The Oscar event began in 1929 to recognize progress in the art and science of motion pictures. This annual event is governed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Best picture, treated as the most prestigious award at the event, is given to the film producers. To get the full scenario of the Academy Awards fuels the interest of best picture Oscar winners in the last few years. Let's take a journey to the last 15 years to see the best picture winners in Oscar at a glance. Best Picture Oscar Winners in the Last 15 Years CODA (2021) This film, which quickly reached 8.1 on the IMDb rating, is an English remake of the 2014 French-Belgian film La Famille Belier. Written and directed by Sean Header, the movie portrays a genius girl, the only hearing member in a deaf family. Emilia Jones was in the lead role and Troy Kotsur gained fame by playing the supporting role in the film. Read Oscars producer says police offered to arrest Will Smith Nomadland (2020) This is a Chloe Zhao production, an Asian director, originated from Jessica Bruder's 2017 nonfiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century. This American film is the story of a nomadic life of a widow in an RV. The film, starring Frances McDormand in the lead role, has an IMDB rating of 7.3. Parasite (2019) In this black comedy, South Korean director Bong Jun-Ho shows how a poor family slowly consumes a rich family. Han Jin-On contributed to the script of the film with Jun-Ho. Tension-building performances by Song Kang-Ho, Choi Woo-Shik, Park So-Dam, and Lee Jong-Eun have dramatically changed the movie's climate. The current IMDB rating of the movie is 8.5. Read Chris Rock takes to comedy mic, still processing Oscars slap Green Book (2018) Directed by Peter Farrell, this American comedy-drama film follows a true story at the time of the 60s. The biography traces the eventful journey of Don Shirley, an African-American pianist, and his driver, Tony Leap. The screenplay of the film was written based on the interview of that pianist and his driver. The writers were Brian Hayes Curie, Farrell, and Nick Vallelonga. The tremendous dramatization of the film still keeps it at an IMDb rating of 8.2. The Shape of Water (2017) This is the only Oscar-winning fantasy movie of the 2010s directed by Guillermo Del Toro. Written by Del Toro himself and Vanessa Taylor, it brought a strange 60's story about an unorthodox love between a human-like amphibian creature and a mute woman. This romantic film starring Sally Hawkins and Michael Shannon is carrying an IMDb rating of 8.3. Read Oscar Winners 2022: Who Won the 94th Academy Awards? Moonlight (2016) The Coming of Age movie, directed and screenplay by Barry Jenkins, is about an African-American boy growing up as an adult overcoming social barriers. The main story of the film is taken from Tarrell Alvin McCrane's unpublished semi-autobiographical play 'In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue'. The film stars Trevante Rhodes, Mahershala Ali, and Naomi Harris. The movie currently has an IMDB rating of 7.4. Spotlight (2015) Spotlight is mainly a group of journalists under an old newspaper known for investigating incidents of child abuse by Catholic priests. Director Tom McCarthy has created the film on this sensitive theme. This film, scripted by McCarthy and Josh Singer, stars Mark Raffaello, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, and Stanley Tucci. Currently, the IMDb rating of this crime drama is 8.1. Read Oscars audience tops 15 million, exceeding last year Birdman (2014) The Birdman movie is the story of the downside of the life of a star who played the famous superhero character. The writers of this black comedy film are Nicolas Giacobone, Armando Bo, Alexander Dinelaris Jr., and the director of the movie Alejandro G. Inarritu. The film stars Michael Keaton in the lead role. This film carrying an IMDb rating of 7.7 won an Oscar in four categories. 12 Years a Slave (2013) Steve McQueen directed this biography movie with the screenplay by John Ridley. The original plot follows David Wilson's 1853 memoir of the same name. This is a story of a free African-American man who was kidnapped and sold as a slave and lost the worthless 12 years of his life. This film, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Brad Pitt, has an IMDb rating of 8.1. Read Jessica Chastain wins best actress Oscar for 'Tammy Faye' Argo (2012) Argo is a historical thriller film starring, directed, and co-produced by Batman star Ben Affleck. The movie was scripted by Chris Terrier based on a 1999 book of the same name by American espionage agent Tony Mendez. During the US-Iran unrest in 1979-1981, Mendez used an impeccable approach to rescue six US diplomats from Tehran. The IMDb rating of the film is 7.7. The Artist (2011) This French film, rated 7.9 on IMDb, is a combination of Black and White silent film and Talkies. The film follows a silent