This past March, the Academy proceeded with the first slap-free ceremony since the drama of last year and delivered several upsets and sweeping victories in a very competitive year for acting categories and for films of the past year as a whole. Bubbling with controversy from Andrea Riseborough’s nomination in the Best Actress category even before the ceremony, it was set to be a night of expectation-crushing highs and lows that left the Academy once again brightly in the spotlight after a year of unsure tension as to how the awards would proceed.

A theme that increasingly became more and more apparent as the night went on was the evident favoring of actors and movies that made either a ginormous leap or comeback than ever before expected, first and foremost being

Everything Everywhere All At Once

. Coming in with 11 nominations at the beginning of the night, I expected

EEAAO

to take home one or two special effects awards and possibly a Best Director Oscar for the Daniels due to their sheer origin story and authentic friendship collaboration that made their film special. I also emphasized a possibly for it to take home at least one of the competitive acting awards, because it did exceed expectations by making it this far in the awards season for such a small budget, visually unprecedented and jumbled genre-bending film that it at least deserved something in terms of either Michelle Yeoh or Ke Huy Quan’s performance.

However, what I did not expect and am pleasantly surprised at the Academy for was that it ended up taking seven statues home at the end of the night, sweeping three of the four acting categories and picking up four others for Best Directing, Best Editing, Best Original Screenplay and most importantly, Best Picture. Although the Academy has had its moments of recognizing less conventional and smaller films throughout its history rather than conforming to its favored bio-pics and seasoned actors like Meryl Streep or Cate Blanchett, it was a refreshing outcome to have the entirety of its membership connect with this entirely out-of-the-box film in such an obvious way.

In another win for the little guy, Brendan Fraser beat out strong competition from the likes of Austin Butler, Colin Farrell, Paul Mescal and Billy Nighy to take home the award for best actor in his heartbreaking performance as Charlie in

The Whale

. After a long absence from the public eye since the early 2000s,

The Whale

marks Fraser’s return to the big screen in a heart-wrenching film that only received two other nominations for Hong Chau’s supporting performance and for Makeup and Hairstyling. Despite Fraser’s performance and comeback narrative being the driving force behind its campaigning and consideration at the awards, I certainly didn’t expect The Academy to recognize that over such strong performances as Farrell’s in

The Banshees of Inisherin

and Butler’s hauntingly real performance as the King in

Elvis

. Despite these reservations, it seems that the Academy loves a good story when it comes to reviving the careers of its members and possibly couldn’t resist welcoming Fraser back into the celebrity acting landscape with this big trophy that rings with victory and recognition Fraser has long since deserved. It was a sweet moment for him and the underdogs of the season that gave a sentimentality and fresh feeling to this year’s ceremony.

On the other side of the night,

All Quiet On The Western Front

made a respectable impression within multiple technological categories, but apart from a few differences, the films above dominated the ceremony entirely.

Tár

,

Elvis

and

The Fablemans

took home no awards at the end of night in an unusual move for the Academy, which as I have mentioned previously, has trended toward favoring biographical stories and high-drama films such as these in the past and tends to give them some recognition in terms of an acting, writing or directing award if nothing else. Does this strange exclusion of classically beloved cinematic styles signal a shift in the taste of the Academy or simply serve as an anomaly? We’ll have to wait until next year’s ceremony to find out.