Moments From The 2024 Oscars We'll Never Be Able To Forget
The 2024 Academy Awards anointed their winners on March 10 — starting the ceremony a little earlier amidst a massive protest on the streets of Los Angeles — and now that Christopher Nolan and "Oppenheimer" have their flowers, awards season is officially over for the year. So what stood out during the Oscars ceremony itself, which veteran officiant Jimmy Kimmel hosted?
Beyond "Oppenheimer's" huge night — the film took home awards for its star Cillian Murphy, supporting standout Robert Downey Jr., director Nolan, and best picture alongside a handful of others, bringing its total to seven statues — a lot happened on Hollywood's biggest night. Some things that didn't make Looper's list but were still pretty great include Kate McKinnon's playful banter with Steven Spielberg while she was presenting, John Mulaney's pitch for "Field of Dreams" to somehow take home best picture, Kimmel bringing out crew members to let them know actors, writers, and directors will support any impending strike, and the VFX team behind "Godzilla Minus One" bringing figurines up on stage during their win. Ready or not, here are the most memorable moments of the 2024 Oscars, determined by two intrepid Looper writers who unabashedly love awards shows.
Da'Vine Joy Randolph makes awards season history
No one else in 2023-2024 had a more consistent win streak than Da'Vine Joy Randolph, and it was a delight to watch her make awards season history by scooping up every major supporting actress trophy under the sun.
Everything about her big moment in the sun was perfect, from her introduction by previous Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o to Paul Giamatti's giving her a gentlemanly escort onto the stage and openly weeping in pride throughout her acceptance speech to her carefully chosen words. Randolph remembered her introduction to the acting world, the people who helped push her forward, and specifically her publicist.
Randolph has made it from the Golden Globes to the Screen Actor's Guild awards to the Oscars and gained attention at every single stop. With any luck, she'll be able to keep her momentum, but she's already given us a memorable Oscar moment for the ages, no matter where her career ends.
Ryan Gosling's I'm Just Ken Performance Even Stole Scorsese's Heart
Ryan Gosling's show-stopping dream ballet was a highlight of Greta Gerwig's "Barbie," so naturally, the live performance led by supporting actor nominee Gosling was a major highlight of the ceremony. The final original song nominee to take the stage, "I'm Just Ken," kicked off with Gosling rising from his seat in the Dolby Theatre and removing a cowboy hat behind an already-giggling Margot Robbie, and it only got better from there.
Clad in a hot-pink getup complete with gloves, the "Drive" actor carefully laid his hat on his sister Mandi Gosling's head and took over the stage with dozens of Kens, eventually joined by movie Kens Simu Liu, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa, and Kingsley Ben-Adir. We all know Gosling is a former Mouseketeer, so it wasn't surprising that he absolutely crushed this performance, from his dance moves to swagger to the pitch-perfect vocals.
@britishvogue Replying to @JonnyVarvatos It seems #MartinScorsese loved RyanGosling’s “I’m Just Ken†performance at the #Oscars just as much as we did.
I never thought I would say that I have not one but two things in common with a legendary director, but here we are: Martin Scorsese and I both love "Vanderpump Rules," and we both adored this performance. Scorsese's daughter Francesca, a TikTok legend in her own right, snapped a video of the "Killers of the Flower Moon" director rocking out next to his own seat, which just goes to show that the energy of Gosling's performance was completely irresistible. Gosling may have lost the Academy Award to Robert Downey Jr., but he earned his place in Oscars history with a performance that was so utterly delightful, so wonderfully joyful, and so massive that even Slash joined in as a secret Ken.
John Cena bared it all for Poor Things costume designer
It's not always easy to keep audiences glued to their seats for the non-acting categories every Oscar season, but I found the ceremony's use of John Cena extremely entertaining and well worth watching this year.
James Gunn's favorite "Peacemaker" was called upon to present the best achievement in costume design award in a moment described by host Jimmy Kimmel (whose Oscar monologue was kind of cringe) as a nod to an infamous incident that took place at the 42nd Academy Awards ceremony. Art gallery owner Robert Opel streaked across the stage while David Niven prepared to introduce Elizabeth Taylor, causing Niven to quip about Opel's 'shortcomings.' The 'tribute' had Cena mock-sheepishly shuffling across the stage, the envelope held before him to "protect" his modesty. He and Kimmel bantered about his previous wardrobe choices, with Kimmel declaring that Cena's choice to wrestle in jorts was worse than being naked in public.
