It’s 1929. The average movie ticket is 25 cents. Mickey Mouse was just introduced to the world. MoMA had just opened. Despite the end of the Roaring Twenties, the film industry had roared back.
The day was May 16th, 1929, and stars of the silver screen gathered to celebrate the prior year of film in the elegant Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Made in the so-called Golden Era of Los Angeles architecture, wrought iron chandeliers and elaborate floral arrangements adorned the lively banquet hall. Industry leaders and creatives alike awaited the results of the inaugural Academy Awards.
Except they didn’t. Its results were announced three months prior.
Unlike the hours-long production that is the modern-day Oscars, its first one was a mere 15 minutes long. Many of the most well-known Oscar facets—the orchestra swell after a speech surpasses the allotted time, the golden sealed envelope with a winner’s name waiting to be opened, the sea of cameras on the ballroom floor—had not yet been established. Without a live broadcast, millions of eyes were not yet on the show. This resembled nothing of the spectacle that the Oscars would become, but on that day, the seeds of Hollywood’s most coveted tradition were planted.
The beginning of the glamor of the Oscars ceremony started with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and its founder, Louis B. Mayer. Their mission? To combat unionization. As a producer himself, Mayer sought an organization that would mediate any Hollywood labor disputes without labor unions, effectively creating the AMPAS. A gateway into the industry’s prestige, Mayer formed his elite club. Actors, producers, directors, writers, and technicians were joined by the thread of elitism and labor negotiations.
This work in labor arbitrations, however, was exactly what destroyed the credibility of the organization. Then, it was the late 1920s, and the Great Depression rolled on. Amid a time of business failure and mass unemployment, major film studios urged employees to voluntarily accept salary cuts. The Academy sided with the studios. Its early path of union busting soon evolved into its present state as an honorary organization.
With its reputation intact, the Academy’s next move was arguably its most famous, the creation of the coveted award ceremony we all know well. Louis B. Mayer figured out how to fuel the grit of anyone wanting to make their mark in the industry, some healthy competition. “I found that the best way to handle [filmmakers] was to hang medals all over them,” said Mayer, according to Scott Eyman in the biography Lion of Hollywood. “If I got them cups and awards, they’d kill themselves to produce what I wanted.”
It all starts with a campaign idea. With the help of close advisors, hopeful candidates go on a journey through the press. After all, media appearances appeal to voters. Candidates are backed by lobbyists who assist in the campaign, cleaning reputations, and rallying for their desired candidate. This isn’t the story of a starry-eyed politician running for office, it’s the story of an actor in pursuit of an Oscar.
Whether one is a tenured actress in a gritty biographical drama waiting to get her spotlight or a fresh-faced actor in a praised family melodrama, their paths to an Oscar run parallel. Enter: the ‘Oscar season.’ Starting late fall in the year before the Oscar ceremony, the season is the time period when Hollywood studios invest in promoting the movies they hope to succeed at the Oscars. An Oscar is not merely won by being the best in your discipline but by the lobbying power of publicists and a film studio.
To start, release dates are paramount. You’ve heard of the summer blockbuster, but what about the fall slate of Oscar bait? Take the ten best picture winners of the 2010s. Only one of them had a theatrical release before the month of October. Besides 2019’s grand winner, Parasite—released in South Korea on May 19th—prospective Oscar hits begin their climb to the top.
After the fall release and between the Oscar ceremony in March, the campaign begins to take shape. It’s an art perfected by the publicists, most commonly, with widespread advertising. ‘For your consideration’ banners taking over online websites are a major indicator of a campaign, but so are the interviews you may see your favorite actor charismatically feature in. “Anna Nicole Smith was a Sagittarius,” notes two-time Oscar-nominated actor Colman Domingo in Variety’s Actors on Actors. Across from him, the most recent winner of Best Supporting Actor, Kieran Culkin, responds, “No, she wasn’t. She was a person.” On the surface, it’s a punchy dialogue between two respected actors debating the merits of astrology. Underneath, it’s medium to sell Domingo and Culkin’s personalities, a way to promote their individual films, Sing Sing and A Real Pain, respectively, and a means of winning over award show voters.
It’s worth noting the pitfalls of such a system based on connections, sometimes, leveraging them to be cutthroat. A recent occurrence of this was Andrea Riseborough’s rise to a Best Actress nod in 2022. Hundreds of movies are released every year, the majority of which the average person is unaware of. To Leslie is one of these films unknown to the general masses. After all, how are people supposed to recognize a film that made $27,000 in its first theatrical release? So, the film promoted itself through other means, a classic case of celebrity endorsement.
