Far Out Facts: Everything you need to know about the Oscars 2024
The drums are already rolling as the 96th Academy Awards are nearly upon us. Nominees are busy practising their shortest victory speeches and sorest loser faces. Jimmy Kimmel is rehearsing his latest Matt Damon routine, and the backstage team at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is nervously memorising which envelope to give the presenter of each award. So, what do the Oscars 2024 have in store for us?
These are, after all, the glitziest, most glamorous, and most esteemed film awards, not only in the good old US of A but also in the entire show business. Naturally, along with billions of others who have even the slightest interest in the entertainment industry, you’ll be casting your eyes on Hollywood this weekend.
You’ll probably also have a few questions. Which leading actor could be taking home their first Oscar statue? Could your favourite film of the year win ‘Best Picture’? Will Kate McKinnon and Ryan Gosling be presenting an award together in a nod to their classic SNL sketch? Who will be this year’s musical performers? And why is there zero chance of a black ‘Best Director’ winner for yet another year?
For answers to (most of) these questions and more, sit back and let Far Out guide you through this year’s Oscars ceremony. We have everything you need to know right here, answering your most search questions.
When are the Oscars 2024?
The 96th Academy Awards take place this Sunday, March 10th, 2024. As is tradition, the date of the Oscars is in early March to mark the culmination of awards season in the film industry. They follow the Baftas, which took place three weeks ago, and the Golden Globes at the start of January.
What time are the Oscars 2024 on?
The answer to this question depends on where you are in the world, of course.
The Oscars ceremony gets underway at 4.00pm Los Angeles (US Pacific) time.
This means it’ll start at 6.00pm if you’re on Chicago time, at 7.00pm if you’re on the East Coast of the US, at midnight if you’re in the UK and at 1.00am for most of mainland Europe. It’ll already be 10.00am on Monday morning in eastern Australia by that time.
The ceremony should last for three and a half hours to fit into its American prime-time television timeslot.
Where to watch the 2024 Oscar ceremony
The main Oscars broadcaster is ABC in the United States, which will be showing the whole ceremony live.
In the UK, you can tune in to watch live on ITV with Jonathan Ross fronting the coverage, while Australia’s Seven network offers the same service.
Digital options include watching via the ABC app or via a YouTube TV subscription, which gives you access to ABC coverage.
For more information about where to watch in your country, you can go to the Oscars website, which has a full list of broadcasters from around the world.
Where is the Oscars 2024 ceremony being held?
This year, the Oscar ceremony takes place at the Dolby Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, Los Angeles. This venue, previously named the Kodak Theatre, has hosted the event every year since it opened in November 2001. In fact, it was designed and built specifically for this purpose.
Prior to the Dolby Theatre, the venue for the Academy Awards was the Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall in Downtown LA, a place which has hosted the ceremony more than any other. The very first Oscars in 1929 were held at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.
Who’s hosting the Oscars 2024?
Last year’s host, Jimmy Kimmel, is back for his fourth go at hosting the Oscars. The man who fronts ABC’s flagship late-night talk show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, is seen as a safe pair of hands by the network running the show. His wife, Molly McNearney, will be on executive producer duties again.
Kimmel might have generated the most YouTube videos as Oscars host, but he’s still some way from claiming the honour of hosting the most times. Bob Hope hosted a whopping 19 times, while Billy Crystal – widely regarded as one of the best Oscars hosts – has done the job nine times.
As well as its host, you can look forward to seeing an array of star presenters. Nicolas Cage, Lupita Nyong’o, Melissa McCarthy, Ke Huy Quan, Al Pacino, Steven Spielberg, Michelle Yeoh, Ramy Youssef, John Mulaney, Emily Blunt, Christoph Waltz, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, and – yes – Kate McKinnon and Ryan Gosling are among those giving out awards.
What are this year’s Oscars musical performances?
Mr Gosley is going to have a busy night. In addition to his presenting role, he’ll be performing his song ‘I’m Just Ken’ from the movie Barbie with Mark Ronson. This year’s musical numbers are heavy on pink, with Billie Eilish also singing the bookies’ favourite for the ‘Best Original Song’ award ‘What Was I Made For’ from the same film.
Expect Becky G, Jon Baptiste, Scott George and The Osage Singers to perform, too. The latter act, which lent its voices to the soundtrack of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon, will be the first Indigenous Americans to sing at the Oscars.
What is the 2024 Oscars logo?
The official poster for the 2024 ceremony is, for a change, simple and understated. It features a half-profile photo of the Oscars statuette against a plain indigo background and standing on circular ripples of blue and purple shades. The statuette is lit to appear silvery-white rather than its actual yellow-gold colour.
The standard Oscars logo features in the poster’s top-left corner. The letter “A” in the word “Oscars” is in a heavily blocked font containing a silhouette of the famous statue.
What are the 24 Oscar categories?
Actually, there are now 23 Academy Award categories with nominees, excluding the honorary awards already presented at a Governors Awards ceremony in January.
The ‘Best Sound’ category was formerly split into ‘Sound Mixing’ and ‘Sound Editing’, which have now been done away with.
Of course, the big categories you’ll probably have your eye on are ‘Best Actor’ and ‘Best Actress in a Leading Role’, ‘Supporting Actor and Actress’, ‘Directing’, and the biggest of all, ‘Best Picture’. The awarding of ‘Best Picture’ will be the finale of the event, as always. Hopefully, there will be no mishaps during the announcement of the winner, as happened seven years ago with Moonlight and La La Land.
