The 2021 Oscars' most memorable moments

Oscars: Into The Spotlight started 90 minutes before the official ceremony. Hosted by Lil Rel Howery (Judas And The Black Messiah) and Ariana DeBose (Hamilton, The Prom), the special featured performances of all the Best Original Song nominees.

Molly Sanden and a children’s choir performed the Oscar-nominated “Husavik” from Eurovision. They get bonus points for the fireworks.

From Austin, Matthew McConaughey introduced a segment honoring those who work in movie theaters.

Diane Warren and Laura Pausini performed Oscar-nominated “io sì (seen)” from The Life Ahead.

Ariana DeBose reunited with her Hamilton costar Leslie Odom Jr. as he introduced…

…his performance of the Oscar-nominated “Speak Now” from One Night In Miami.

Promising Young Woman writer/director/producer Emerald Fennell (who also stars in the most recent season of The Crown) was perfectly British when asked to gush about her film’s star, Oscar-nominated Carey Mulligan.

Celeste performed the Oscar-nominated “Hear My Voice” from The Trial Of The Chicago 7.

Presenter Reese Witherspoon awkwardly reminded Ariana DeBose that Laura Dern was not just the reigning Best Supporting Actress winner but also nominated this year for producing one of the recognized animated shorts.

The best candid moment from the pre-show special was when Nomadland director Chloé Zhao had to hint to host Lil Rel Howery that the cameras had cut to them.

H.E.R. performed the Oscar-nominated “Fight for You” from Judas And The Black Messiah.

Regina King opened the show with proof the show is live: The One Night In Miami director almost ate it as she started her opening speech..

“They said write a speech and I just didn’t because I didn’t think this would ever happen,” Promising Young Woman’s Emerald Fennell said while accepting the Best Original Screenplay award. “I’m trying very hard not to cry because I’m an English person.”

Regina King deserves a damn Oscar just for getting through the entire title of the Borat sequel, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm: Delivery Of Prodigious Bribe To American Regime For Make Benefit Once Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan, while announcing the Best Adapted Screenplay nominees.

The night’s first satellite acceptance speech went smoothly when Florian Zeller accepted the Best Adapted Screenplay award on behalf of him and his The Father co-writer Christopher Hampton.

While accepting the Best International Film award for his film Another Round, Danish director Thomas Vinterberg chocked up while recounting how his daughter died in a car accident just days into filming Another Round. He ended his speech by thanking her: “Maybe you’ve been pulling some strings somewhere. I dont know, but this one’s for you.”

Judas And The Black Messiah actor Daniel Kaluuya ended his Best Supporting Actor acceptance speech by expressing gratitude for being alive: “My mom, my dad, they had sex. It’s incredible,” he said, embarrassing his mom watching live at the London satellite venue.

Surprise! We got a West Side Story trailer debut. You can

Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’s Mia Neal, Sergio Lopez-Rivera, and Jamika Wilson made history, being the first team with Black female members to win Best Makeup and Hairstyling. When speaking of breaking that “glass ceiling,” they expressed hope that they’d soon be joined by winners of all genders and races and “it wont be groundbreaking, it will just be normal.” The film was recognized again just moments later when —making the 89-year-old the oldest woman to ever win an Oscar.

Someone tell Bong Joon Ho to find his light! The Parasite director started his introduction of the Best Director presentation in almost complete darkness before stepping down into visibility to announce…

Nomadland’s Chloé Zhao as 2021's Best Director winner. In her acceptance speech, Zhao recalled six words from a poem she and her father used to recite in her childhood: “People at birth are inherently good.” “Hold onto the goodness in each other, no matter how hard it is to do that,” she asked the audience.

Nicolas Becker’s acceptance speech on behalf of his fellow Sound Of Metal sound team (Jaime Baksht, Michelle Couttolenc, Carlos Cortés, Phillip Bladh) was great, but the best moment of this award was the film’s star smiling after announcing his colleagues as the winner.

Travon Free and Martin Desmond Roe get Best Dressed duo in addition to the best live-action short. But more than their clothes, Free and Roe should be remembered for speaking about police violence ahead of their thank yous.

“I never thought I’d get to say this, Thank you to the Academy,” said Will McCormack, accepting the award for best animated short, giving Laura Dern (a producer on the film) her second Oscar in as many years.

Before announcing Soul as the winner of Best Animated Feature Film, presenter Reese Witherspoon regaled us with an unexpected story of why she loves the first animated film her mom ever took her to see in a theater, The Secret Of NIMH.

