AFTER ALL THE hype, speculation, and breathless publicity campaigns, we have finally reached the most important night in Hollywood’s calendar.
At midnight tonight (Irish time), the 95th Academy Awards will kick off in Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre, and Irish representation in the auditorium has never been stronger. All the details on how you can watch from Ireland can be found here.
There are 14 nominations for Irish filmmakers, including nine different nominations for The Banshees of Inisherin, and acting noms for Barry Keoghan, Brendan Gleeson, Kerry Condon, Paul Mescal and Colin Farrell.
Both Farrell and Keoghan have picked up awards earlier in the season, a BAFTA and a Golden Globe respectively, leading to some speculation that either could end the night as Ireland’s first Oscar-winner since Daniel Day Lewis won Best Actor for his performance in Lincoln (2012).
The Journal reporter Aoife Barry has been chronicling events on the ground in LA all week, and will be updating us live from both the red carpet and the winners’ room during the ceremony.
We’ll also have our liveblog running throughout the night, and while we can’t promise a Will Smith storming the stage or Warren Beatty reading out the wrong winner in the Best Picture category, we can promise to keep you abreast of all the night’s major moments (while quietly crossing our fingers that something sufficiently mad might happen).
In the final award of the night, Everything Everywhere All At Once capped off a momentous evening – scooping its seventh award, the definitive Best Picture.
The A24-produced EEAAO also took home the awards for Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.
Thanks for staying up with us. We hope you’ve enjoyed the liveblog, and we hope you’ll keep reading our breakout coverage of the biggest stories from a big night for the Irish entertainment and film industry.
In the penultimate award of the evening, Michelle Yeoh has claimed the prize of Best Actress for her role in Everything Everywhere All At Once, bringing it to a total of six awards for the film – including three of the four acting awards.
Yeoh beat out Cate Blanchett, Andrea Riseborough, Ana De Armas and Michelle Williams.
“For all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight. Ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime,” Yeoh said, paying tribute to her family in Malaysia and Hong Kong.
Brendan Fraser has won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in The Whale, beating out Colin Farrell, Paul Mescal, Austin Butler and Bill Nighy.
In an emotional speech, Fraser thanked director Darren Aronofsky for “throwing [me] a creative lifeline and hauling me aboard.” Fraser said it was a honour to be named alongside his fellow nominees, and said “only whales could swim at the depth of the talent of Hong Chau,” his The Whale co-star.
WOW. Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert beat out Martin McDonagh, Steven Spielberg, Todd Field and Ruben Ostlund to win the coveted Best Director award for Everything Everywhere All At Once.
Scheinert makes a small political statement, thanking his parents for not stifling his creativity when he was younger and dressing in drag, “which is a threat to nobody”.
Best Film Editing has seen yet another award go to Everything Everywhere All At Once, which is keeping pace with All Quiet On The Western Front as the big winner of the night. It’s another category in which Banshees of Inisherin had been nominated.
Host Jimmy Kimmel has also just taken a swipe at Tucker Carlson, over his recent editing of the January 6th Capitol attack. Nice to see a joke land.
We’re coming towards the end of the night now. Nobody has been slapped.
Naatu Naatu from RRR has been awarded Best Original Song and, at the risk of sounding impartial, it absolutely was the best song.
Women Talking has taken the award for Best Adapted Screenplay, written and directed by Sarah Polley, based on a novel of the same name by Miriam Toews. The film starred Irish actress Jessie Buckley.
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known professionally as The Daniels, have won the award for Best Original Screenplay. It’s another miss for Banshees of Inisherin. Martin McDonagh had been nominated in the category.
The Daniels wrote Everything Everywhere All At Once, an film that began with Kwan’s idea to “put his mom in the Matrix”.
Host Jimmy Kimmel has tried yet another Irish joke, asking Colin Farrell “what he was saying” in Banshees of Inisherin. I think it may be time for them to let this go.