film star, who has been facing extreme challenges since the advent of talkie movies. Berenice Bezo and Jean Dujardin star in the comedy movie, written and directed by Michelle Hazanavicius. Read 'Drive My Car' wins Oscar award for best international film The King's Speech (2010) This historical film with an 8 IMDb rating is based on the story of King George VI. This British movie depicts a newly empowered king who qualifies himself for a King's Speech with the help of a speech therapist. Directed by Tom Hooper and written by David Seidler, the film stars Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Bonham Carter. The Hurt Locker (2009) Currently rated at 7.8 on IMDb, this American War film is directed by Katherine Bigelow and scripted by Mark Boyle. This thriller movie stars Jeremy Rainer, Ralph Fiennes, and Guy Pierce. The movie, set against the backdrop of the Iraq war, follows the newly-appointed Bomb Squad Sergeant, who has to deal with squad members for his exceptional work. Read Squid Game Season 2 on Netflix: Cast, plot, probable release date Slumdog Millionaire (2008) The current IMDb rating of this blockbuster British film, based on the story of a slum boy becoming an overnight millionaire, is 8. Simon Beaufoy scripted this movie by loosely adapting Bikash Swarup's 2005 novel Q & A. The film, directed by Danny Boyle and shot in India, stars Dev Patel, Anil Kapoor, Freida Pinto, and Irfan Khan. No Country for Old Men (2007) This neo-western film originated from the 2005 novel of the same name by Carmack McCarthy. In the desert-like West, violence erupts around a hunter over a drug deal that goes wrong. Written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, this crime thriller stars Xavier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones, and Josh Brolin. This movie has an IMDb rating of 8.2 so far. Read Telugu Film RRR: Lifetime Record Breaker and the Pride of Indian Cinema In a Nutshell The best picture Oscar winners in the last 15 years reflect the ongoing change in the film industry. Now just one more era of films waiting to be invested. Movie lovers are ready to go beyond the boundaries of the theater and keep pace with movie streaming technology. The movie crew has already begun to sharpen their best performances.

The 28th Screen Actors Guild Awards will kick off with a “Hamilton” reunion, feature a lifetime achievement award for Helen Mirren and, maybe, supply a preview of the upcoming Academy Awards. The SAG Awards, taking place at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, California, begin at 8 p.m. EST Sunday and air on both TNT and TBS. (The show will also be available to stream Monday on HBO Max.) After the January Golden Globes were a non-event, the Screen Actors Guild Awards will be Hollywood's first major, televised, in-person award show — complete with a red carpet and teary-eyed speeches — this year. Read: Greatest Valentine's Day Movies, TV episodes of All Time While the Academy Awards aren't mandating vaccination for presenters (just attendees), it's required for the SAG Awards, which are voted on by the Hollywood actors’ guild SAG-AFTRA. One actor in the cast of the Paramount series “Yellowstone,” Forrie J. Smith, has said he won't attend because he isn't vaccinated. “Hamilton” trio Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr. and Daveed Diggs will open the ceremony. Kate Winslet is to present the actors' lifetime achievement award to Mirren, a five-time SAG Award winner. A starry group of nominees — including Will Smith, Lady Gaga, Denzel Washington, Nicole Kidman and Ben Affleck — will make sure the SAG Award don't lack for glamour. Five films are nominated for the SAG Awards' top honor, best ensemble: Kenneth Branagh's “Belfast,” Sian Heder's coming-of-age drama “CODA,” Adam McKay's apocalypse comedy “Don't Look Up,” Ridley Scott's high-camp “House of Gucci” and Reinaldo Marcus Green's family tennis drama “King Richard.” The leading Oscar nominee, Jane Campion's “The Power of the Dog,” failed to land a best ensemble nominations but three of its actors — Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee — are up for individual awards. Read:All Of Us Are Dead: Review of Zombie Apocalypse Show on Netflix Winning best ensemble doesn't automatically make a movie the Oscar favorite, but actors hold the largest sway because they constitute the largest percentage of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Last year, the actors chose Aaron Sorkin's 1960s courtroom drama “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” while best picture at the Oscars went to “Nomadland." The year before, SAG’s pick of “Parasite” presaged the Oscar winner. In the television categories, Apple TV+'s “Ted Lasso” comes in with a leading five nominations, closely trailed by HBO's “Succession," Apple's “The Morning Show” and Netflix's much-watched “Squid Game” — all of which are up for four awards.

