Home Entertainment And the winners of the 2015 Oscars are…

And the winners of the 2015 Oscars are…

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academyawards-oscars-2015

Righto, ladies and gentlemen! It’s time for all the shouts of snubbery to die down, all the screams about how “everything is not awesome” to subside. As in the early hours of this morning (local time), the 87th Annual Academy Awards aka the 2015 Oscars was held at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, led by host extraordinaire and all-round swell guy Swarley Neil Patrick Harris. NPH was superb behind the mic, tossing out a couple of sidesplitting zingers (like telling the audience “Oh now you like him?” after they applauded Selma star David Oyelowo coming to the stage to present) and keeping things moving with lost energy. This is perfectly exemplified in the hilarious song and dance number about the magic of movies, with which he opened the show.

Oscars-NPH

But as cool as a Doogie Howzer duet with Anna Kendrick is – or even Doogie Howzer in his underwear! – that’s not why we’re here. So who walked home with the most golden statues on the evening? Although our dream of seeing the best Batman ever win an Oscar never came true (sorry, Michael Keaton), Birdman was still the big winner, netting four awards: Best Picture, Best Director Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu, Best Original Screenplay for Inarritu and his co-writers and Best Cinematography for Emmanuel Lubezki. That last award is especially deserving seeing as how the film used some incredible camera trickery to make the film appear as a single long take. Wes Anderson’s whimsical, lavishly designed The Grand Budapest Hotel also ran roughshod over the competition on the more technical side of the awards, picking up Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Costume Design and Best Production Design to go along with its Best Musical Score award for Alexander Desplat’s work on the film.

This was a very un-controversial Oscars though, with most of the other big awards going to the people who were the actual favourites in their categories (Eddie Redmayne and Julianne Moore for Best Actor and Actress respectively, and JK Simmons an Patricia Arquette for Best Supporting Actor and Actres respectively). There were two big surprise though. Firstly, I have a feeling that the Academy is trying to make up for that time it stiffed Christopher Nolan for The Dark Knight as Interstellar beat out clear favourite (and in my opinion superior) Dawn Of The Planet of the Apes for the Best Visual Effects award. Look, Interstellar is an incredible looking movie with some awe-inducing visuals, but did you see those apes?! Those CGI creations packed more realistic emotion than most movies this year! Sigh!

Secondly, with The LEGO Movie – the critical and public consensus favourite animated film of the year – being snubbed at the nominations stage, most people expected that How To Train Your Dragon 2 would wrap up instead, seeing as how the Academy was suddenly showing lots of love for a movie that was good, but certainly not as original or fun as its competition. Instead, those rascally Academy voters threw a curve ball and instead gave the award to Disney’s Big Hero 6. As I personally love Big Hero 6 and found it better than HTTYD2, I have to admit that I’m kind of glad that it won – if LEGO Movie couldn’t take it, this was a good substitute.

Speaking of LEGO Movie, it unfortunately went home empty handed as its infection anthem, “Everything Is Awesome”,  lost out to Selma‘s “Glory” in the Best Original Song category. Or as I like to call it, Best Consolation Prize For Not Nominating You For Something Else Even Though You Totally Deserved It.

Here is the full list of with winners in bold in each category (Apologies for the poor video quality, but the official videos are ge0-location locked so you cannot view them outside of the United States. Will upload better quality video as it becomes available).

