The 96th annual Academy Awards are set to kick off this Sunday, March 10, at the new time of 7 p.m. EST (an hour earlier than usual). Many critics expect “Oppenheimer” to sweep the major categories. It could also be a night of firsts for many nominees, including Best Director nominee Christopher Nolan.
“Killers of the Flower Moon” actress Lily Gladstone is the first Native American to be nominated for an Oscar and is the odds-on favorite to win Best Actress. She would be the first indigenous woman to win an acting Oscar.
Greta Gerwig, Colman Domingo, Martin Scorsese and many others are poised to set milestones at this year’s ceremony. See our full rundown below for everything you need to know heading into Sunday.
How to watch the 2024 Oscars
This year’s Oscars broadcast will air on ABC and will also be available to stream via Hulu Live TV, YouTubeTV, FuboTV and AT&T TV. This year the ceremony will begin an hour earlier than usual at 7 p.m. EST.
The red carpet pre-show begins at 1 p.m. EST with “Countdown to Oscars: On The Red Carpet Live,” until 4 p.m. EST, when the live show will start and celebrities will make their way into the Dolby Theatre. You can catch the action on ABC, or stream it via ABC’s website and app or the red carpet Facebook and YouTube pages.
Who’s hosting the 2024 Oscars?
Late night host Jimmy Kimmel will emcee the awards show for the fourth time. Among returning hosts, he now trails only Bob Hope (19 times), Billy Crystal (nine times) and Johnny Carson (five times) for the most.
The 56-year-old comedian added that it might be his last time hosting. “I don’t presume that I’ll be asked to do it again … but I don’t know. I’ll say four seems like a solid number to me,” he said.
Who is favored to win at the 2024 Oscars?
Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” is heavily favored to win several major categories and leads the pack with 13 total nominations, followed by Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things,” which has 11 nods.
Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor are all predicted to go to Nolan’s three-hour historical drama, with awards for cinematography, editing and sound possible as well.
Both Lily Gladstone and Emma Stone are considered the frontrunners for Best Actress and Oscar predictors say either could win.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph is expected to run away with the Supporting Actress award for her role in Alexander Payne’s “The Holdovers,” and Billie Eilish’s hit “What Was I Made For?” from “Barbie” is anticipated to win Best Original Song.
Potential upsets at this year’s Oscars
While this year’s ceremony is looking fairly predictable with the dominance of “Oppenheimer,” much has been made of Sandra Hüller’s performance in “Anatomy of a Fall” and some say she could make a last-minute push for Best Actress over both Stone and Gladstone.
“Poor Things” is also considered to be a favorite for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, but many bettors are staking their claim on Bradley Cooper’s “Maestro” to make the upset, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Who stands to make history at this year’s Oscars?
Gladstone, hailing from a Blackfeet Indian Reservation in northern Montana, has already made history as the first Native American acting nominee and could become the first ever Native American to win a competitive Oscar.
“This is for every little rez kid, every little urban kid, every little native kid out there who has a dream who is seeing themselves represented in our stories told by ourselves,” she said in her Golden Globe acceptance speech in January.
Her main competition for Best Actress, Emma Stone, is nominated both for acting in and producing “Poor Things,” reports BBC News.
She’s only the second woman to do so, after Frances McDormand, who was nominated for producing and acting in 2020’s “Nomadland.”
Cillian Murphy, who stars in “Oppenheimer” as the eponymous father of the atomic bomb, and his co-star Emily Blunt both received their first Oscar nominations this year. Their on-screen nemesis, Robert Downey Jr., is expected to win his first Oscar for his supporting role in the film.
If Murphy wins Best Actor and “Oppenheimer” takes Best Picture (as predicted), it will mark the first time since 2012 that the same film has won both Best Actor and Best Picture. The last was “The Artist” and actor Jean Dujardin in 2012.
While Greta Gerwig herself isn’t nominated for Best Director, she has already made history. She is the only director — male or female — whose first three feature films (“Lady Bird,” “Little Women” and “Barbie”) received Best Picture nominations.
“Killers of the Flower Moon,” which holds the third-most nominations (10) this year, also makes Martin Scorsese the oldest directing nominee ever, at 81.
“American Fiction” actors Jeffrey Wright and Sterling K. Brown are both up for awards. It’s the first time in history Black actors from the same film have been nominated for both lead and supporting categories.
Colman Domingo is also making headlines as the first Afro Latino and first gay Latino nominated for Best Actor, for his depiction of civil rights activist Bayard Rustin in the biopic “Rustin.”
Domingo and “Nyad’s” Jodie Foster are the first openly gay actors nominated for playing openly gay characters.
Who was snubbed?
Much has been made over the snubbing of Margot Robbie for her starring role in “Barbie,” as well as the film’s director Greta Gerwig.
The box office hit smashed records and combined with “Oppenheimer” to create the viral phenomenon which was the talk of Hollywood this year. Many were left scratching their heads (including Hillary Clinton) over their omission in the Best Actress and Best Director categories. However, the film still has eight nominations, including supporting acting nods for Ryan Gosling and America Ferrera.
Many fans of Todd Haynes’ scandalous psychodrama “May December” were surprised to see it only receive one nomination for its screenplay by Sammy Burch despite strong performance from Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore and breakthrough star Charles Melton.
Three other notable films: Andrew Haigh’s “All of Us Strangers,” Sean Durkin’s “The Iron Claw” and Aki Kaurismäk’s “Fallen Leaves,” were considered by some critics to be worthy of nominations but were completely shut out from this year’s ceremony.
Contributing: Associated Press
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