Stephanie Hsu, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan Allyson Riggs/A24
The grand prize. Everything Everywhere All at Once won Best Picture at the 2023 Oscars on Sunday, March 12.
Directors The Daniels (known individually as Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert) thanked the Academy for the honor. “Thank you so much to everyone here. You have all inspired me,” Kwan said. “I think that one of the things that I realized growing up is one of the best things we can do for one another is shelter each other from the chaos of this crazy world we live in. Thank you to the storytellers here who did that for me.”
He continued: “The world is changing rapidly and I fear that our stories are not keeping at pace, and sometimes it’s a little scary knowing that movies move at the rate of years and the world on the internet is moving at the rate of milliseconds. But I have great faith in our stories. These stories have changed my life and they have done that for generations, and I know that we’ll get through this. Have a great night guys.”
There were 10 films nominated for the coveted prize at the 95th Academy Awards, which were broadcast live on ABC from the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood in Los Angeles. Everything Everywhere All at Once beat out All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water, The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, The Fabelmans, Tár, Top Gun: Maverick, Triangle of Sadness and Women Talking for the night’s biggest accolade.
Everything Everywhere All at Once was widely expected to win given that it picked up the top awards at the Producers Guild Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Directors Guild of America Awards, Writers Guild of America Awards and Film Independent Spirit Awards. At the top of the show, Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis won Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively. Later, Paul Rogers won for Best Film Editing while the Daniels took the trophy for Best Director. Michelle Yeoh won Best Actress, making history as the first Asian-identifying woman to win the category.
Jimmy Kimmel hosted Sunday’s awards show, a role he previously took on in 2017 and 2018. The emcee said prior to the Oscars that he expected the show to be longer than the planned three-hour block (as it almost always is). “Oh, it’s preposterous!” Kimmel, 55, told The Hollywood Reporter while discussing the time slot earlier this month. “This show’s going to be a lot longer than three hours, I’ll tell you that right now. Alert the affiliates, we’re going long! I mean, we’ve added all the categories back, so just by virtue of that, it’s going to be long, but hopefully it’ll be fun, too. I think we have some great performance moments.”
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences returned all 23 award categories to the main broadcast. In 2022, the Oscars cut eight categories from the live show including Best Animated Short Film, Best Documentary Short Subject, Best Film Editing, Best Live Action Short Film, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Original Score, Best Production Design and Best Sound. There was much backlash, with many criticizing the Academy for not giving technical categories the praise they deserved. Even with the controversial decision, the 2022 broadcast still ended up being 3 hours and 40 minutes long — 20 minutes longer than the previous year with all the categories included.
The Academy officially announced in November 2022 that all awards would be included in the televised ceremony in 2023.
“I can confirm that all categories will be included in the live telecast,” Bill Kramer, the CEO of AMPAS, told Variety at the time. “We are committed to having a show that celebrates the artisans, the arts and sciences and the collaborative nature of moviemaking. This is very much what the mission of the Academy is, and I am very hopeful that we can do a show that celebrates all components of moviemaking in an entertaining and engaging way.”
Kimmel said that while the Oscars are always long, he thinks it’s an enjoyable ceremony. “I think it’s going to be a fun show, but, yes, everybody’s always going to complain that it’s long. I mean, you don’t have to watch the whole thing, nobody’s holding a gun to your head. Watch the first 15 minutes and then you can go to sleep, as far as I’m concerned,” he told THR.