Cena couldn't move the envelope to present the nominees, so Kimmel helped him introduce them. When the camera cut back to the auditorium, Cena was draped in a golden curtain — shades of Scarlett O'Hara (Vivien Leigh) in "Gone with the Wind" — and passed the award out to "Poor Things" costume designer Holly Waddington.
The hilarious moment was definitely one of my favorite moments of the evening. It had sharp writing, a great performance by Cena, and a deserving win for Waddington. It's certainly an Oscar moment viewers will remember for a long, long time.
Messi, the bestest boy, & his behind-the-scenes secret pal
Whenever an animal is involved in a press tour for any movie, I pretty much go feral, and I know I'm not alone. In recent years, Jenny the donkey from "Banshees of Inisherin" and Uggie from "The Artist" (RIP) have caused waves on the press circuit — and the 2023-2024 awards season brought us all another gift with Messi, the brilliant Border Collie from best picture nominee "Anatomy of a Fall." The French legal drama ultimately earned director and writer Justine Triet an Oscar for best original screenplay. Still, we can all agree that Messi deserved his own Oscar for best performance by a canine.
As Snoop in the film, Messi has to perform a scene where he overdoses and nearly dies, which is a pretty staggering feat for a dog (no matter how intelligent) — and as Jimmy Kimmel acknowledged during his monologue, it might well be one of the best performances of the year by any mammal.
After rumors swirled that Messi wouldn't attend the Oscars because other nominees were jealous of him stealing all the attention (understandable but rude), Messiheads were rewarded with footage of him sitting with Kimmel before the ceremony. He arrived in a sweet bow tie — immediately earning the title of "very best and goodest boy." Add in the shot where it looks like Messi is "clapping" his paws — which led to an incredible BTS photo making the rounds on social media — and that final shot of Messi peeing on Matt Damon's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (a reference to Kimmel and Damon's long-running joke feud), and you've got yet another perfect performance from this prize pooch.
Al Pacino's hilarious presentation of best picture had eyes on him
Only a highly decorated, completely nonchalant master of cool like Al Pacino could get away with presenting the Oscar for best picture with such nonchalance. For anyone else, it would've been a masterclass in ill-prepared sloppiness, but Pacino made it look like a part of his dance — and definitely won my continued esteem.
With very little ceremony, the actor simply stepped onto the stage and said, "Ten wonderful films were nominated, but only one will take the award for best picture. I have to go to the envelope for that, and I will. Here it comes. And my eyes see 'Oppenheimer.' Yes. Yes." It was just lowkey enough to be confusing and just charming enough to be ersatz — and proved that Pacino's brilliance can cut through the stuffy din of any room filled with pressed tuxes and designer gowns. While some got on the actor's case for failing to read out the nominees — a choice a source close to the production told CNN was a creative decision — it's hard to deny that it was a fun moment.
Jonathan Glazer's call for Gaza ceasefire amidst Oscar win
I spent a long time avoiding Jonathan Glazer's film "The Zone of Interest" during this awards season, and I was wrong to do so. The movie, which centers on a high-ranking German family that resides directly next door to Auschwitz-Birkenau, is a stunning rebuke of humanity's capacity for cruelty, and Glazer's unflinching direction and depiction of the banality of evil is wholly unsettling and also a vitally necessary reminder. When the film (deservedly) won best international feature — it also took home a statue for its sound design — Glazer got up to give his speech, and here are some of his exact words:
"All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present — not to say, 'Look what they did then,' rather, 'Look what we do now.' Our film shows where dehumanization leads, at its worst [...] Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?"
Glazer is quite clearly saying that his film's intention is to say "never again" means "never again" for anyone, but bad faith actors will always come out of the woodwork. The meaning behind Glazer's statement feels clear, but even outlets like Variety misinterpreted and ran with out-of-context statements by claiming Glazer said he and his colleagues refute their Jewishness without explanation. This speech — a carefully thought-out, timely, and beautifully constructed moment crafted by Glazer — is significant, and, notably, the British director was the only person to mention Gaza throughout the ceremony. We can only hope people stop misinterpreting his vital words, but they'll remain an important part of Oscar history.