This year’s 93rd Academy Awards looked a lot more different than it did in past years. Actors had to be socially distant and the venue was significantly smaller than every other venue the Academy Awards had taken place in.

On Sunday, April 25 the 93rd Academy Awards were held in Los Angeles at the Dolby Theaters.  Some of the nominees for this year’s Oscars were recently deceased Chadwick Boseman for the leading role in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Vanessa Kirby for the leading role in Pieces of a Woman. The crowd for this year’s Academy Awards was significantly smaller than past years as they had to conform to covid safety regulations. Some of the presenters this year included Don Cheadle, Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, and Zendaya. 

The beginning of the award show started with Regina King, who was one of the presenters, walking through the hallways to the room where the Oscars took place. Then after she made a speech, they started announcing the winners of each category one by one. The winner of each categories were as followed; 

One of the biggest controversies for this year’s 93rd academy awards was the final announcement for best actor in a leading role. Many people expected Chadwick Boseman to win this award as he recently won  a Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award and Critics Choice Award for his performance as Levee in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” The announcement was supposed to be the last announcement of the night, which was unusual because the best actor in a leading role is never the last thing of the night. The winner of the best actor in a leading role was Anthony Hopkins for his performance as an old man with dementia in “The Father”. 

Unlike every other winner of the night, Hopkins did not make a speech, he was announced the winner and then a picture of him was put on the screen, then the ending credit rolled. “I thought the person who won, Anthony Hopkins was super deserving but the way the show ended kinda left you with a bad taste in your mouth. Not to mention this year’s show was a lot more boring and bad then past ones” senior Javier Nino-Sears said. Besides this controversy, this year’s Oscars were pretty uneventful “the Academy in response to other controversies they’ve had in the past concerning diversity issues, have really done a good job of expanding their voters and kind of getting a lot more younger people in” senior Javier Nino-Sears said. 

While the amount of people that watch the Oscars is slowly declining, there is still a large population of students at sequoia that enjoys watching the Award Show “I do think there’s definitely a sizable amount of people who watch the movies at sequoia. As far as I know, there’s not too many people who follow, along with the race. But other than that you know it’s kind of just you watch the movies, you may be tuned into the award show, if you want to see your favorite movie or just see them on TV in general. So it’s kind of just a celebration of movies so if you’re in the movies, it is definitely a fun night, and if you’re not in the movies, then you might not get as much out of it” senior Javier Nino-Sears said. 

This year’s 93rd Academy Awards disappointed many people because of the ending and its overall uninteresting ceremony which brought a record low rating and viewership, which may have been caused by the pandemic and its effect on movie production, hopefully its viewership’s downward trend will cease next year.