2019 Academy Awards

The 91st annual Academy Awards were handed out at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 24, 2019.  ‘Black Panther’ was the first superhero movie to ever be nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards, however, the odds were stacked against it, if only for the fact that Ryan Coogler was not nominated for Best Director, nor was the film nominated in the acting or screenplay categories.  Sure enough, the Best Picture statue went to historical drama ‘Green Book’.

But ‘Black Panther’ managed to win in three other categories: Best Costume Design for Ruth Carter; Best Original Score for Ludwig Goransson; and Best Production Design for Hannah Beachler and Jay Hart.

As expected, ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ was selected as Best Animated Feature.  It has already taken home numerous awards including the Golden Globe, BAFTA, the Producers Guild of America Award, the Critics Choice Award, and seven  Annie Awards.

‘First Man’ pulled an upset in the Best Visual Effects category, trumping splashier epics ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, ‘Christopher Robin’, ‘Ready Player One’, and ‘Solo: A Star Wars Story’.

Though they didn’t win for superhero projects, two superhero actors won the Best Supporting Actor and Actress awards.  Mahershala Ali, who played Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes on Netflix’s ‘Luke Cage’, voiced Uncle Aaron/The Prowler in ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’, and can currently be seen in the manga adaptation ‘Alita: Battle Angel’, took home his second Oscar for historical drama ‘Green Book’.  Meanwhile, Regina King won for ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’, and is starring in HBO’s upcoming series based on ‘The Watchmen’.

Stan Lee and Margot Kidder were among the honorees during the In Memoriam tribute montage.

On a bit of a downer note, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ won various awards, including Best Actor for Rami Malek, but no one thanked director Bryan Singer, who also previously helmed numerous ‘X-Men’ movies, including the first two, and ‘Superman Returns’.  But Singer, who has been plagued with accusations of sexual misconduct involving underage boys his entire career, has been hit with another wave of accusations.  It looks as though everyone involved with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ either voluntarily chose not to reference him, or were specifically told not to.

The Academy Awards, and most other major accolades tend to favor dramas, and this year was no different.  But ‘Black Panther’s nomination for Best Picture was a huge step forward for comic book movies and may open the door for others in the future.  And ‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’ has set the bar high for any future animated superhero flicks.

You can see all of the nominations and winners below:


Best Picture
Black Panther (Kevin Feige, Producer)
BlacKkKlansman (Sean McKittrick, Jason Blum, Raymond Mansfield, Jordan Peele and Spike Lee, Producers)
Bohemian Rhapsody (Graham King, Producer)
The Favourite (Ceci Dempsey, Ed Guiney, Lee Magiday and Yorgos Lanthimos, Producers)
***WINNER*** Green Book (Jim Burke, Charles B. Wessler, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly and Nick Vallelonga, Producers)
Roma (Gabriela Rodriguez and Alfonso Cuarón, Producers)
A Star Is Born (Bill Gerber, Bradley Cooper and Lynette Howell Taylor, Producers)
Vice (Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Adam McKay and Kevin Messick, Producers)

Best Director
***WINNER*** Alfonso Cuarón (Roma)
Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite)
Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman)
Adam McKay (Vice)
Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War)

Best Actress
Yalitza Aparicio (Roma)
Glenn Close (The Wife)
***WINNER*** Olivia Colman (The Favourite)
Lady Gaga (A Star Is Born)
Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

Best Actor
Christian Bale (Vice)
Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born)
Willem Dafoe (At Eternity’s Gate)
***WINNER*** Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody)
Viggo Mortensen (Green Book)

Best Supporting Actress
Amy Adams (Vice)
Marina de Tavira (Roma)
***WINNER*** Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk)
Emma Stone (The Favourite)
Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)

Best Supporting Actor
***WINNER*** Mahershala Ali (Green Book)
Adam Driver (BlacKkKlansman)
Sam Elliott (A Star Is Born)
Richard E. Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)
Sam Rockwell (Vice)

Best Original Screenplay
The Favourite (Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara)
First Reformed (Paul Schrader)
***WINNER*** Green Book (Nick Vallelonga, Brian Hayes Currie, Peter Farrelly)
Roma (Alfonso Cuaron)
Vice (Adam McKay)

Best Adapted Screenplay
A Star Is Born (Eric Roth, Will Fetters & Bradley Cooper)
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Joel Coen & Ethan Coen)
***WINNER*** BlacKkKlansman (Charlie Wachtel & David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott & Spike Lee)
If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins)
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty)

Best Makeup & Hairstyling
Border (Goran Lundstrom and Pamela Goldammer)
Mary Queen of Scots (Jenny Shircore, Marc Pilcher and Jessica Brooks)
***WINNER*** Vice(Greg Cannom, Kate Biscoe and Patricia DeHaney)

Best Costume Design
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (Mary Zophres)
***WINNER*** Black Panther (Ruth Carter)
The Favourite (Sandy Powell)
Mary Poppins Returns (Sandy Powell)
Mary Queen of Scots (Alexandra Byrne)

