The 88th Academy Awards: It’s a Mad Mad Mad Year!

The culmination of the 2015-2016 awards season, the Academy Awards ceremony, took place on 28^th February at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The Oscars may be often labelled “stale” and “lame”, but this year, a balls-to-the-wall, high octane, genuinely insane action movie took home the most trophies – an anomaly, to say the least. Mad Max: Fury Road bagged six little golden men, with Spotlight and The Revenant taking two each. And yes, it was fifth time lucky for Leonardo DiCaprio, whose hitherto fruitless Oscar pursuit has finally concluded with rousing victory.

The night contained two significant surprises: a Best Supporting Actor win for Bridge of Spies’ Mark Rylance when it was assumed that Creed’s Sylvester Stallone would emerge victorious, and Best Picture for Spotlight, with The Big Short pegged as the favourite because it won the Producer’s Guild Award. Also unexpected was Ex Machina’s victory in the Best Visual Effects category over the likes of Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Ex Machina was by far the film in that category with the lowest budget. Double Negative, the main effects vendor on the film, has a facility in Singapore which was responsible for a portion of the Oscar-winning effects work.

Of course, in theme with our magazine – We’ll like to highlight that the night’s one moment of swearing came courtesy of Mad Max: Fury Road sound editor Mark Mangini. “F*** yeah Mad Maxxers!” he cheered.

THE FULL LIST OF WINNERS AND NOMINEES

BEST PICTURE

Spotlight – WINNER
The Big Short
Bridge of Spies
Brooklyn
Mad Max: Fury Road
The Martian
The Revenant
Room

BEST DIRECTOR

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, The Revenant – WINNER
Lenny Abrahamson, Room
Tom McCarthy, Spotlight
Adam McKay, The Big Short
George Miller, Mad Max: Fury Road

BEST ACTOR

Leonardo DiCaprio, The Revenant – WINNER
Bryan Cranston, Trumbo
Matt Damon, The Martian
Michael Fassbender, Steve Jobs
Eddie Redmayne, The Danish Girl

BEST ACTRESS

Brie Larson, Room – WINNER
Cate Blanchett, Carol

Jennifer Lawrence, Joy
Charlotte Rampling, 45 Years
Saoirse Ronan, Brooklyn

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Mark Rylance, Bridge of Spies – WINNER
Christian Bale, The Big Short
Tom Hardy, The Revenant
Mark Ruffalo, Spotlight
Sylvester Stallone, Creed

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Alicia Vikander, The Danish Girl – WINNER
Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight
Rooney Mara, Carol
Rachel McAdams, Spotlight
Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

Spotlight, by Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy – WINNER
Bridge of Spies, by Matt Charman and Ethan Coen & Joel Coen
Ex Machina, by Alex Garland
Inside Out, by Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve and Josh Cooley; original story by Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen
Straight Outta Compton, by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff; story by S. Leigh Savidge & Alan Wenkus and Andrea Berloff

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

The Big Short, Charles Randolph and Adam McKay – WINNER
Brooklyn, Nick Hornby
Carol, Phyllis Nagy
The Martian, Drew Goddard
Room, Emma Donoghue

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

Mad Max: Fury Road, Jenny Beavan – WINNER
Carol, Sandy Powell
Cinderella, Sandy Powell
The Danish Girl, Paco Delgado
The Revenant, Jacqueline West

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

Mad Max: Fury Road, production design by Colin Gibson; set decoration by Lisa Thompson – WINNER
Bridge of Spies, production design by Adam Stockhausen; set decoration by Rena DeAngelo and Bernhard Henrich
The Danish Girl, production design by Eve Stewart; set decoration by Michael Standish
The Martian, production design by Arthur Max; set decoration by Celia Bobak
The Revenant, production design by Jack Fisk; set decoration by Hamish Purdy

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING

Mad Max: Fury Road, Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin – WINNER
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared, Love Larson and Eva von Bahr
The Revenant, Siân Grigg, Duncan Jarman and Robert Pandini