Let’s not forget the writing categories ‘Best Original Screenplay’ and ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’, which both have an illustrious list of previous winners. The current nominations for the best script adaptation are highly competitive, with awards season big hitters Oppenheimer, Barbie and Poor Things all in there. Cord Jefferson is tipped to win in the category, though, for his film debut as writer-director of American Fiction. He can feel aggrieved not to get a nomination in the Directing category, too.
The other competitive award categories include ‘Best Animated Feature Film’, ‘Documentary Feature’, and their respective short film categories. There’s also ‘Best Live Action Short’. ‘Best International Feature Film’ includes a British-made film this year – The Zone of Interest, directed by Jonathan Glazer. Bizarre as this nomination may seem, the film is in three “foreign” languages: German, Polish and Yiddish.
‘Original Song’, ‘Original Score’ and ‘Sound’ cover the audio categories, while other visual and technical categories round out the list. Cinematographers, editors, visual effects artists, production designers, costumers, and hair and make-up designers will each have their moment on the Dolby Theatre stage.
Who are the Oscar nominations this year?
Every year, the buzz starts to build around the Academy Awards when the Oscar nominations are announced. And when they are, there are always a few shock omissions. This year was no different.
When the nominees were revealed on January 23rd, a media frenzy ensued around snubs for key players in Barbie, one of the year’s biggest critical and commercial successes. Margot Robbie didn’t make it into the category for ‘Actress in a Leading Role’. Meanwhile, Greta Gerwig was snubbed for the ‘Best Director’ nomination.
Both were unlikely to win the award anyway, though. Lily Gladstone and Emma Stone are mooted as frontrunners, and Gerwig would have faced stiff competition from Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese and Yorgos Lanthimos.
Moving on to others who have been nominated, Cillian Murphy is flying the flag for Ireland in the ‘Best Actor’ category for his portrayal of Robert Oppenheimer. Bradley Cooper is also nominated for his controversial role as Leonard Bernstein in Maestro, while Murphy’s co-star Robert Downey Jr is a supporting actor nominee. And Robert De Niro has received his ninth Oscar nomination for playing William King Hale in Killers of the Flower Moon. This latest nod surely adds quantifiable evidence to his case for inclusion among the best actors of all time.
As for the films nominated, The Holdovers marks the rare appearance of a Christmas movie at the Oscars with its ‘Best Original Screenplay’ nomination. Io Capitano, a powerful depiction of two young Senegalese refugees, could be one to watch in the ‘International Feature Film’ category.
If you want a rundown of all the nominations in full, Far Out’s got you covered. Check out our complete list of the nominees here.
How to watch Oscar-nominated movies
Until we entered the age of streaming, it used to be that most films generating big awards buzz would enter cinemas right around the time of the Oscars. It feels as though these days are long gone.
There are a couple of big nominees still showing in cinemas. In addition to Poor Things, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and starring Emma Stone, you can currently see The Holdovers on the big screen. The decision to show a Christmas film between mid-January and March seems like an inspired piece of marketing, but it’s sure to become a holiday TV classic over the next few years.
The big streamers are dominating when it comes to Academy Award films, though. You’re spoilt for choice (and subscription fees) when deciding where to stream Oscar-nominated movies.
For starters, Netflix offers Maestro, the animated feature contender Nimona, and American Symphony with its original song nominee ‘It Never Went Away’. If you’re wondering where to watch Oscar-shortlisted shorts, this might be your best bet. Wes Anderson’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar also appears on the platform.
Meanwhile, Prime Video has American Fiction, Apple TV serves up Killers of the Flower Moon, HBO Max is all about Barbie, and for Oppenheimer, you have to go to Peacock.
Where to watch classic Oscars films?
Going back in time, if you’re a Meryl Streep fan, you might struggle to find an Oscar winner of hers for free on any platform. However, The Bridges of Madison County – for which Streep was nominated – is available on HBO. You could even re-watch The Godfather and its follow-up film, heralded at the time for being the first sequel Best Picture Oscar Winner (NYT Archives, 1974), on Paramount+.
Amazon Prime’s MGM Plus service includes 1987 ‘Best Picture’ winner Platoon, while Max offers one of the nominees from the same year, Hannah and Her Sisters, on its platform.
Or how about one of the 1994 ‘Best Picture’ nominees, The Remains of the Day? Netflix has been pushing yours truly to watch it for several years now.
Far Out’s 2024 Oscar predictions
Lastly, you’re likely trying to guess who’ll be celebrating at the Vanity Fair post-ceremony party, having come up trumps in their respective Oscar ballot.
Far Out has already published its own deep-dive into predictions for this year’s Academy Award winners. But, just for you, here are a few of the headline Oscar favourites for 2024.
It does look as though we can already pencil in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, co-produced with his wife Emma Thomas and Charles Raven, as the winner of ‘Best Picture’. It’s far from certain that Nolan will win his first Oscar for ‘Best Director’, though.
Cillian Murphy is the runaway favourite to win for his part in the same film, becoming the first Irish ‘Best Actor’ in the process. Lily Gladstone is another person of minority descent who might win an award, although Emma Stone could scupper their chances of winning ‘Best Actress’.
And aside from cast members of potential Oscar winners, the ‘Animated Feature Film’ seems to be a dead heat between The Boy and the Heron and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
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