The film’s director, Michael Morris, and his wife, actress Mary McCormack, strayed away from the yellow brick road of advertisements and pivoted their direction. “We can’t even afford an ad. We live or die by people’s reactions to the film,” Morris told the Hollywood Reporter. “We’ve been so under the radar, and our only strategy has been to get people to see the film. I don’t want it to become another title in the library. I want it to be seen.” Lacking the financial support of a traditional campaign, they launched a celebrity-fueled grassroots effort. They collected an army of A-listers—Gwyneth Paltrow, Edward Norton, Kate Winslet, Amy Adams, Jennifer Aniston, among others—who took to social media.
Paltrow called it a “masterpiece of a film.” Adams called Risbourough’s performance a “soul transformation.” Norton posted about his experience seeing “the most fully committed, emotionally deep, physically harrowing performance.”
Rather than ringing up Variety for a well-placed interview, Morris and McCormack rang up friends and colleagues in the industry to praise the film. These celebrities hosted screenings for audiences and touted Andrea Riseborough’s performance.
The plan worked. Against all odds, Riseborough landed a Best Actress nomination, an upset so shocking that the Los Angeles Times called it “one of the most unexpected nominations in Oscar history.” While many actresses are typically in the running for a nomination, some are closer to getting recognized by the Academy than others.
Riseborough notably beat out two powerful performances by women who led a predominantly Black ensemble: Daniella Deadwyler as Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobsley, in Till, and Viola Davis as General Nanisca in The Woman King.
The Oscars may have their fair share of interesting moments, but few shocked Hollywood quite like the night when a winner didn’t show up to give his speech. It was the 45th Academy Awards—Marlon Brando just won Best Actor for The Godfather. Except, it was Sacheen Littlefeather who came up to the podium, invited by Brando to refuse the Oscar.
Presenter Roger Moore called out Brando’s name, and the telecast cut to Littlefeather. Dressed in a fringed buckskin dress and moccasins, she walked to the stage. “Hello. My name is Sacheen Littlefeather,” she began, identifying herself as Apache and the president of the National Native American Affirmative Image Committee. Unlike the usual chorus of ‘Thank you to the Academy,’ this was unpredictable.
Brando, she explained, was declining the award in protest of Hollywood’s mistreatment of Native Americans and the ongoing standoff at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. The reaction was immediate and mixed: a splatter of boos and a scattering of applause from the audience. She ended simply: “Thank you on behalf of Marlon Brando.”
She exited the stage to a storm.
Presenter Raquel Welch, opening the next envelope for Best Actress, quipped, “I hope they haven’t got a cause.” The press hunted for Brando—his answering machine coolly stated, “This may sound silly, but I’m not here.” The Academy called his actions “rude” and “pretentious.”
While Brando’s gesture was intended to shed light on the injustice against Native Americans, Littlefeather was the subject of intense backlash. Tabloids dismissed her as hungry for attention. Littlefeather felt harassed and effectively blacklisted from Hollywood for the rest of her life, with no official comment from the Academy.
Decades later, the moment was reassessed, illuminated in light of #OscarsSoWhite. In a turn of events, the Academy spoke out. “The abuse you endured because of this statement was unwarranted and unjustified,” the formal, 50-year-late apology in 2022 read. That fall, at an Academy event honoring Indigenous artists, an elderly Littlefeather—still poised, still sharp—took the stage in a wheelchair. “Well,” she said with a smile, “we’re a very patient people.”
Portrait of an Award Show on Fire
La La Land vs. Moonlight. The Slap. Emilia Perez. Despite over a century of awards, these 21st-century qualms changed the game. They disrupted the well-oiled machine of the Oscars.
The day was February 26th, 2017, and the final award of the night, Best Picture, was about to be announced. After countless precursor awards, the likely winner was between two: La La Land and Moonlight. The musical romance La La Land had already received five wins in other categories, clearly drawing the attention of Academy voters. Yet, Moonlight, to many, was revolutionary. Tackling themes of queerness of the Black identity, film critic David Ehrlich at IndieWire called it a “specific but utterly symphonic portrait of masculinity in the modern world” in his review.
Presenters Hollywood royalty Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway took the stage, golden envelope in hand. Beatty opened it, hesitated, glanced at Dunaway, then handed it over. Dunaway confidently announced the winner: La La Land.
