Nomadland has converted the big winner at the Oscars with three statues. The drama was named best film, Chloé Zhao won the Oscar for best direction as the second woman ever and Frances McDormand received the statuette for best actress.
Nomadland was considered one of the big favourites in advance. The drama is about a woman (Frances McDormand) who has become widowed and unwaged and decides to travel through the US by van. Along the way, she builds a bond with other ‘nomads’.
Frances McDormand is the seventh actor to receive a third Oscar; she previously won Fargo and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. In her acceptance speech, the actress called on the audience to watch the film, which can be seen on Disney from April 30, as much as possible on the big screen.
Anthony Hopkins surprisingly received the Oscar for best actor. It was expected that this prize would go to colleague Chadwick Boseman who passed away last year. 83-year-old Hopkins won his second sculpture for his role in The Father, about a demented older person. The film also won the prize for best-adapted screenplay earlier in the evening. Korean actress Yuh-Jung Youn also won an Oscar for playing an older person with dementia. She was named best-supporting actress in the drama Minari, about an immigrant family.
Other major awards went to Promising Young Woman (best original script), Sound of Metal (best editing and sound), Tenet (best effects) and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (best costumes and make-up). Actor Daniel Kaluuya won the statuette for Best Supporting Actor in Judas and the Black Messiah.
The prize for the best foreign film went to the Danish drunken drama Druk, co-produced by the Dutch company Topkapi. The Bosnian-Dutch film Quo Vadis, Aida? About the fall of the Srebrenica enclave was unable to cash in on his nomination. The same was true for the Dutch producer Sofia Sondervan, who had a chance to win the frame for the best short film, and the EO documentary The Mole Agent.
The presentation of the Oscars took place this year in a sober form. The awards were given for corona at Union Station in downtown Los Angeles instead of the Dolby Theater in Hollywood.