It’s a second win for Ireland at tonight’s 95th Academy Awards as Avatar: The Way of Water wins the award for Best Visual Effects. Visual effects designer Richard Baneham of Tallaght, Dublin has scooped his second ever Oscar, having already won for the original Avatar film.
Baneham opened his speech with “Go raibh míle maith agat”. We love to see it.
The rest of the team was cruelly played off just as they began to say “We have to thank our families”. They’re playing everyone off with ruthless efficiency tonight.
Best Visual Effects: Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon and Daniel Barrett (AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER) #Oscars pic.twitter.com/RX9P7Mospv
— MUBI (@mubi) March 13, 2023
All Quiet On The Western Front is beginning to gather serious momentum. The German film has now added Best Production Design and Best Original Score to its growing list of awards for the night.
That makes it four for the night, with further nominations to come in the Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay categories. Makes one wonder how such a film could fail to be nominated in the Best Director category? The mystery of the Academy.
Best Production Design Oscar 🤝 'All Quiet on the Western Front'
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) March 13, 2023
Congratulations to the talented production design team behind @allquietmovie! #Oscars #Oscars95 pic.twitter.com/q6bym2jXE0
A few more winners in the shorts categories.
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse has taken the prize for Best Animated Short Film. Netflix’s The Elephant Whisperers has won the award Best Short Documentary.
An Cailín Ciúin has missed out on Oscars glory to All Quiet On The Western Front, the German entry into the category of Best International Feature Film. The movie had been hot favourite, and is also nominated in the overall Best Picture category, as well as Best Adapted Screenplay.
We’ve also had a few winners in the technical categories over the last half an hour.
There were no Irish nominees in these categories so we don’t need to be too heartbroken that we didn’t win any of them.
JENNY THE DONKEY IS ONSTAGE. I REPEAT, JENNY THE DONKEY IS ONSTAGE.
Is she the first donkey to have ever taken the stage at the Oscars?
JENNY THE DONKEY ONSTAGE pic.twitter.com/ci1xZ4zgQ9
— Carl Kinsella (@TVsCarlKinsella) March 13, 2023
Here is that very special moment when Irish actor James Martin was serenaded with a Happy Birthday by a theatre full of the biggest names in Hollywood, moments after his film An Irish Goodbye won the Oscar for Best Short Film.
the guys who made An Irish Goodbye used their Oscar acceptance speech to have every A-lister in Hollywood sing Happy Birthday to their star, James Martin. iconic! pic.twitter.com/J4LLHwMla3
— Spencer Althouse (@SpencerAlthouse) March 13, 2023
A WIN FOR IRELAND!
An Irish Goodbye has taken the award for Best Short Film.
“Winning this award is the second most important thing today,” director Tom Berkeley told the crowd.
Star of the movie, James Martin, an actor with Down Syndrome, was then serenaded onstage by his castmates as well as the entire audience as today is his birthday.
An Irish Goodbye ☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️ #Oscars pic.twitter.com/d1sPkpc6p8
— TG4TV🪬 (@TG4TV) March 13, 2023
The award for Best Documentary has gone to Navalny, about jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny. The film centres around Navalny’s alleged poisoning by Russian government forces.
Navalny remains in solitary in solitary confinement for his stand against “Vladimir Putin’s unjust war in Ukraine”. Director Daniel Roher was joined onstage by Navalny’s wife Julia, who said her husband was in prison for “telling the truth and defending democracy”.
“I am dreaming of the day you will be free, and the day our country will be free. Stay strong, my love.”
Congratulations to 'Navalny,' this year's Best Documentary Feature Film! #Oscars95 pic.twitter.com/xOp8ujCa4k
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) March 13, 2023
Sadly, Kerry Condon is another star of Banshees who will go home empty handed as Jamie Lee Curtis has taken home the award for Best Supporting Actress. This one was a bit of a surprise, with oddsmakers leaning towards both Condon and Angela Bassett before the night began.