Best Cinematography
The Favourite (Robbie Ryan)
Never Look Away (Caleb Deschanel)
***WINNER*** Roma (Alfonso Cuarón)
A Star Is Born (Matty Libatique)
Cold War (Lukasz Zal)

Best Original Song
“All the Stars” (Black Panther), Music by Mark Spears, Kendrick Lamar Duckworth and Anthony Tiffith, Lyric by Kendrick Lamar Duckworth, Anthony Tiffith and Solana Rowe

“I’ll Fight” (RBG), Music and Lyric by Diane Warren

“The Place Where Lost Things Go” (Mary Poppins Returns), Music by Marc Shaiman; Lyric by Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman

***WINNER*** Shallow” (A Star Is Born), Music and Lyric by Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando and Andrew Wyatt

“When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings” (The Ballad of Buster Scruggs), Music and Lyric by David Rawlings and Gillian Welch

Best Original Score
***WINNER*** Black Panther (Ludwig Goransson)
BlacKkKlansman (Terence Blanchard)
If Beale Street Could Talk (Nicholas Britell)
Isle of Dogs (Alexandre Desplat)
Mary Poppins Returns (Marc Shaiman)

Best Documentary Feature
***WINNER*** Free Solo (Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, Evan Hayes and Shannon Dill)
Hale County This Morning, This Evening (RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes and Su Kim)
Minding the Gap (Bing Liu and Diane Quon)
Of Fathers and Sons (Talal Derki, Ansgar Frerich, Eva Kemme and Tobias N. Siebert)
RBG (Betsy West and Julie Cohen)

Best Animated Feature
Incredibles 2 (Brad Bird, John Walker and Nicole Paradis Grindle)
Isle of Dogs (Wes Anderson, Scott Rudin, Steven Rales and Jeremy Dawson)
Mirai (Mamoru Hosoda and Yuichiro Saito)
Ralph Breaks the Internet (Rich Moore, Phil Johnston and Clark Spencer)
***WINNER*** Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller)

Best Foreign-Language Film
Capernaum (Lebanon)
Cold War (Poland)
Never Look Away (Germany)
***WINNER*** Roma (Mexico)
Shoplifters (Japan)

Best Sound Mixing
Black Panther (Steve Boeddeker, Brandon Proctor and Peter Devlin)
***WINNER*** Bohemian Rhapsody (Paul Massey, Tim Cavagin and John Casali)
First Man (Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Ai-Ling Lee and Mary H. Ellis)
Roma (Skip Lievsay, Craig Henighan and Jose Antonio Garcia)
A Star Is Born (Tom Ozanich, Dean Zupancic, Jason Ruder and Steve Morrow)

Best Sound Editing
Black Panther (Benjamin A. Burtt and Steve Boeddeker)
***WINNER*** Bohemian Rhapsody (John Warhurst and Nina Hartstone)
First Man (Ai-Ling Lee and Mildred Iatrou Morgan)
A Quiet Place (Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl)
Roma (Sergio Diaz and Skip Lievsay)

Best Production Design
***WINNER*** Black Panther (Hannah Beachler and Jay Hart)
The Favourite (Fiona Crombie and Alice Felton)
First Man (Nathan Crowley and Kathy Lucas)
Mary Poppins Returns (John Myhre and Gordon Sim)
Roma (Eugenio Caballero and Barbara Enriquez)

Best Visual Effects
Avengers: Infinity War (Dan DeLeeuw, Kelly Port, Russell Earl and Dan Sudick)
Christopher Robin (Christopher Lawrence, Michael Eames, Theo Jones and Chris Corbould)
***WINNER*** First Man (Paul Lambert, Ian Hunter, Tristan Myles and J.D. Schwalm)
Ready Player One (Roger Guyett, Grady Cofer, Matthew E. Butler and David Shirk)
Solo: A Star Wars Story (Rob Bredow, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Dominic Tuohy)

Best Film Editing
BlacKkKlansman (Barry Alexander Brown)
***WINNER*** Bohemian Rhapsody (John Ottman)
The Favourite (Yorgos Mavropsaridis)
Green Book (Patrick J. Don Vito)
Vice (Hank Corwin)

Best Animated Short
Animal Behaviour (Alison Snowden and David Fine)
***WINNER*** Bao (Domee Shi and Becky Neiman-Cobb)
Late Afternoon (Louise Bagnall and Nuria González Blanco)
One Small Step (Andrew Chesworth and Bobby Pontillas)
Weekends (Trevor Jimenez)

Best Live-Action Short
Detainment  (Vincent Lambe and Darren Maho)
Fauve (Jeremy Comte and Maria Gracia Turgeon)
Marguerite (Marianne Farley and Marie-Helene Panisset)
Mother (Rodrigo Sorogoyen and María del Puy Alvarado)
***WINNER*** Skin (Guy Nattiv and Jaime Ray Newman)

Best Documentary Short
Black Sheep (Ed Perkins and Jonathan Chinn)
End Game (Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman)
Lifeboat (Skye Fitzgerald and Bryn Mooser)
A Night at the Garden (Marshall Curry)
***WINNER*** Period. End of Sentence. (Rayka Zehtabchi and Melissa Berton)