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

The Revenant, Emmanuel Lubezki – WINNER
Carol, Ed Lachman
The Hateful Eight, Robert Richardson
Mad Max: Fury Road, John Seale
Sicario, Roger Deakins

BEST FILM EDITING

Mad Max: Fury Road, Margaret Sixel – WINNER
The Big Short, Hank Corwin
The Revenant, Stephen Mirrione
Spotlight, Tom McArdle
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Maryann Brandon and Mary Jo Markey

BEST SOUND EDITING

Mad Max: Fury Road, Mark Mangini and David White – WINNER
The Martian, Oliver Tarney
The Revenant, Martin Hernandez and Lon Bender
Sicario, Alan Robert Murray
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Matthew Wood and David Acord

BEST SOUND MIXING

Mad Max: Fury Road, Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo – WINNER
Bridge of Spies, Andy Nelson, Gary Rydstrom and Drew Kunin
The Martian, Paul Massey, Mark Taylor and Mac Ruth
The Revenant, Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Randy Thom and Chris Duesterdiek
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Andy Nelson, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

Ex Machina, Andrew Whitehurst, Paul Norris, Mark Ardington and Sara Bennett – WINNER
Mad Max: Fury Road, Andrew Jackson, Tom Wood, Dan Oliver and Andy Williams
The Martian, Richard Stammers, Anders Langlands, Chris Lawrence and Steven Warner
The Revenant, Rich McBride, Matthew Shumway, Jason Smith and Cameron Waldbauer
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach, Neal Scanlan and Chris Corbould

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM

Bear Story, Gabriel Osorio and Pato Escala – WINNER
Prologue, Richard Williams and Imogen Sutton
Sanjay’s Super Team, Sanjay Patel and Nicole Grindle
We Can’t Live without Cosmos, Konstantin Bronzit
World of Tomorrow, Don Hertzfeldt

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

Inside Out, Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera – WINNER
Anomalisa, Charlie Kaufman, Duke Johnson and Rosa Tran
Boy and the World, Alê Abreu
Shaun the Sheep Movie, Mark Burton and Richard Starzak
When Marnie Was There, Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Yoshiaki Nishimura

BEST DOCUMENTARY, SHORT SUBJECT

A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness, Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy – WINNER
Body Team 12, David Darg and Bryn Mooser
Chau, Beyond the Lines, Courtney Marsh and Jerry Franck
Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah, Adam Benzine
Last Day of Freedom, Dee Hibbert-Jones and Nomi Talisman

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

Amy, Asif Kapadia and James Gay-Rees – WINNER
Cartel Land, Matthew Heineman and Tom Yellin
The Look of Silence, Joshua Oppenheimer and Signe Byrge Sørensen
What Happened, Miss Simone? Liz Garbus, Amy Hobby and Justin Wilkes
Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, Evgeny Afineevsky and Den Tolmor

BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM

Stutterer, Benjamin Cleary and Serena Armitage – WINNER
Ave Maria, Basil Khalil and Eric Dupont
Day One, Henry Hughes
Everything Will Be Okay (Alles Wird Gut), Patrick Vollrath
Shok, Jamie Donoughue

 

BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM

Son of Saul, Hungary – WINNER
Embrace of the Serpent, Colombia
Mustang, France
Theeb, Jordan
A War, Denmark

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

Writing’s on the Wall from Spectre – WINNER
Music and lyric by Jimmy Napes and Sam Smith

Earned It from Fifty Shades of Grey
Music and lyric by Abel Tesfaye, Ahmad Balshe, Jason Daheala Quenneville and Stephan Moccio

Manta Ray from Racing Extinction
Music by J. Ralph and lyric by Antony Hegarty

Simple Song #3 from Youth
Music and lyric by David Lang

Til It Happens To You from The Hunting Ground
Music and lyric by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

The Hateful Eight, Ennio Morricone – WINNER
Bridge of Spies, Thomas Newman
Carol, Carter Burwell
Sicario, Jóhann Jóhannsson
Star Wars: The Force Awakens, John Williams