She also beat her Everything Everywhere All At Once co-star Stephanie Hsu to nab the award.
It’s a bit of disappointment for Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan in the Best Supporting Actor category as the award goes to Ke Huay Quan for his (to be fair, phenomenal) performance in Everything Everywhere All At Once.
The child star known for The Goonies and Indiana Jones took 30 years away from acting due to a lack of roles before an astonishing comeback last year.
In his acceptance speech, Vietnamese-born Quan notes that his story started “on a boat” and notes that he spent “a year in a refugee camp”. “Dreams are something you have to believe in. I almost gave up on mine,” he says.
An historic Oscars moment.
Congratulations to Ke Huy Quan on winning Best Supporting Actor! @allatoncemovie #Oscars95 pic.twitter.com/VEI3I0bZDh
— The Academy (@TheAcademy) March 13, 2023
First award of the night – Best Animated Feature – goes to Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio, a stop-motion take on the classic folktale produced by Netflix.
Guillermo del Toro is the first person to win Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Animated Feature in #Oscars history! pic.twitter.com/n8vTkW9ffG
— Netflix (@netflix) March 13, 2023
“It was some year for inclusion at the Oscars, we have nominees from every corner of Dublin here tonight.”
“Five Irish actors are nominated tonight, which means the odds of a fight onstage just went way up.”
The Irish catching a LOT of strays from Jimmy Kimmel’s opening monologue.
Jimmy Kimmel opens with the joke “my Banshees are caught in my Inisherin right now.”
The Americans don’t exactly thrive on Irish comedy, do they?
Now that is what I call a suit, Barry. Look at him. Just look at him. Feast your eyes.
Brendan Gleeson has been speaking on the champagne carpet: “It could have been a small film for a small audience but it’s become a universal thing and that’s what this is all about,” Gleeson said of Banshees of Inisherin.
On whether the film could realise any of its nine opportunities for gold tonight, the veteran Irish actor said: “I hope something but nobody is going to believe me when I say, but this is a historic occasion, it’s a story that’s ours… There’s no downside to it. If we win anything it would be brilliant but it doesn’t really matter that much.”
We’ve got Best Actor nom Colin Farrell tuxed up, joined by his son Henry Tadeusz. He’s facing stiff competition from Brendan Fraser (The Whale) and Austin Butler (Elvis).
Colin Farrell brought his son Henry Tadeusz to the #Oscars pic.twitter.com/pxk1dqGbpv
— TheWrap (@TheWrap) March 12, 2023
Anyone who’s tuned into Sky Showcase’s coverage of the red (champagne) carpet will not be able to ignore the chaos unfolding and the impossible challenge facing any and all reporters trying to grab the stars for even a momentary chat.
Excitement for the ceremony itself is mounting, not least because frenetic energy of the champagne carpet needs to come to an end.
We’ve just had an interview with Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, who is not nominated for anything, giving a 10-second acceptance speech for a fictive ‘Best Pink Suit’ award. Around 20 minutes to go now.
Martin McDonagh has hinted that there could be a third “end of the trilogy”-style film featuring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, who have starred alongside one another in his films Banshees of Inisherin and In Bruges.
McDonagh also threw his weight behind Farrell for the Best Actor gong, saying: “He’s so open to being broken, I guess. It’s not an alpha type role. It’s just so sensitive and he’s so nuanced and both heartbreaking and funny all at the same time. His change from the first scene to the end is momentous. I’m not sure if I’ve seen that on screen before so definitely, he gets my vote.”
Sky Showcase’s coverage of the red carpet has begun, and they have just acknowledged that Bill Nighy and Andrea Riseborough are the only two British nominees tonight, which hopefully means that Mescal, Condon, Gleeson, Farrell and Keoghan are safely ours for the night.
KERRY CONDON, EVERYONE.