The 93rd annual Academy Awards were always going to be a bit surreal this year. The pandemic changed many of the usual rhythms and traditions of the Oscars on Sunday night. There was a glamour-filled red carpet but no onlookers or teams of publicists. There were in-person, mask-less winners but not in the usual order, and the speeches were never drowned out with play-off music. Compounding the differences this year was a telecast, steered by producers Steven Soderbergh, Jesse Collins and Stacy Sher, that wanted a new look and feel to an often stodgy, persistently unchanging ceremony. Also read: Not quite a movie, but the Oscars were a love letter But what was with that ending? How staged was Glenn Close’s dance? And where, oh where, was the play-off music? Here’s my best try to answer some of the nights befuddlements. THE ENDING — WHY? The Oscars have known more dramatic and more shambolic endings (“Envelopegate” was a mere four years ago) but this may have set a new bar for anti-climactic. You would swear someone even played a sad trombone. Going into Sunday, the show’s producers had said they wanted to take “some big swings” in the telecast. One turned out to be switching the normal awards order. Best director, usually one of the final awards, was handed out mid-show. Best picture was third-to-last and the night’s final two awards were best actress and best actor. Presumably, the thinking was that best actor would go to Chadwick Boseman (he won virtually every best-actor trophy leading up to the Oscars), and thus end the ceremony on a meaningful note of tribute. But there had been hints of an upset. Two weeks earlier, Anthony Hopkins won at the BAFTAs, an award he was also absent for — though the show managed to track him down in his native Wales to talk to the BAFTA press. The Oscars had pressed nominees to attend, if possible, or join from a remote location. But the 83-year-old Hopkins ( who became the oldest actor to win an Oscar, his second ) elected not to travel to Los Angeles or the hub in London. Knighted living legends who adore the Welsh countryside get to do that. Only the next morning did Sir Anthony, with a bucolic vista behind him, post an Instagram video of thanks, and a few words on the late Boseman. “At 83 years of age, I did not expect to get his award, I really didn’t,” he said. Posthumous Oscars are also hard to come by. There’s a reason it’s only happened twice before among actors (Peter Finch and Heath Ledger). For some voters, it can seem like a wasted vote, since the honoree isn’t there to accept it. And one of the longest Oscar seasons ever (the ceremony was postponed two months) may have sapped some of the momentum for Boseman, who died last August; some may have felt he had been already honored by previous awards like at the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Perhaps the Independent Spirit Awards on Thursday supplied foreshadowing when Riz Ahmed (“Sound of Metal”) was chosen over Boseman. The Oscars haven’t always ended with best picture, but it’s been more than 40 years since another category was last. Even the best-picture winners — who usually conclude the telecast with trophies raised — weren’t expecting it. “It surely was a surprise,” said “Nomadland” producer Dan Janvey backstage to reporters. “I think a lot of us grew up watching the Oscars and I’ve gotten used to it being last.” But on Sunday, the category switcheroo culminated in an absent winner and a strange empty-stage finale — a fitting end to a thoroughly strange movie year. Also read:  Frances McDormand a double Oscar winner for 'Nomadland' WHERE WAS THE PLAY-OFF MUSIC? No snark was part of the mandate of this year’s Oscars, Sher said. From top to bottom, the show was a sincere celebration of cinema and the night’s nominees. Introductions were lengthy and detailed. And when winners clutched their Oscars, they were given wide latitude to speak. Not once did music director Questlove turn up the music. This was partly because the show had more time. Performances of the best song nominees were pre-taped and aired during the red-carpet preshow, meaning the broadcast — which also had few comedy bits — wasn’t in a race. That went with the overall tone of the show: To earnestly celebrate the artistry and craft of moviemaking. On-camera talent, Soderbergh noted before the show, only accounts for a fraction of a film set. WHY DID FRANCES MCDORMAND HOWL? “We give this one to our wolf,” McDormand said while accepting the best picture award for “Nomadland.” McDormand, a producer as well as star of Chloé Zhao’s film, let a howl that could have been a reference to her nomadic, lone wolf character in a melancholic open-road tale about the primal necessities of life. But McDormand’s howl was more pointedly poignant than that. It was a way to honor Michael Wolf Snyder, the film’s production sound mixer, who died in March at the age of 35. “That howling to the moon is for Wolf,” Zhao explained to members of the press. McDormand earlier said of Snyder in a statement to Variety: “Wolf recorded our heartbeats. Our every breath. For me, he is ‘Nomadland." Also read: A complete list of all the winners at the 2021 Oscars WHY DID THE SHOW LOOK DIFFERENT? Soderbergh conceived of the telecast a movie, complete with opening credits (presenters were the cast), a slinky opening tracking shot with Regina King and all the technical aspects of film. That included a more letterbox format, a frame rate of 24 instead of the more typical television rates of 30 or 60. Whatever you thought of the show, it had to be the best looking Oscars in ages. WAS CLOSE’S DANCE REHEARSED? Well of course it was. Close did her best to suggest her knowledge of Experience Unlimited’s “Da Butt” (featured in Spike Lee’s “School Daze”) was completely off the cuff, but Lil Rel Howery acknowledged during the post-show that their music trivia bit had been discussed beforehand. Still, credit the 74-year-old Close for being willing to boogie shortly after losing out on an Oscar for the eighth time — a record among living performers.

