US film producer Jonathan Wang (centre) accepts the Oscar for Best Picture for "Everything Everywhere All at Once" onstage during the 95th Annual Academy Awards on 12 March, 2023. The movie took home seven Academy Awards. Photo: PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP
Everything Everywhere All At Once took home five top Oscars today, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress and Best Director as well as Best Original Screenplay.
Brendan Fraser won Best Actor for his work in The Whale.
Wētā FX have taken the Oscar for Best Visual Effects category for their work on Avatar: The Way of Water, filmed in New Zealand.
Brendan Fraser accepts the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role for "The Whale." Photo: PATRICK T. FALLON / AFP
Blockbusters battled against plucky newcomers at this year's 95th Annual Academy Awards as Hollywood picks the top movies of the past year.
The biggest nominees were the twisty multiverse epic Everything Everywhere All At Once, nominated for 11 Oscars, followed by The Banshees of Inisherin and All Quiet On The Western Front with nine each.
Two of the top blockbusters of recent years, Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water, were also up for Best Picture.
Unlike last year, where New Zealand was strongly represented by locally filmed The Power Of The Dog, which saw director Dame Jane Campion take home the Best Director award, there will be less local representation this year.
The big NZ contingent was several nominations for Wētā FX in the Best Visual Effects category for their work on The Batman, Avatar: The Way of Water and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
And of course, there will be lots of - likely, terrible - jokes about "the slap," the infamous incident at last year's Oscars that left comedian Chris Rock bruised and Will Smith a Hollywood villain mere minutes before he picked up a Best Actor award.
Will there be an equally viral moment this year? The awards kicked off at 1pm NZ time.
Here's how it all went down:
