It's the night we'd all been waiting for, and it certainly delivered in drama. The Oscars returned in full force to the Dolby theatre for the 2022 ceremony, with plenty of heartening moments and shocking turns too. We caught it all: the spellbinding performances from Billie Eilish and Beyoncé, the Dune technical sweep, the beautiful speeches from Ariana De Bose and Jessica Chastain, that moment of violence between Will Smith and Chris Rock.
Team Empire was here to document it all, late into the night and early into the morning, with all the events and memories and unexpected details we'll be talking about for years. So here we go: scroll down to the bottom to start from the beginning and relive the entirety of the 2022 Oscars ceremony with us.
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4:35am Well, how’s this for a showbiz duo: it’s Lady Gaga and Liza Minnelli, together introducing Best Picture. But, Minnelli (who doesn’t appear in the best of health) is holding the envelope the wrong way around, and is visible on camera showing that CODA has won the big award of the night.
And yes, there it is, CODA wins Best Picture, steaming ahead of The Power Of The Dog. After some quiet-ish speeches from the producers, the music plays everyone off before Sian or the cast get their chance to speak. It’s a low-key end to an evening that’s been anything but. It’s all over. But one thing’s for sure: people are gonna talk about this Oscars for a long, long time.
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4:32am What an Oscars. It is still going, it is still awkward and intense. A gag from Amy Schumer to Jesse Plemons about Kirsten Dunst also seems to hit a bum note. No more wife jokes, people! And were still not done with the awards. Now, we’re onto Actress In A Leading Role. And the statue goes to Jessica Chastain for The Eyes Of Tammy Faye – her first Oscar after three nominations!
“Thank you so much to the Academy for this,” she says, thanking her fellow nominees and the “incredible hair and makeup team” who she showed up to support earlier int he evening. Her speech took in lockdown, suicide and more. “Right now we are coming out of some difficult times filled with a lot of trauma and isolation. So many people out there feel hopeless and alone,” she says, highlighting “members of the LGBTQ community, who oftentimes feel out of place wth their peers.” She adds: “In times like this I think of Tammy, and I’m inspired by her radical acts of love.” She finished by stating: “You are unconditionally loved for the uniqueness that is you.” And now, onto the final award of the night…
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4:15am Uma Thurman and John Travolta are on stage doing a Pulp Fiction dance together! The vibes are returning! Nature is healing! Samuel L Jackson is here, and he’s about to reveal what’s in that briefcase! And it’s the Actor In A Leading Role envelope. Mystery solved! What happens now? Can Will Smith still win? What happens if he does? Will he accept it and give a speech? Let’s find out. And the winner is… Will Smith. Here we go. He shares a kiss with Jada before taking to the stage, but appears shaken and tearful as he gives a lengthy speech.
“Oh man… Richard Williams was a fierce defender of his family. In this time in my life, in this moment I am overwhelmed by what God is calling on me to do and be in this world,” Smith says, his hands shaking, as he continues to talk around his on-stage conflict with Rock. “Making this film, I got to protect Aunjanue Ellis, who is one of the most strongest, most delicate people I’ve ever met. I got to protect Saniyya and Demi, the two actresses who played Venus and Serena. I’m being called on in my life to love people and to protect people. And to be a river to my people. And I know to do what we do, we gotta be able to take abuse, you gotta be able to take people talking crazy about you. You gotta smile and pretend like that’s ok. Denzel said to me a few minutes ago: ‘At your highest moment, be careful – that’s when the devil comes for you.’ It’s like… I wanna be a vessel for love.”
He continues: “I wanna say thank you to Venus and Serena and the entire Williams family for entrusting me with your story. That’s what I want to do. I want to be an ambassador of that kind of love and care and concern. I wanna apologise to the Academy, to all my fellow nominees. This is a beautiful moment, and I’m not crying for winning an award. It’s not about winning an award for me. It’s about being able to shine the light on all of the people… Art imitates life, I look like the crazy father, just like they said about Richard Williams. But love will make you do crazy things.”
He finished his speech by saying: “I hope the Academy invites me back. Thank you.” Stay tuned for the aftermath as it continues to unfold…
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4am We’re getting to the really big awards now – it’s Best Director. And it goes to… Jane Campion for The Power Of The Dog! It’s her first win in the category, and she’s the only female director to have been nominated twice by the Academy (previously for The Piano, for which she won a Screenplay Oscar). “I love directing because it’s a deep dive into story,” she says, thanking her collaborators and her family. “You gave me so much love and encouragement and made it fun.”
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3:56am Original Song goes to Billie Eilish and Finneas for ‘No Time To Die’! Which means that Lin-Manuel Miranda’s EGOT has to wait at least another year… “Woah! Oh my god! This is so unbelievable,” says a genuinely surprised Eilish. As well as the 007 team, she thanked Johnny Marr “for taking our song and making it worthy of James Bond”. Finneas jumped in too, to say: “We want to thank our parents who have always been our biggest inspirations and heroes.”
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3:44am With the atmosphere still totally overwhelmed by that sudden violent turn, it’s straight into the In Memoriam section – including Bill Murray paying tribute to Ivan Reitman, Tyler Perry speaking about Sidney Poitier, and Jamie Lee Curtis on the legacy of Betty White.
Michael K Williams, Richard Donner, and Lina Wertmüller were among the other names that appeared having passed in the last year.
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3:37am The Godfather is 50 years old this year – and Al Pacino, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert De Niro are all on stage together for a speech. But the whole evening still feels shaken by the Will Smith-Chris Rock conflict, and this moment of three icons feels sadly overshadowed.
