22 Records Were Broken At The Oscars This Year, But There’s Sooooo Much More Room To Grow
The 2023 Oscars happened last night, and with it came a storm of monumental wins and nominations. And while these awards are a huge step in the right direction, it just proves that the Academy still has a long way to go in terms of representation.
2. EEAAO is also the second sci-fi movie to win Best Picture.
3. And with seven wins at the ceremony, EEAAO is now the second most-awarded Best Picture since Slumdog Millionaire.
4. Michelle Yeoh is the first woman of color to win Best Actress in the past two decades.
5. And she’s the first Asian woman to ever be nominated for the award and win.
6. Ke Huy Quan is the first Vietnamese-born actor to win an Oscar for an acting performance with his Best Supporting Actor win.
7. Ke Huy Quan and Michelle Yeoh are now the first actors to win acting awards for portraying Mandarin-Chinese and Cantonese-speaking characters.
8. The 2023 Oscars ceremony is also the first in which multiple Asian actors have won in a single year.
9. Ruth E. Carter is the first Black woman ever to win two Oscar Awards.
10. Jamie Lee Curtis is now the third person whose parents were both past nominees to win an acting award.
11. Angela Bassett is the first MCU star to be nominated for an acting award for her work in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
12. Elvis cinematographer Mandy Walker is only the third woman to be nominated for Best Cinematography.
13. Ana de Armas is the first Cuban woman to be nominated for Best Actress.
She was nominated for her portayal of Marilyn Monroe in Blonde.
14. The Fabelmans‘ star Judd Hirsch holds the record for the longest gap between acting nominations at the Academy Awards, which is 41 years and 341 days.
He was first nominated in 1980 for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Ordinary People.
15. The Fabelmans‘ composer John Williams is the oldest Oscar nominee ever, at the age of 90 years and 350 days.
This was also his 53rd nomination, which is currently more than any living person.
16. This year’s ceremony included 16 first-time nominees for the four big acting awards.
Kevin Mazur / Getty Images, Jeff Kravitz / FilmMagic
This includes Austin Butler for Elvis, Hong Chau for The Whale, Kerry Condon for The Banshees of Inisherin, Jamie Lee Curtis for Everything Everywhere All at Once, Ana de Armas for Blonde, Colin Farrell for The Banshees of Inisherin, Brendan Fraser for The Whale, Brendan Gleeson for The Banshees of Inisherin, Brian Tyree Henry for Causeway, Stephanie Hsu for Everything Everywhere All at Once, Barry Keoghan for The Banshees of Inisherin, Paul Mescal for Aftersun, Bill Nighy for Living, Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All at Once, Andrea Riseborough for To Leslie, and Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All at Once.
17. Ryan Coogler is the first person of color to be nominated in the Best Original Song category for cowriting a song that appears in a movie they’ve directed.
This year, he was nominated alongside Rihanna for the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever song “Lift Me Up.”
18. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert are the first non-related directing duo to win Best Director in the last 45 years, and overall the third duo to win ever.
Past winners include Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for West Side Story (1961), Warren Beatty and Buck Henry for Heaven Can Wait (1978), and Joel and Ethan Coen, who won for No Country for Old Men (2007).
19. Cate Blanchett has become the first woman with the most roles in Best Picture nominees, after appearing in 10 such films.
She’s been in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Babel, The Aviator, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Elizabeth, Nightmare Alley, Don’t Look Up, and Tàr. She’s currently tied with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson, while Robert De Niro holds the record with 11 movies.
20. Alfonso Cuarón is now tied for nominations across seven different and inpidual Oscars categories — Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, Director, Cinematography, and Live Action Short Film.
He’s currently tied with Kenneth Branagh.
21. This year, Ireland had its biggest year of representation at the ceremony, with 12 nominations in various categories.
The nominations included The Banshees of Inisherin earning nine, Paul Mescal with one, The Quiet Girl with one, and An Irish Goodbye with one.
22. And finally, All Quiet on the Western Front had the second most nominations for a non-English-language film.
The film was nominated for nine awards and falls behind Roma and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which both have 10 nominations each.