This year’s Oscars featured shocks, sighs and surprises – but all anyone will care about is a slap. The Academy Awards took place on Sunday night (27 March), with films including The Power of the Dog, West Side Story, Licorice Pizza and Coda battling it out in the big categories.
The biggest story of the night had almost nothing to do with the awards at hand: a shocking altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock sparked by a joke about Smith’s wife Jada. Smith walked up onto the stage and appeared to smack Rock in the face, before shouting at him to not refer to his wife again.
It undoubtedly overshadowed the night as a whole, and notably – about half an hour later – Smith’s win of the Best Actor Oscar for King Richard. Through tears, Smith called himself “a vessel of love” and apologised to the Academy. The Los Angeles Police Department has confirmed that they are aware that an incident took place but that no one involved has filed a report. The Academy said it “does not condone violence of any form”.
Elsewhere, Coda was awarded Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress went to Jessica Chastain for The Eyes of Tammy Faye,West Side Story’s Ariana DeBose won Best Supporting Actress, giving an impassioned speech about sexuality, race and identity, and Troy Kotsur took home Best Supporting Actor for Coda.
Jane Campion was awarded Best Director for The Power of the Dog, while Kenneth Branagh took home the award for Best Original Screenplay for his autobiographical drama Belfast.
Dune hoovered up wins, taking home awards including Best Cinematography, Best Sound and Best Editing.
Check out the full list of tonight’s winners here.
This year’s show was presented by not one, not two, but three hosts in the forms of Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes. Revisit all of the night’s awards, jokes and developments in our live blog below...
