Written by: Mark Aguilar 🇸🇻
With the conclusion of the 95th annual Academy Awards, Everything Everywhere All at Once came out on top by winning 7 Oscars, including Best Picture.
With its 7 Oscar wins, the film also became the most awarded Best Picture winning film at the Academy Awards since 2009, when Slumdog Millionaire was awarded 8 times.
Ke Huy Quan began the film’s sweep during the night when he won Best Supporting Actor for his role as Waymond Wang in the film. After taking a 30-year hiatus from acting, the actor won an Academy Award for his first film back in Hollywood. He also becomes the second actor of Asian descent to win in this category, with the first being Haing W. Ngor in 1984.
Jamie Lee Curtis followed, winning Best Supporting Actress for her role in Everything Everywhere All at Once, arguably upsetting the category. Angela Bassett in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Kerry Condon in The Banshees of Inisherin were favored over Curtis in the category. Bassett was potentially held back for being in a Marvel movie-films traditionally ignored by the Academy-while Condon could have been too fresh of a face for voters to get behind. Curtis, however, is a respected and veteran actress finally winning her first Oscar after working in the industry for over four decades.
The film then proceeded to win Best Original Screenplay, awarded to writer/directors Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert, also known as The Daniels. The duo also went on to win Best Director for the film– coming a long way since directing the 2014 music video for the song “Turn Down for What”.
The only technical category that the film managed to win was Best Editing, which was awarded to Paul Rogers. This was only the second feature film that he’s worked on.
Before being awarded Best Picture, the final category to be presented was Best Actress, which has been hotly contested all awards season. The two front-runners for the category were Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All at Once and Cate Blanchette for Tár and it seemed too close to call who would win on the night.
In the end, Michelle Yeoh won the award, securing her first Academy Award. She became the first Asian actress to win the award, as well as the first non-white actress to win since Halle Berry in 2002. Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan also make history as the first two Asian actors to win in the same year.
Everything Everywhere All at Once has already cemented itself as a historic Best Picture winner, a feat few could have predicted after it premiered at the 2022 South by Southwest Film Festival. With its March release date, being a genre film, and notable for its multiverse and ‘weird’ plot points, a Best Picture win was seen as very unlikely even by its biggest fans.
All Quiet on the Western Front also managed to win an impressive 4 Oscars on the night. The German WWI film picked up wins for Best International Feature, Best Production Design, Best Score, and Best Cinematography. The film upset in the production design and score categories, where many favored Babylon to win in those categories.
The Whale also managed to win 2 Oscars, including Best Makeup & Hairstyling and Best Actor for Brenden Fraser. Fraser was also in a hotly contested race for Best Actor with Austin Butler for his performance in Elvis. Fraser, however, pulled off the win after making his comeback to Hollywood.
Here are other notable wins that happened during the ceremony:
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio won Best Animated Feature, awarding Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro with his 3rd Oscar win. The auteur had this to say during his acceptance speech: “Animation is cinema. Animation is ready to be taken to the next step. Keep animation in the conversation.”
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever won Best Costume Design, making Ruth E. Carter a two-time Academy Award winner after her first win for 2018’s Black Panther. She makes history by becoming the first Black woman ever to win two Oscars.
Women Talking won Best Adapted Screenplay, awarding Sarah Polley her first Oscar win.
The two highest-grossing movies of 2022 walked away with an Oscar each– Top Gun: Maverick won Best Sound, while Avatar: The Way of Water won Best Visual Effects.
There was also notable Indian representation as The Elephant Whisperers won Best Documentary Short, as well as RRR winning Best Original Song for “Naatu Naatu”.
With every Oscars ceremony comes films that despite being nominated for several categories, get shut out completely. Such films include Tár (6 nominations), The Fabelmans (7 nominations), Elvis (8 nominations), and The Banshees of Inisherin (9 nominations).
Time will tell how the legacy of these Academy Awards will be regarded in film history. Although film is subjective, the general consensus seems that Everything Everywhere All at Once was the most beloved movie of the year and could potentially go down as one of the most progressive Best Picture winners in Oscars history.
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