Applause rings from the crowd. The cast and crew of La La Land rush to the stage. Triumph. Speeches began. Producers began to thank their families, their collaborators, and loved ones. Until the unthinkable happened. They didn’t actually win.
A stagehand, Jordan Horowitz, came holding an identical gold envelope to the one that Beatty and Dunaway presented. Identical in exterior, except the words inside told a different story. “There’s a mistake,” Horowitz said, turning the envelope around to face the audience. Its contents did not spell out La La Land. “Moonlight, you guys won Best Picture. This is not a joke.”
It took a moment for the news to sink in. Even Moonlight director Barry Jenkins seemed in shock, hesitant to move onto the stage. Beatty took the mic in an attempt to explain: he had been handed the wrong envelope—the one for Best Actress, which had been awarded to La La Land’s Emma Stone just moments before. That’s why he hesitated, why Dunaway unknowingly read the wrong title aloud.
As the La La Land team graciously stepped aside, Moonlight took the stage.
After Jenkins took the stage, the damage had already been done. In that moment, Hollywood’s most prestigious award show became of blooper reel of unprofessionalism.
The only comparable Oscars mix-up? In 1933, presenter Will Rogers casually called out, “Come and get it, Frank,” the Best Actor winner? Seems innocuous, right? A friendly remark for the new winner. Frank Capra rushed to the stage. “The spotlight searched around trying to find me,” recounted Capra in his autobiography, The Name Above the Title, “‘Over here!’ I waved.” Capra’s high spirits soon turned sour, as “then [the camera] suddenly swept away from me—and picked up a flustered man standing on the other side of the dance floor—Frank Lloyd!”
Capra mistakenly rushed the stage instead of the actual winner, Frank Lloyd.
“That walk back—through applauding V.I.P.s yelling “Sit down! Down in the front! Sit down!” as I obstructed their view—was the longest, saddest, most shattering walk in my life,” wrote Capra in The Name Above the Title, “I wished I could have crawled under the rug like a miserable worm. When I slumped in my chair, I felt like one. All my friends at the table were crying.”
Humorously, just a year later, at the 1934 ceremony, Capra did win Best Actor. In fact, his film It Happened One Night made Oscar history that night, sweeping all five major categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay).
What about the 94th Academy Awards? Comedian Chris Rock took the stage to present Best Documentary Feature. It’s a category usually absent from the usual Hollywood fanfare, but Rock had other plans.
Rock began by praising Denzel Washington’s performance in Macbeth. Then, he scanned the room and found his next target, Jada Pinkett Smith. “Jada, I love you. G.I. Jane 2, can’t wait to see it, all right?” The joke, referencing Pinkett Smith’s shaved head, drew laughs from the audience. Initially, that included Will Smith himself, Pinkett Smith’s husband. Pinkett Smith, however, rolled her eyes, visibly unimpressed.
As Rock chuckled and moved on, Will Smith’s demeanor shifted.
Then, before anyone fully registered what was happening, Will Smith was on his feet and striding up to the stage… to slap Rock across the face. “Oh, wow. Wow. Will Smith just smacked….me,” responded Rock.
The audience laughed, assuming it was a bit. It wasn’t.
“Keep my wife’s name out of your….mouth!” Will Smith then shouted and repeated from his seat. Then the Internet exploded; especially as many broadcasts muted out the heated exchange, audiences were left puzzled by the tense, yet silent encounter. Regardless of the atmosphere, the same ceremony, Will Smith won Best Actor for King Richard, and the fallout continued. While Smith did apologize in his acceptance speech, many continued to condemn him long after the ceremony.
The Academy itself criticized the initial lack of action to remove Smith from the ceremony in the moment. “We learned from this that the Academy must be fully transparent and accountable in our actions, and particularly in times of crisis we must act swiftly and compassionately and decisively for ourselves and for our industry,” said President Mia Yang in her response the day after the award ceremony. The Academy banned Smith from Academy events for ten years.
The double standard of the Academy, however, upset some viewers. Where was this attention and accountability for people with many long-term abuse allegations? “With the name recognition of the Oscars, the Academy’s lack of action to remove perpetrators of sexual assault inherently enables the careers of these people,” said Sanjida Mou ’25.
Regarding the most recent award show cycle, drama is an understatement. Enter Emilia Perez, the musical crime film by French director Jacques Audiard. It remains an unpopular movie with general audiences. “Emilia Perez had no songs that were good or memorable, a problem for something that’s supposed to be a musical. It doesn’t work as a musical, and I honestly don’t think it really works as a movie,” said Isabelle Ikeya-tam ’25.
