LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Call it the most stunning twist in Oscar history.
Presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway announced “La La Land” as Best Picture, only for producer Jordan Horowitz to stop in the middle of his acceptance speech and announce that the rightful winner was actually “Moonlight,” the result of an Oscar envelope error at The Dolby Theatre.
“Is this the craziest Oscar moment ever?” Emma Stone asked rhetorically backstage with WTOP.
PwC, the accounting and consulting firm that has handled the balloting process at the Academy Awards for 82 years, has apologized for the mix up.
In a way, it was just like the end of the movie “La La Land,” whose lovers got to dance a giant dream ballet and watch “what could have been,” only to snap back to reality in a moment of bittersweet loss. But amid the chaos, let’s not let the confusion overshadow a truly historic win for “Moonlight.”
“I f***ing love ‘Moonlight,'” Stone said graciously. “I think it’s one of the best films of all time.”
Indeed, the inventive indie flick “Moonlight” won three Oscars on the night, including Best Adapted Screenplay for Barry Jenkins (screenplay) and Tarell Alvin McCraney (story) about a young African-American male struggling with his sexuality over three different phases of life in urban Miami.
It’s now officially the first LGBT film to win the Oscar for Best Picture — a feat that groundbreakers like “Philadelphia” (1993) and “Brokeback Mountain” (2005) could not pull off decades ago.
“I never thought it would be seen by so many people, or even better, that so many people would see themselves in it,” Jenkins said backstage. “The last 20 minutes of my life have been insane. I’ve watched the Academy Awards and I’ve never seen that happen. … Hot damn, we won Best Picture!”
The film also won Best Supporting Actor for Mahershala Ali, playing a Cuban crack dealer who becomes a father figure to a bullied youth. Ali becomes the first Muslim ever to win an Oscar.
“After all these years of reading scripts, ‘Moonlight’ is the best thing that ever came across my desk,” Ali said backstage. “Idris (Elba) and David Oyelowo left me a job. Very, very kind of them.”
On the whole, it was still a big night for “La La Land,” which won the most awards with six, including Best Director for Damien Chazelle, who at age 32 became the youngest Best Director winner in Oscar history.
Chazelle’s former college roommate, Justin Hurwitz, won for Best Original Score and Original Song with “City of Stars,” edging out Lin-Manuel Miranda for “How Far I’ll Go” (“Moana”). “La La Land” also won Best Cinematography, Best Production Design and the aforementioned Best Actress for Stone.
Meanwhile, Casey Affleck won Best Actor as a deeply grieving uncle in the haunting “Manchester By the Sea,” which also won Best Original Screenplay for writer/director Kenneth Lonergan.
“I think Ben and I are the only two brothers to both win Oscars,” Affleck said backstage of his brother Ben Affleck, who won for writing “Good Will Hunting” before his Best Picture winner “Argo.”
After winning at the Globes, Affleck held off a late surge by SAG Award winner Denzel Washington for his role as a bitter Pittsburgh family man in August Wilson’s play-to-film adaptation “Fences.”
“Fences” did, however, win for Viola Davis, who was a lock for Best Supporting Actress. This makes Davis the first black woman to win an Emmy, Oscar and Tony for acting. Whoopi Goldberg is a rare member of the EGOT club — Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony — but her Tony came for producing a play.
“Every moment of this film is about the beauty of just living and breathing and being human, not being didactic, not being a walking social message,” Davis said backstage. “I just want to represent me! Living, breathing, failing, getting up in the morning, dying! August was the inspiration.”
In the technical categories, “Hacksaw Ridge” won Best Film Editing and Best Sound Mixing for its World War II battle sequences, while “Arrival” won Best Sound Editing for its alien atmosphere.
“The Jungle Book” won Best Visual Effects for creating lifelike CGI animals; “Suicide Squad” won Best Makeup & Hairstyling for its superhero stylings; “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” won Best Costume Design; “Zootopia” won Best Animated Feature and “Piper” won Best Animated Short.
The night only got occasionally political, as Jimmy Kimmel roasted President Donald Trump’s claims that Meryl Streep was “overrated.” Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi chose not to attend over the administration’s travel ban, despite winning Best Foreign Language Film for “The Salesman.” Similarly, a cinematographer for the intense Syrian civil war doc short “The White Helmets” also didn’t show.
The Best Feature-Length Documentary went to Ezra Edelman’s “O.J. Made in America,” as Edelman paid tribute to Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman during his acceptance speech.
In the end, it was quite the turnaround from last year’s #OscarsSoWhite controversy. As Jenkins accepted his award, he said, “All you people out there who feel like there’s no mirror for you, that your life is not reflected, The Academy has your back.” Read that again. “The Academy has your back.”
What a difference a year makes.
See the full list of winners below:
Best Picture: “Moonlight.”
Actor: Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea.”
Actress: Emma Stone, “La La Land.”
Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight.”
Supporting Actress: Viola Davis, “Fences.”
Directing: Damien Chazelle, “La La Land.”
Foreign Language Film: “The Salesman,” Iran.
Adapted Screenplay: “Moonlight,” screenplay by Barry Jenkins, story by Tarell Alvin McCraney.
Original Screenplay: Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea.”
Production Design: “La La Land,” Production Design: David Wasco; Set Decoration: Sandy Reynolds-Wasco.
Cinematography: Linus Sandgren, “La La Land.”
Sound Mixing: “Hacksaw Ridge,” Kevin O’Connell, Andy Wright, Robert Mackenzie and Peter Grace.
Sound Editing: “Arrival,” Sylvain Bellemare.
Original Score: “La La Land,” Justin Hurwitz.
Original Song: “City of Stars” from “La La Land,” music by Justin Hurwitz, lyric by Ben Pasek and Justin Paul.
Costume Design: Colleen Atwood, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.”
Documentary (short subject): “The White Helmets,” Orlando von Einsiedel and Joanna Natasegara.
Documentary Feature: “O.J.: Made in America,” Ezra Edelman and Caroline Waterlow.
Film Editing: “Hacksaw Ridge,” John Gilbert.
Makeup and Hairstyling: “Suicide Squad,” Alessandro Bertolazzi, Giorgio Gregorini and Christopher Nelson.
Animated Feature Film: “Zootopia,” Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Clark Spencer.
Animated Short Film: “Piper,” Alan Barillaro and Marc Sondheimer.
Live Action Short Film: “Sing,” Kristof Deak and Anna Udvardy.
Visual Effects: “The Jungle Book,” Robert Legato, Adam Valdez, Andrew R. Jones and Dan Lemmon.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
