In the room announcing the 2023 Oscar nominations

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences returned to an in-person format to announce this year’s Oscar nominees, with press and publicists gathering at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Los Angeles before dawn for the first leg of the awards season. a closure. The audience was in high spirits when Riz Ahmed and Allison Williams took the stage to announce the nominees, and everyone is eager to get back in the room and celebrate the best films of the year.

If the audience response was any indication of how Oscar voting was going (it wasn’t), then the “Everything Everywhere All at Once” sweep is a foregone conclusion. For each of the film’s 11 nominations, the applause was noticeably louder than any of its competitors’ responses, with supporting actors Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis nodding side by side, whipping the room into a frenzy. By the time the Best Actress nominees were announced, the response to Michelle Yeoh’s nod was as inevitable as it was gratifying.

But the unpredictability of awards season ensures that even the most well-connected insiders can be duped. Jaws in the room dropped when Andrea Riseborough took a surprise Best Actress nod for Leslie, and the initial gasps quickly turned to cheers and laughter as the crowd acknowledged that her long-running Oscar campaign had been successful. The highly strategic, political nature of awards campaigning is an inconvenient truth that many cinephiles try to shield their eyes from, but sometimes the game just needs to recognize the game.

The announcement was not without its lighthearted moments as both Williams and Ahmed struggled to contain their giggles when they had to announce ‘My Year of Dicks’ and ‘An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake And I Think I Believe It’ ” addresses. in the best animated short film category. Ahmed and Williams were true pros and did their best to make the show family friendly, but as soon as the cameras stopped, they burst out laughing. Williams feigned relief and shouted to the crowd, “We’re not fired yet!”

The end of the nominations can be an almost anticlimactic moment, months of hype and one last sleepless night containing essentially three minutes of announcements. After the final nominees for Best Picture were announced, no one knew what to make of themselves – including the famous presenters.

After the cameras cut for the final time, Williams and Ahmed blew kisses to the audience before Williams turned to the Academy executives in the front row and asked, “Shall we go?”

The winners will be announced at the 95th Academy Awards on Sunday, March 12 at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles. Jimmy Kimmel returns as host for the third time in addition to the telecast ABC.com, Hulu Live TV and YouTubeTV in addition to streaming. See the full list of this morning’s nominations here.

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