The 93rd Academy Awards wasn’t exactly a movie, but it was a show made for people who love learning about movies. And it stubbornly, defiantly wasn’t trying to be anything else. It wasn’t an advertisement for the nominated films that audiences at home may or may not have seen, a well-heeled stand-up routine or a star-studded concert. Although it did, curiously, turn into a brief musical trivia game 2 hours and 40 minutes into the evening. Best actress winner Frances McDormand said later upon collecting her trophy that, “They didn’t ask me but if they had, I would have said karaoke.” There probably would have been fewer bleeps. It was a show unlike any others this year and if you didn’t have a working knowledge of the films going into the night, the ceremony may have been a little mystifying. The spectacular musical numbers, atop the new Academy Museum and in Iceland, were pre-recorded and broadcast during the pre-show. There were no montages, barely any clips and only one major trailer debut during the commercial breaks (for Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” ). Aside from Regina King’s brisk strut through Los Angeles’ historic Union Station that kicked of the show with candy colored credits, it was a subtle, subdued and sincere affair (mostly). Also read: A complete list of all the winners at the 2021 Oscars Few would deny that the Oscars had gotten, if not stale, too safe. Certainly there were moments of excitement, whether in an unexpected winner, an true upset or something as colossal as announcing the wrong best picture winner. And this year had some historic possibilities up its sleeves, some of which it made good on ( like Chloé Zhao winning for directing and Youn Yuh-jung for supporting actress ) and some of which it didn’t (a Black woman still has yet to win two Oscars). But it also had an impossible checklist: Revitalize the format, celebrate the movies, bring back awards show glamour, avoid a ratings disaster, get audiences excited about going back to the movies and put on a pandemic-safe show in person and without Zoom. It’s a big haul, not to mention the non-pandemic fact that the only thing that had gotten more predictable than the Oscars was people criticizing the Oscars: Too long, too boring, too preachy, not preachy enough, too irrelevant, too many montages (or not enough montages). It’s the show that many love to hate and no format or venue tweaks was ever going to change that. Union Station, a legendary movie location already, provided a grand and fresh setting for the proceedings. They were shooting it all in 24 frames-per-second. The presenters were called cast members. Once it all got underway, however, it became clear that the transit hub was being used neither as supporting character nor symbol: It was just background — a place to construct the elegant Art Deco banquets where the nominees were seamlessly cycled in and out throughout the ceremony. And the cast of Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, Rita Moreno and Reese Witherspoon? They were just presenters too. No one even seemed to interact with one another. The ceremony was imbued with interesting personal anecdotes and a flurry of factoids about everyone’s love of the movies that will surely necessitate some Wikipedia updates. There were beautiful and funny moments too and some that wouldn’t be possible if an orchestra was there playing people off. Would we have heard best supporting actor winner Daniel Kaluuya thank his parents for, well, doing what they needed to do to have him? Or best international film director Thomas Vinterberg reveal, through tears, that his daughter was killed in a car crash four days into filming “Another Round?” Also read: Frances McDormand a double Oscar winner for 'Nomadland' With more time and a more intimate setting that felt like a throwback to the earliest days of the Oscars, when they were just an untelevised banquet for 270 people, it seemed the winners were ready to get personal with their speeches. They were talking to a small room of friends and peers: Not the anonymous faces of sponsors and friends of the studios/networks/financiers that usually help populate the 3,400 seats at the Dolby Theater (not to mention the global audience). Plus, the walk to the stage was mercifully short. And it was inspired to have Marlee Matlin present in American Sign Language and Bong Joon Ho in Korean. Yet as the night wore on, some of the choices started to get more questionable. The biggest change was the decision to not present the best picture award last. Although likely conceived to ensure a finale with a star and not a stage of producers, it backfired. After “Nomadland” won the top prize, McDormand seemed even less interested in collecting hers. And it certainly didn’t help that the show ended on a down note when best actor went not to the late Chadwick Boseman as