The 2020 Oscars are in the books, and the evening featured a healthy amount of upsets and surprising moments. The Academy Awards went host-less for the second straight year after Kevin Hart’s invitation to host in 2019 was rescinded, and it mostly worked to success. Several Oscars veterans made appearances (Steve Martin, Chris Rock, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph), while a number of lesser-known personalities got some screen time, as well.
The Oscars are no stranger to buzzy moments, especially in recent years. The Best Picture category has featured an upset for five years in a row now, with the betting favorite going into the night failing to win each time. Recent ceremonies have featured stunning performances (Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper performing “Shallow” from A Star Is Born), oddities (Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall tying for Best Sound Editing) and joyful moments (Spike Lee jumping into Samuel L. Jackson’s arms after winning his first Oscar). The ceremony’s wildest incident came in 2017, as La La Land was infamously announced as the Best Picture winner when Moonlight actually won.
This year’s ceremony didn’t have any shockers to that level, and the whole affair was too long, with too many musical performances and montages stuffed into its 3.5-hour runtime. But the Oscars 2020 still had a number of surprise winners and delightful bits. Here are the best and most surprising moments from the 2020 Academy Awards.
Bong Joon-ho and Parasite Sweep The Awards
The biggest story of the night was Parasite, which shocked the world by taking home most major awards it was nominated for. The critical darling about class struggle in South Korea was considered by many to be the best of this year’s nominees, but few could have predicted just how successful it would be at this year’s ceremony. It started off by winning the Best Original Screenplay award – which wasn’t a major upset – and Best International Feature Film, which going in might have been the biggest lock of the night (if not in the awards’ history).
But then, Bong Joon-ho scored a stunning upset in the Best Director category, beating out Sam Mendes, who had already taken home the Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards for 1917. And the Korean auteur was back on stage moments later when Parasite took home Best Picture, becoming the first foreign language film to ever win the Oscars’ top prize. Going into the night, it was the first film from South Korea to ever be nominated for an Academy Award, period – no film from the country had ever even cracked the Foreign Film category. By the end of the night, it had corralled four statues.
The 50-year-old Bong was likely on stage Sunday night more than he anticipated; he gave three speeches by himself, the best of which came while accepting Best Director (also undoubtedly the best speech that anyone gave throughout the entire night). He started by heaping praise on his fellow nominees: “When I was young and studying cinema, there was a saying that I carved deep into my heart: The most personal is most creative. That quote was by the great Martin Scorsese.” He then thanked Quentin Tarantino for always putting his earlier films on lists, and said he would like to get a chainsaw and divide the award into five so he could also split it with Mendes and Todd Phillips. He ended the speech to a standing ovation by saying he was “ready to drink until the next morning.” It was clear that the audience was firmly on the Parasite bandwagon, and they screamed for an encore when the film won Best Picture.
Eminem Shocks Crowd With Performance Of ‘Lose Yourself’
The Oscars are often an overlong affair, and it can be argued that a reason is there are too many musical numbers (does every nominated song really need a five-minute performance?). But there was one song that kept the internet buzzing long after its final notes. Lin-Manuel Miranda came out to introduce a seemingly innocuous montage of the best moments of music in film, including “Eye of the Tiger” from Rocky and “My Heart Will Go On” from Titanic. The final song in the montage was Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” from 8 Mile, and then all of a sudden, there was Eminem himself on stage. He went on to perform the hit song in its entirety with a string accompaniment in the background, for the night’s truly out-of-left-field moment.
The audience was thoroughly shocked, and the broadcast did a great job of capturing several of the celebrities’ stunned faces. Idina Menzel looked completely confused, and Billie Eilish seemed skeptical that Eminem was even there in the first place. But once the shock wore off, everyone seemed to get into it, and it was a solid performance. Star Wars actress Kelly Marie Tran was even seen rapping along at one point. It was a full-circle moment for Eminem, who didn’t come to the ceremony to accept the award in 2003. He addressed that fact in a tweet, thanking the Academy for having him.
The Oscars Get Political
Unsurprisingly, politics were at the front and center of the 2020 Oscars ceremony. Steve Martin and Chris Rock kicked the festivities off as the first presenters, and Martin made a crack referring to the infamous 2017 Best Picture mishap where La La Land was mistakenly announced as the winner: “They have guaranteed this will not happen this year because the Academy has switched to the new Iowa Caucus app.” Brad Pitt was the first winner of the night, and had a political quip of his own: “They told me I have 45 seconds this year, which is 45 seconds more than the Senate gave John Bolton this week.”
