversity and inclusion clearly remained unsettled issues.
Last year, two major streamers, Apple TV+ and Netflix, fought their latest awards battle. This year’s competition took on a different shape. Apple TV+’s two most likely awards candidates—The Greatest Beer Run Ever and Emancipation—never picked up any traction and were shut out of the nominations. (Apple did win a Best Animated Short prize for “The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse.”) Netflix fared better with its win for Guillermo del Toro’s Pinnochio and several prizes awarded to All Quiet on the Western Front, a new adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war classic, which picked up awards for Best International Feature, Cinematography, Score, and Production Design. After an under-the-radar roll-out, the film picked up substantial momentum throughout the awards season and, in the home stretch, looked like Everything Everywhere All at Once’s most likely challenger. And maybe elsewhere in the multiverse All Quiet had an even better night. But in this universe, the evening belonged to a laundromat owner putting her fractured family back together—with some help from kung fu skills and the occasional well-placed butt plug.