It’s both about the drug cartel business in Mexico and a musical. Its Oscar-nominated director and songwriters, however, are French, not Mexican. Despite the movie predominantly being in Spanish, they don’t speak Spanish. It’s a story about a transgender woman’s experience post-transition, without significant creative input from actual trans people. “It’s a script that is so alienated from the process of transitioning as a trans woman–and yet blurts falsehoods out with such bold, intense conviction,” writes Amelia Hansford for PinkNews.
Despite these faults, Emilia Perez was the most nominated film a the most recent Oscars. Why? It may be important to note how removed the cisgender voting body can be from the trans experience. The film portrays Emilia and her transition as a means of deception in order to refuse accountability for her harmful actions as a cartel leader, framing her transition as a so-called rebirth to absolve her of her past self. Perez’s transition is hardly seen as a character choice: it’s a plot device. Emilia Perez doesn’t subvert stereotypes about trans people, it reinforces them.
For that reason, its presence in the Oscar race isn’t surprising. Kyndall Cunningham for Vox calls it a film that “falls neatly into a category of movies the white Hollywood establishment loves to celebrate: mawkish stories about people on society’s margins that allow viewers to feel socially aware through their consumption, without challenging any of the stereotypes and political messaging presented in them.”
This undercurrent of criticism was met with another issue: Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Perez) and a string of discriminatory tweets. On January 30th, 2025 — just over a month before the Oscar ceremony — journalist Sarah Hagi lifted open the floodgates.
Besides the disrespect and bigotry from Gascón, one may question how this impacted her Oscar chances. “I cannot step down from an Oscar nomination because I have not committed any crime, nor have I harmed anyone. I am neither racist nor anything that all these people have tried to make others believe I am,” said Gascón in a CNN interview. Despite her efforts to stay in the game, a controversy of this magnitude crushed her chance at a Best Actress win.
While she stayed out of press circuits and the public eye in the weeks after her uncovered post, she did attend this year’s Oscar ceremony, and her presence did not go unnoticed. “Anora uses the F word 479 times,” host Conan O’Brien joked in his opening monologue, “That’s three more than the record set by Karla Sofía Gascón’s publicist.”
The Perks of Being an Oscar Winner
Yes, an Oscar often means a better contract, more opportunities in future films, and the general title of being the ‘best’ at their craft. But to many creatives in the industry, the impact often goes beyond the direct gains.
Some had affectionate words to describe their moment: “This is the moment of joy, and I want to kiss everybody because you are the major of the joy, and he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in eternity’s sunrise, say the poet,” said Roberto Benigni, accepting his film Life Is Beautiful’s win for Best Foreign Language at the 1999 Oscars.
Others who make Oscar history dedicate their win to progress. Halle Berry was the first woman of color to win Best Actress for her performance in Monster’s Ball. With tears welling in her eyes, she took pride in being the first, but not the last, woman of color to get the honor. “This moment is so much bigger than me…It’s for the women that stand beside me…and it’s for every nameless face that’s a woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened,” said Berry when accepting the honor.
Awards aside, the joy of film is truly what the ceremony is about. Seeing a costume designer finally get their flowers, or an international director who dreams to create art for any-sized audience. How does that apply to today?
Amid decades worth of change and workshopping to the Oscar process, some believe there’s still a long road ahead.
“There shouldn’t be ten films nominated for Best Picture. Realistically, only around six of them usually have a shot at winning, so why bother with all ten? Why bother with nominating something like Wicked or The Substance if it won’t win,” said Fiona McLaughlin ’25.
While some have thoughts about the nomination process, the film itself is a living medium. For Christopher Nolan, that means pushing the boundaries of the theatrical experience by filming 70mm IMAX. For the directors of No Other Land, it’s getting to document the importance of resistance. For Jane Schoenbrun, it’s using visual aesthetics to share a vision of the trans experience. And the Oscars, despite all their flaws, are the ultimate stage for recognizing the power of film. At its core, the Oscars can be more than a competition. It can be a celebration.
If the ceremony can continue to embrace and celebrate the diversity of the film landscape, then it can continue to platform worthwhile stories to a wide audience. Take a trip to the theaters. Preserve art in its true form. Here’s to the films that inspire even more dreamers, crazy as they may seem.
“This moment is so much bigger than me…It’s for the women that stand beside me…and it’s for every nameless face that’s a woman of color that now has a chance because this door tonight has been opened,” said Berry when accepting the honor.