Best Supporting Actress nominee Kerry Condon is beautiful at the #Oscars. https://t.co/ESbPYqrUFK pic.twitter.com/ffGJ4aGKlk
— Variety (@Variety) March 12, 2023
We’ve also got husband-and-wife director-and-producer team behind An Cailín Ciúin Colm Bairéad and Cleona Ní Chrualaoi making their carpet debut.
Their category comes up around halfway through the ceremony, so we should expect to hear whether they’ve won at around 2.45am Ireland time.
Malala Yousafzai, an executive producer on Joshua Seftel’s short film Stranger at the Gate, which is nominated in the Best Documentary Short Film category, has also arrived on the champagne carpet (having to call it anything other than a red carpet will bother me for the rest of the evening).
Her production company, Extracurricular, made the doc which tells the story of an “unlikely meeting between a PTSD-afflicted, Islamaphobic former Marine and the members of an Indiana mosque (notably an Afghan refugee named Bibi Bahrami) that help diffuse his violent tendencies toward them”.
We have our first sighting of young Paul Mescal outside the Dolby Theatre. The actor, famous for his roles in the Denny’s Ballyhaunis ad and something called Normal People, is nominated for his role as a single-father in indie film Aftersun. He’s up against his fellow countryman Colin Farrell for Best Actor tonight.
He’s rocking the white tux tonight, the kind that had he worn to his debs would have earned him a lifelong nickname. As this is the Oscars though, we’re pretty sure he’s going to get away with it.
#PaulMescal arrives at the #Oscars pic.twitter.com/q1r0puoW8l
— Baz Bamigboye @Deadline (@BazBam) March 12, 2023
We finally have a running order for the night’s ceremony. Actress in a Supporting Role will be the first category, meaning that Tipperary native Kerry Condon will be the first Irish filmmaker to hear her name read aloud alongside her fellow nominees tonight (Stephanie Hsu, Jamie Lee Curtis, Hong Chau and Angela Bassett).
Barry and Brendan’s turn won’t be too far behind…
Here's the run of show for tonight's #Oscars. https://t.co/i5wEon5M8t pic.twitter.com/2AhdoycakB
— Variety (@Variety) March 12, 2023
In a weird clarification on our previous posts, this year’s Oscars carpet is actually not going to be red. Instead, it’s going to be champagne-coloured. So, let’s pretend that all my previous mentions of a “red carpet” were metaphorical.
A report in Variety has said that the champagne-coloured carpet marks the first time since 1961 that the Academy has deviated from the classic red, and that stains have literally begun to show already.
“Variety overheard that dirtied patches of the carpet had to be swiftly recut and replaced behind the scenes so nary a nominee would notice the spots.” This is why they should have stuck with my suggestion of red.
In more Irish news, we’ve also got footage of the An Cailín Ciúin team singing “Oró, sé do bheatha ‘bhaile” as they begin their journey to the champagne carpet (doesn’t sound as good as red carpet). But it’s a damn good video.
Oró, sé do bheatha 'bhaile 🇮🇪 #Oscars
— TG4TV🪬 (@TG4TV) March 12, 2023
📸 @caterinacoyne pic.twitter.com/v1lzIpT1bG
Tonight’s ceremony begins at midnight Ireland time so kick-off is a while away yet, but we’re starting to see the first few images of Irish filmmakers in their literal Sunday best for tonight’s red carpet.
TG4 shared this photo of the cast and crew of An Cailín Ciúin, which is nominated for Best International Feature.
💚💚💚 #Oscars pic.twitter.com/5KIzywZwoU
— TG4TV🪬 (@TG4TV) March 12, 2023
We’ve also had outfit confirmation from our own Aoife Barry, who is ready for a very long night of reporting ahead. A reminder that you can follow Aoife on Twitter here for updates from the red carpet and beyond. The rest of us, working through the night in Dublin, are graciously and commendably suppressing our envy.
Thought I’d lost my passport mere minutes before this pic https://t.co/SZIwxMclhq
— Aoife Barry (@sweetoblivion26) March 12, 2023
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