In between presenting the Best Documentary Short (to Colette) and Best Documentary Feature (to My Octopus Teacher), Marlee Matlin—who was just 21 when she won and Oscar for 1986's Children Of A Lesser God and still holds the record for youngest Best Actress winner—spoke of the power of the recording real-life moments, like the cell phone footage Darnella Fraizer recorded that allowed George Floyd’s story to spark calls for social justice and police reform across the nation.Watch the whole acceptance speeches from the teams behind and .

Before presenting the Best Visual Effects award to the Tenet team, Minari star Steven Yuen recalled watching the his mother’s face while they sat watching Terminator 2: Judgement Day in a movie theater in 1991. The Oscar nominee wasn’t sure if her face was because she was shocked she’d brought her young son to such a violent film or because she was in awe of watching a badass mom as an action hero.

Winner for most endearing actor at the 93rd Academy Awards goes to Minari’s Yuh-Jung Youn. “Mr. Brad Pitt, finally. It’s nice to meet you,” she told the category’s presenter as . “Where where you while we were filming?” While she didn’t feel like she was “competing” with her fellow nominees, Youn did have an explanation for Glenn Close as to why she on stage over the Hillbilly Elegy star: “I’m luckier than you.” Backstage, someone reportedly asked Youn what Brad Pitt sounds like. “I don’t know. I’m not a dog,” she replied.

While Halle Berry announced the Best Production Design contenders, the camera panned to each of the nominees. This was the face Tenet’s Kathy Lucas decided to make through it all—maybe it was because she’d seen the future and knew they were about to lose to Mank’s Jan Pascale.

When introducing the Best Cinematography nominees, Halle Berry appeared to mispronounce at least half of their names, including winner Erik Messerschmidt. Though, we do admit the Mank cinematopgrapher’s name has a lot of consonants.

Before presenting Best Editing (to the Sound Of Metal’s Mikkel E.G. Nielsen) presenter . They ranged from “Opening too choppy” to “Why is this voice-over track so terrible?” to “This movie gets worse every screening.”

Sure, Zendaya was there to present the Best Score trophy to Soul’s team, but we also just wanna celebrate her. (Not to discount .)

They ultimately lost to H.E.R., but at least we got this one green-screen shot of Fat Max Gsus and Savan Kotecha, two of the songwriters behind Eurovision’s “Husavik.”

“I don’t know how much that’s gonna cost,” Lil Rel Howery told Andra Day after she cursed while discussing “Purple Rain” not being nominated for an Oscar during a skit—the lone “skit” during the telecast. The awkward bit, which also involved Quest Love and Daniel Kaluuya finally paid off when . After the ceremony, Howery told Oscars After Dark hosts Andrew Rannells and Coleman Domingo that he had no idea she knew that much about School Daze or would do the dance. We question that…

Regal as always, Angela Bassett was brought out to introduce the in memoriam segment. “We remember you in our hearts always,” the actress said in her commanding voice before the insanely rapid slideshow began.

There were gasps in newsrooms across the country when Rita Moreno revealed she was presenting Best Picture, usually served for the final award of the night, ahead of the announcements for Best Actress and Best Actor. Ultimately, the prize went to Nomadland (and Frances McDormand’s howl).

“Look, they didnt ask me—but if they had, I would have said karaoke,” Frances McDormand said, starting her Best Actress acceptance speech with a nonsequiter and commenting on the musical talent in the room. “I have no words,” she continued. “My voice is in my sword. We know the sword is our work. And I like work. Thank you for knowing that, and thanks for this.”

We have to assume the producers saved the Best Actor category for the end knowing that people were more interested in seeing if Chadwick Boseman won a posthumous Oscar than if Nomadland bested Promising Young Woman and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. But we can’t imagine they thought that instead of Boseman winning or at least a great speech from Steven Yeun or something we would get presenter Joaquin Phoenix accepting the award on The Father star Anthony Hopkins’ behalf. We weren’t looking for La La Land/Moonlight dramatics but this was ending on .

Because ABC and the Oscars producers have no mercy, they added an aftershow this year. Oscars After Dark didn’t really have any standout moments aside from the opening moments when the announcer completely mispronounced co-host Andrew Rannells’ last name (adding an acccent to the second n). The photo above is the moment Rannells processes the mispronunciation, which he and cohosts Colman Domingo and Elvis Mitchell continued to talk about for an uncomfortable amount of time.