When presenters opened the envelopes on stage at the 2024 Academy Awards to announce who will get the Oscar, they used a nickname that has been around nearly as long as the trophy itself.
The trophy handed to victors is officially known as the Academy Award of Merit. Cedric Gibbons, MGM's art director at the time the award was created, designed it. According to the Academy, he sketched a knight clutching a sword while standing in front of a film reel. In 1928, they began the process of turning that concept into a statue.
No one is sure when or why the Academy Award of Merit became known as an Oscar. According to the Academy Awards, one common idea is that Margaret Herrick, the Academy's former librarian in the 1930s and 1940s and later executive director, felt the statuette looked like her Uncle Oscar. After hearing this, Academy staff began referring to the award as Oscar.
Foster Hirsch, the author of "Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties," believes another idea is more feasible. He stated that others believe the term Oscar originated with Hollywood reporter Sidney Skolsky, who attended the Academy Awards in 1934.
The first known newspaper mention of the Academy Award as an Oscar occurred that year, when Skolsky used it in his column to allude to Katharine Hepburn's maiden triumph as best actress.
"He thought that the ceremonies were pompous and self-important and he wanted to deflate them in his column," Hirsch told me. So Skolsky referred to the trophy as an Oscar, alluding to Oscar Hammerstein I, a theater owner who became the target of ridicule in vaudeville circles.
Oscar 2024
This awards season had it all: Bradley Cooper spending six years conducting school for a six-minute sequence that people pretended to care about; Cillian Murphy losing his title as Ireland's Sweetheart to Ayo Edebiri; and Barbie snubs probably heard around the ghost offices of the gaslight, gatekeeper, girlboss co-working space, the Wing. All of the fawning, excitement, and rage of the previous cinematic calendar year will come to a conclusion on March 10 with the 2024 Academy Awards ceremony. The ceremony recognizes achievements in film arts and technology, rather than whose film had the most spineless husband, with Oppenheimer receiving 13 nominations and Poor Things receiving 11 nods. In the end, the Oppenhomies won seven awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, while Poor Things' Emma Stone won Best Actress, taking Killers of the Flower Moon's only chance at a win after ten nominations. Billie Eilish won her second Oscar for her song "Barbie," joining Cillian Murphy as the first Irish-born winner of Best Actor.
List of Oscar Winners
- Best Picture
American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer (Winner)
Past Lives
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest
- Best Director
Justine Triet — Anatomy of a Fall
Martin Scorsese — Killers of the Flower Moon
Christopher Nolan — Oppenheimer (Winner)
Yorgos Lanthimos — Poor Things
Jonathan Glazer — The Zone of Interest
- Best Actor
Bradley Cooper — Maestro
Colman Domingo — Rustin
Paul Giamatti — The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy — Oppenheimer (Winner)
Jeffrey Wright — American Fiction
- Best Actress
Annette Bening — Nyad
Lily Gladstone — Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller — Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan — Maestro
Emma Stone — Poor Things (Winner)
- Best Supporting Actor
Sterling K. Brown — American Fiction
Robert De Niro — Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr. — Oppenheimer (Winner)
Ryan Gosling — Barbie
Mark Ruffalo — Poor Thing s
- Best Supporting Actress
Emily Blunt — Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks — The Color Purple
America Ferrera — Barbie
Jodie Foster — Nyad
Da’Vine Joy Randolph — The Holdovers (Winner)
- Best Adapted Screenplay
American Fiction (Winner)
Barbie
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest
- Best Original Screenplay
Anatomy of a Fall (Winner)
The Holdovers
Maestro
May December
Past Lives
- Best Visual Effects
The Creator
Godzilla Minus One
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
Napoleon
- Best Costume Design
Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
Napoleon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things (Winner)
- Best Makeup and Hairstyling
Golda
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Poor Things (Winner)
Society of the Snow
- Best Cinematography
El Conde
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer (Winner)
Poor Things
- Best Production Design
Barbie
Killers of the Flower Moon
Napoleon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things (Winner)
- Best Sound
The Creator
Maestro
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One
Oppenheimer
The Zone of Interest (Winner)
- Best Film Editing
Anatomy of a Fall
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer (Winner)
Poor Things
- Best Original Score
American Fiction
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Killers of the Flower Moon
Oppenheimer (Winner)
Poor Things
- Best Original Song
“The Fire Inside” — Flamin’ Hot
“I’m Just Ken” — Barbie
“It Never Went Away” — American Symphony
“Wahzhazhe (A Song for My People)” — Killers of the Flower Moon
“What Was I Made For” — Barbie (Winner)
- Best Animated Short Film
Letter to a Pig
Ninety-Five Senses
Our Uniform
Pachyderme
War Is Over! Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko (Winner)
- Best Live-Action Short Film
The After
Invincible
Knight of Fortune
Red, White and Blue
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (Winner)
- Best Documentary Short Film
The ABCs of Book Banning
The Barber of Little Rock
Island in Between
The Last Repair Shop (Winner)
- Best Documentary Feature Film
Bobi Wine: The People’s President
The Eternal Memory
Four Daughters
To Kill a Tiger
20 Days in Mariupol (Winner)
- Best International Feature Film
Io Capitano (Italy)
Perfect Days (Japan)
Society of the Snow (Spain)
The Teachers’ Lounge (Germany)
The Zone of Interest (United Kingdom) (Winner)
- Best Animated Feature Film
The Boy and the Heron (Winner)
Elemental
Nimona
Robot Dreams
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