expected, but to Anthony Hopkins who simply wasn’t in attendance. It’s not a judgment of either performance, just the fact that it was an abrupt and unsatisfying conclusion. And just like that, the 93rd Oscars were over. Usually the host bears the brunt of the blame or praise for the failure or success of an awards show. This year, however unfair, judgment is going to land on the most famous of the three producers: Steven Soderbergh. Like some Soderbergh productions, the 93rd Oscars were so different, with a voice and a pacing all its own, that its magic might not be immediately evident. But there was also, to use a film school cliché, a lot of telling and not a lot of showing. Never was that so clear as when the broadcast sped through the In Memoriam as though on fast forward. There’s a danger in promising too much and the more-like-a-movie-less-like-a-television show concept was, in retrospect, a little lofty for what we got. No one’s asking for their money back: The 93rd Oscars were by far the best movie awards show of the past year. Hopefully it’s also the last pandemic show we’ll ever have to endure.

At a socially distanced Oscar ceremony retooled for the pandemic, Chloé Zhao made history. The “Nomadland” filmmaker won best director on Sunday (April 25, 2021), becoming just the second woman in the 93 year of the Academy Awards to win the award and the first woman of color. Only Kathryn Bigelow, 11 years ago for “The Hurt Locker,” had previously won the award. The win, widely expected, caps the extraordinary rise of the China-born Zhao, a lyrical filmmaker whose “Nomadland” is just her third feature. Her film, the favorite to win best picture, is a wistful open-road drama about itinerant life in the American West. “I have always found goodness in the people I’ve met everywhere I went in the world,” said Zhao. “This is for anyone who has the faith and the courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves and to hold on the goodness in other no matter how difficult it is to do that.” Also read: Is this an ‘Asterisk Oscars’ or a sign of things to come? The 93rd Academy Awards, the most ambitious award show held during the pandemic, rolled out a red carpet and restored some glamour to the nearly century-old movie institution, but with a radically transformed — and in some ways downsized — telecast. The ceremony — fashioned as a movie of its own — kicked off with opening credits and a slinky Regina King entrance, as the camera followed the actress and “One Night in Miami” director in one take as she strode with an Oscar in hand into Los Angeles’ Union Station and onto the stage. Inside the transit hub (trains were still running), nominees sat at cozy, lamp-lit tables around an intimate amphitheater. Daniel Kaluuya won best supporting actor for “Judas and the Black Messiah.” The win for the 32-year-old British actor who was previously nominated for “Get Out,” was widely expected. Kaluuya won for his fiery performance as the Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, whom Kaluuya thanked for showing him “how to love myself.” “You’ve got to celebrate life, man. We’re breathing. We’re walking. It’s incredible. My mum met my dad, they had sex. It’s amazing. I’m here. I’m so happy to be alive,” said Kaluuya while cameras caught his mother’s confused reaction. Also read: Oscar nominations Monday could belong to 'Mank' and Netflix With the awards capping a year of national reckoning on race and coming days after Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was convicted for killing George Floyd, police brutality was on the minds of many attendees. King said that if the verdict had been different, she might have traded her heels for marching boots. Travon Free, co-director of the live-action short winner “Two Perfect Strangers,” wore a suit jacket lined with the names of those killed by police. His film dramatizes police brutality as an inescapable time loop like a tragic “Groundhog’s Day” for Black Americans. “Today, the police will kill three people. And tomorrow, the police will kill three people. And the day after that, the police will kill three people because on average, the police in America everyday kill three people, which amounts to about a thousand people a year,” said Free. “Those people happen to disproportionately be Black people.” Years after the Academy Awards were harshly criticized as “OscarsSoWhite” — and after the film academy’s membership was greatly expanded in recent years — a historically diverse slate of nominees led to records in many categories. Read ‘Nomadland’ wins best picture at a social distanced Oscars Best supporting actress went to Yuh-Jung Youn for the matriarch of Lee Isaac Chung’s tender Korean-American family drama “Minari.” The 72-year-old Youn, a well-known actress in her native South Korea, is the first Asian actress to win an Oscar since 