The black and white silent film The Artist took home five Oscars at the 84th Annual Academy Awards on Sunday night, including Best Picture, Best Director for Michel Hazanavicius, and Best Actor for Jean Dujardin. Martin Scorsese’s Hugo also earned five awards out of the 11 it was nominated for, but only in technical categories, such as Best Costume Design and Best Sound Editing.
Although Canada’s Monsieur Lazhar lost to A Separation for Best Foreign Language Film, proud Canadian Christopher Plummer won Best Supporting Actor for Beginners to make up for it (wearing his Order of Canada pin and all). Best Supporting Actress went to Octavia Spencer for The Help and Best Actress went to Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady. Rango won for Best Animated Feature and Undefeated, which opens in Toronto this week, won Best Documentary.
With Billy Crystal hosting for the ninth time expectations were high for the broadcast. Sadly, the show moved along slowly and felt very stale. Even the performance by Cirque du Soleil was nothing spectacular. A gag featuring Christopher Guest, Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Jennifer Coolidge, Bob Balaban, and Fred Willard as a focus group discussing The Wizard of Oz back in 1939 was probably the highlight of the night and that was only one notch above a Saturday Night Live skit.
Let us know what you thought of the 2012 Oscars in the comments. Full list of winners below.
Best Picture
The Artist
Best Actress
Merly Streep, The Iron Lady
Best Actor
Jean Dujardin, The Artist
Best Director
Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
Best Animated Short
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
Best Short Documentary
Saving Face
Best Live Action Short
The Shore
Best Original Screeplay
Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Best Adapted Screenplay
Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash, The Descendants
Best Original Song
Bret McKenzie for ‘Man or Muppet’, The Muppets
Best Score
Ludovic Bource, The Artist
Best Supporting Actor
Christopher Plummer, Beginners
Best Visual Effects
Robert Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossmann, and Alex Henning, Hugo
Best Animated Feature
Rango
Best Documentary
Undefeated
Best Sound Mixing
Tom Fleischman and John Midgley, Hugo
Best Sound Editing
Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty, Hugo
Best Editing
Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Best Supporting Actress
Octavia Spencer, The Help
Best Foreign Language Film
A Separation
Best Makeup
Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland, The Iron Lady
Best Costume Design
Mark Bridges, The Artist
Best Art Direction
Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo, Hugo
Best Cinematography
Robert Richardson, Hugo
Top image: A scene from The Artist. Courtesy Alliance Films.