  • Best Picture

Birdman
Boyhood
Selma
The Theory of Everything
The Imitation Game
The Grand Budapest Hotel
American Sniper
Whiplash

  • Best Director

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu – Birdman
Richard Linklater – Boyhood
Wes Anderson – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum – The Imitation Game
Bennett Miller – Foxcatcher

  • Best Actor In a Leading Role

Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything
Michael Keaton – Birdman
Benedict Cumberbatch – The Imitation Game
Steve Carell – Foxcatcher
Bradley Cooper – American Sniper

Oscars-EddieRedmayne_TheoryOfEverything1

Best Actress In a Leading Role

Julianne Moore – Still Alice
Felicity Jones – The Theory of Everything
Rosamund Pike – Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon – Wild
Marion Cotillard – Two Days One Night

  • Best Actor In a Supporting Role

J.K. Simmons – Whiplash
Edward Norton – Birdman
Ethan Hawke – Boyhood
Mark Ruffalo – Foxcatcher
Robert Duvall – The Judge

  • Best Actress In a Supporting Role

Patricia Arquette – Boyhood
Emma Stone – Birdman
Keira Knightley – The Imitation Game
Meryl Streep – Into the Woods
Laura Dern – Wild

  • Writing – Adapted Screenplay

Graham Moore – The Imitation Game
Damien Chazelle – Whiplash
Anthony McCarten – The Theory of Everything
Jason Hall – American Sniper
Paul Thomas Anderson – Inherent Vice

Oscars_GrahamMoore_TheImitationGame

  • Writing – Original Screenplay

Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris and Armando Bo – Birdman
Richard Linklater – Boyhood
Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Dan Gilroy – Nightcrawler
E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman – Foxcatcher

  •  Cinematography

Emmanuel Lubezki – Birdman
Roger Deakins – Unbroken
Robert D. Yeoman – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Dick Pope – Mr. Turner
Lukasz Zal and Ryszard Lynzewski – Ida

Oscars_Ida_PawelPawlikowski

  •  Best Foreign Language Film

Ida
Leviathan
Tangerines
Wild Tales
Timbuktu

  • Music – Original Score

Alexandre Desplat – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Hans Zimmer – Interstellar
Alexandre Desplat – The Imitation Game
Johann Johannsson – The Theory of Everything
Gary Yershon – Mr Turner

  • Best Animated Feature Film

Big Hero 6
How to Train Your Dragon 2
The Boxtrolls
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya
Song of the Sea

Oscars_DonHall_BigHero6

  • Makeup and Hairstyling

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Foxcatcher
Guardians of the Galaxy

  • Costume Design

Milena Canonero – The Grand Budapest Hotel

Colleen Atwood – Into the Woods
Anna B. Sheppard – Maleficent
Jacqueline Durran – Mr. Turner
Mark Bridges – Inherent Vice

  • Music – Original Song

“Glory” by Common and John Legend – Selma
“Lost Stars” by Gregg Alexander, Danielle Brisebois, Nick Lashley and Nick Southwood – Begin Again
“Everything Is Awesome” by Shawn Patterson – The LEGO Movie
“I’m Not Gonna Miss You,” by Glen Campbell – Glenn Campbell: I’ll Be Me
“Grateful” – Beyond the lights

  • Documentary Short Subject

Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1
Joanna
Our Curse
White Earth
The Reaper

  • Documentary Feature

Citizenfour
Last Days in Vietnam
Virunga
The Salt of the Earth
Finding Vivian Maier

  •  Visual Effects

Interstellar
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Guardians of the Galaxy
Captain America: Winter Soldier
X-Men: Days of Future Past

  • Film Editing

Tom Cross – Whiplash
Sandra Adair – Boyhood
William Goldenberg – The Imitation Game
Joel Cox and Gary Roach – American Sniper
Barney Pilling – The Grand Budapest Hotel

  • Sound Editing

American Sniper
Interstellar
Unbroken
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Birdman

  • Sound Mixing

Whiplash
Interstellar
Unbroken
American Sniper
Birdman

  • Production Design

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Into the Woods
Interstellar
The Imitation Game
Mr. Turner

  • Short Film – Live Action

The Phone Call
Boogaloo and Graham
Aya
Butterlamp
Parvenah

  • Short Film – Animated

Feast
The Bigger Picture
A Single Life
The Dam Keeper
Me and My Moulton

Last Updated: February 23, 2015

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