1957 and the second in history. She accepted the award from Brad Pitt, an executive producer on “Minari.” “Mr. Brad Pitt, finally,” said Youn. “Nice to meet you.” Hairstylists Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” became the first Black women to win in makeup and hairstyling. Ann Roth, at 89 one of the oldest Oscar winners ever, also won for the film’s costume design. The night’s first award went to Emerald Fennell, the writer-director of the provocative revenge thriller “Promising Young Woman,” for best screenplay. Fennell, winning for her feature debut, is the first woman win solo in the category since Diablo Cody (“Juno”) in 2007. The broadcast instantly looked different. It’s being shot in 24 frames-per-second and in more widescreen format. In a more intimate show without an audience beyond nominees, winners were given wider latitude in their speeches. In the opening, King explained how Sunday’s Oscars were even possible — testing, vaccinations, social distancing and more testing. The safety protocols, she said, echoed those of film shoots during the pandemic. “It has been quite a year and we are still smack dab in the middle of it,” King said. The telecast, produced by a team led by filmmaker Steven Soderbergh, moved out of the awards’ usual home, the Dolby Theatre, for Union Station. With Zoom ruled out for nominees, the telecast included satellite feeds from around the world. Performances of the song nominees were pre-taped and aired during the preshow. “Husavik (My Hometown)” from “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga.,” was preformed from the Iceland town’s harbor. Others were sung from atop of the academy’s new $500 million film museum. Pixar notched its 11th best animated feature Oscar with “Soul,” the studio’s first feature with a Black protagonist. Peter Docter’s film, about a about middle-school music teacher (Jamie Foxx), was one of the few big-budget movies in the running at the Academy Awards. Another was Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet,” which last September attempted to resuscitate moviegoing during the pandemic, took best visual effects. David Fincher’s “Mank,” a lavishly crafted drama of 1940s Hollywood made for Netflix, came in the lead nominee with 10 nods and went home with award for cinematography and for production design. Best adapted screenplay went to the dementia drama “The Father.” “My Octopus Teacher,” a film that found a passionate following on Netflix, won best documentary. Danish director Thomas Vinterberg’s “Another Round” won best international film, an award he dedicated to his daughter, Ida, who in 2019 was killed in a car crash at age 19. The red carpet was back Sunday, minus the throngs of onlookers and with socially distanced interviews. Only a handful of media outlets were allowed on site, behind a velvet rope and some distance from the nominees. Casual wear, the academy warned nominees early on, was a no-no. Stars, limited to a plus-one, went without their usual battalions of publicists. But even good show may not be enough to save the Oscars from an expected ratings slide. Award show ratings have cratered during the pandemic, and this year’s nominees — many of them smaller, lower-budget dramas — won’t come close to the drawing power of past Oscar heavyweights like “Titanic” or “Black Panther.” Last year’s Oscars, when Bong Joon Ho’s “Parasite” became the first non-English language film to win best picture, was watched by 23.6 million, an all-time low. Sunday’s pandemic-delayed Oscars bring to a close the longest awards season ever — one that turned the season’s industrial complex of cocktail parties and screenings virtual. Eligibility was extended into February of this year, and for the first time, a theatrical run wasn’t a requirement of nominees. Some films — like “Sound of Metal” — premiered all the way back in September 2019. The biggest ticket-seller of the best picture nominees is “Promising Young Woman,” with $6.3 million in box office. Read Anthony Hopkins wins best actor Oscar for 'The Father'

David Fincher’s “Mank” led nominations to the 93rd Academy Awards with 10 nods Monday, and for the first time, two women — Chloé Zhao and Emerald Fennell — were nominated for best director.

Nominations to the 93rd Academy Awards on Monday will look — in more ways than one — unlike they ever have before.

The Venice Film Festival is an early stop for many stars and filmmakers on the path to the Academy Awards.

Elton John intends to play his remaining shows in New Zealand this week, his tour promoters said Monday, a day after illness caused the singer to lose his voice and cut short a performance.

The 92nd Academy Awards have started off on script: Brad Pitt won his first acting Oscar for his performance in "Once Upon on a Time ... In Hollywood" and Bong Joon Ho's "Parasite" took best original screenplay.