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.

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.

Chloé Zhao became the second woman to win best director at the Golden Globes and the first female winner of Asian descent on a night in which her film “Nomadland” was crowned the top drama film.