The political discourse continued in spurts throughout the night. Actor Josh Gad introduced Idina Menzel’s performance of “Into The Unknown” from Frozen 2 by saying “Frozen 2 – or as climate change deniers call it, Not Frozen 2 – has been dubbed in 45 countries around the world.” A pre-recorded clip saw climate change activist Greta Thunberg thank Planet Earth and Life narrator David Attenborough for introducing her to the harsh realities of climate change. And when the Netflix documentary American Factory won Best Documentary Feature, director Julia Reichart appeared to call for unionization by saying “we believe things will get better when the workers of the world unite.”
Netflix, 1917 Among Night’s Biggest Losers
For the second straight year, Netflix mounted an extensive Oscar campaign. And for the second straight year, it was mostly for naught, as the streaming service was largely shut out of the awards. A number of heavily nominated films were released on the platform – The Irishman, Marriage Story, The Two Popes – and it ended up with 24 total nominations, more than any studio. But it only went home with two wins: Laura Dern for Best Supporting Actress in Marriage Story, and American Factory for Best Documentary Feature. Bong Joon-ho himself went home with more awards than the entire service. It’s reminiscent of last year when Netflix mounted a huge campaign for Roma to win Best Picture, only to lose to Green Book.
Meanwhile, Sam Mendes’ 1917 came in as the favorite in a number of categories and was expected to walk out with a handful of awards. The World War I epic had cleaned up in both the Best Picture and Best Director categories in the other award ceremonies, and seemed to be destined to cap off the season with another set of wins on Sunday night. But not only did it lose out on Best Picture and Best Director, it lost out on some technical awards as well, ceding Best Sound Editing to Ford v Ferrari. Three statues is not a bad haul, especially compared to The Irishman (which won none of the ten awards it was nominated for), but it has to be considered a disappointing result for a film that cruised to victory for much of awards season.
WTF Moments: Cats, Joaquin Phoenix’s Speech
The Oscars wouldn’t be the Oscars without a couple bizarre moments. While there wasn’t anything like Envelope-gate and everyone said the right names (save for Zazie Beetz appearing to momentarily forget conductor Rickey Minor’s name), there were still a couple head-scratchers. The weirdest movie of 2019 turned into the weirdest intro of the 2020 Oscars, as Cats stars James Corden and Rebel Wilson introduced the Best Visual Effects category in full costume. They gave their much-maligned film some light-hearted ribbing: “Nobody knows, better than us, the importance of good visual effects.” They then batted around the stage mic, pretending it was a cat toy. It was funny, while also very odd.
Everyone expected Joaquin Phoenix’s speech to be a doozy, but his Best Actor acceptance was wild even for him. It started as a generic call for gender and race equality, but gradually descended further and further into bizarre territory. At one point, Phoenix said, “We feel entitled to artificially inseminate a cow and then steal her baby, even though her cries of anguish are unmistakable.” He then went on to talk about his own career: “I’ve been a scoundrel in my life. I’ve been selfish, I’ve been cruel at times, hard to work with, and ungrateful, but so many of you have given me a second chance – and I think that’s when we’re at our best.” Renee Zellweger’s ensuing Best Actress speech was also long and meandering, but it was nothing compared to what came before it.
Women Speak Out About Representation
One of the biggest storylines leading up to the 2020 Oscars was the continued lack of representation for female filmmakers. Greta Gerwig was snubbed from the Best Director category, and her film Little Women was further shut out when it only took home one Oscar for Best Costume Design. But a number of women spoke out on the subject. Natalie Portman wore a cape embroidered with the names of every female director that was snubbed, including Gerwig, Lorene Scafaria (Hustlers) and Lulu Wang (The Farewell). Portman famously announced the Best Director category two years ago by saying, “here are the all-male nominees.”
Hildur Guðnadóttir became the first woman to win the Best Original Score Oscar in 23 years, winning for her work on Joker. When she accepted the award, she offered a strong message: “To the girls, to the women, to the mothers, to the daughters, who hear the music bubbling within, please speak up. We need to hear your voices.” The 37-year-old was met with raucous applause for her speech, where she became just the fourth woman to win the award in the Academy’s history.
Next: Oscars 2020: The Biggest Snubs & Surprises