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3:32am And the night has taken another turn for the worse. Questlove wins Documentary for Summer Of Soul, and takes the to the stage giving a tearful speech dedicated to “my beautiful mother and my dad” – and then the broadcast cuts out, leaving us without the rest of his speech. Such a shame, it was shaping up to be something special.
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3:28am Here’s something none of us saw coming. Will Smith just seemed to throw a punch at Chris Rock… on stage? Rock made a series of (generally well-received) jokes prior to presenting the Documentary award, including one about Jada Pinkett Smith’s shaved head, saying he was looking forward to “GI Jane 2”. But Pinkett Smith looked uncomfortable at the joke, and Smith repeatedly yelled from the audience: “Keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth.” Taking to the stage, a punch was thrown, and it very much did not seem to be a bit. The night just took a turn for the very strange.
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3:14am Song time! Billie Eilish and Finneas are here to perform ‘No Time To Die’, backed by an orchestra. It might be a tight race between this one and ‘Dos Oruguitas’ for the prize, coming later in the show…
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3:05am And we’re straight into Adapted Screenplay. This one goes to Sian Heder for CODA. “Oh my god! I’m so glad I dressed as a disco ball,” she quips in her silvery reflective dress. “Writing and making this movie was truly life-changing, as an artist and a human being.” The Best Picture race is getting hotter by the second.
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3:00am It’s Original Screenplay time, presented by Elliot Page, Jennifer Garner, and JK Simmons, celebrating 15 years of Juno. And the awards goes to… Kenneth Branagh for Belfast! “This is an enormous honour for my family,” he says. Did those Best Picture chances just take a leap?
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2:53am Here it is! The moment we’ve all been waiting for! (OK, the moment I have definitely been waiting for.) The live performance of Encanto’s ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’ has various cast members coming on stage. Stephanie Beatriz is here! Wait, that’s… Megan Thee Stallion?! Doing her own verse in the middle? While Zendaya is living her best life in the audience? This is incredible! This is everything! Errr, until, suddenly it isn’t. Now we’re not singing ‘Bruno’ anymore, and it’s become… ‘We’re here to celebrate Oscar…’ And the song is over? No “seven foot frame, rats along his back”? No overlapping harmonies? That was the best part of the night, and then very quickly the most disappointing.
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2:46am Lupita Nyong’o and the legendary Ruth E. Carter are here to present the Costume Design award. And it goes to the amazing Jenny Beavan for her work on Cruella! “Team Cruella, go Team Cruella!” she says. “We had massive amount of fun, as you can see”, she continues, adding that the experience was “slightly stressful”. She then goes to run down her entire ensemble, which she says is “honouring my inner Cruella”, with pin-striped suit lapels, designer specs, and more. A true legend.
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2:34am OK, Simu Liu and Tiffany Haddish are here to present International Feature Film. And it goes to Drive My Car – could that shift it up a gear for the Best Picture race? Awkward… Ryusuke Hamaguchi is played off mid-speech by Travis Barker’s drumming, but the director perseveres to finish his speech.
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2:25am It’s Supporting Actor time, presented by Minari’s Youn Yuh-jung. And it goes to Troy Kotsur – the first win of the night for possible Best Picture winner CODA. He might have given Ariana DeBose a run for best speech of the night. “It’s really amazing that our film CODA has reached out worldwide, and all the way to the White House,” he says. “I was planning on teaching them some dirty sign language […] Don’t worry Marlee, I won’t drop any f-bombs in my speech today.” He paid a special tribute to his father (“the best signer in our family”), and shouted out director Sian Heder as “the best communicator”, before dedicating his win to: “the Deaf community, the CODA community, to the disabled community. This is our moment.”
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2:08am Er, so the fan-voted Most Cheer-Worthy Moment goes to… Flash entering the Speed-Force in Zack Snyder’s Justice League? Over Cap’s “Avengers… assemble!” moment from Endgame, or the bullet-time sequence from The Matrix. Let’s agree never to talk of this again.
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2:04am Next up, it’s Animated Feature. A stacked category this year, with major Disney and non-Disney movies alike… and it goes to Encanto, winning out over The Mitchells Vs The Machines. “We have to thank the entire county of Colombia,” says Jared Bush.
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1:58am Stephanie Beatriz is here to introduce Sebastián Yatra performing ‘Dos Oruguitas’ from Encanto. It’s a lovely, low-key ballad – and if it wins Original Song later in the evening, it’ll officially complete Lin-Manuel Miranda’s EGOT. Remember, still to come: the first ever live performance of ‘We Don’t Talk About Bruno’, which isn’t nominated (because it wasn’t submitted for consideration).
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1:54am The Bond tribute is… pretty great, tbh. A big ol’ montage of cool 007 sequences set to ‘Live And Let Die’. Like a Bond fan got let loose on every exciting moment from 60 years of action cinema. License to thrill, etc etc. But, no appearances from any Bond actors themselves, and no tributes to the filmmakers or stars in those movies...
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1:51am Tony Hawk is here to present the James Bond celebration! Do a flip! Or a 900!
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1:50am Another award! And this time, it’s for Visual Effects, co-presented by Rachel Zegler, who finally got her invite! “I didn’t think I’d be here six days ago,” she quips. “Dreams really can come true, pretty fast too.” And it goes to Dune – its sixth win of the night! Drinks ‘round Denis’s house, then?
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1:40am Rosie Perez, Wesley Snipes and Woody Harrelson are here in celebration of 30 years of White Men Can’t Jump. And they’re presenting Cinematography which goes to… Greig Fraser for Dune! Yet another technical award for Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi epic, winning out over West Side Story’s Janusz Kaminski. “I’m so happy this award’s up early so I can get out to the bar,” says Fraser, hailing “Master Denis” for their work together. Oh, and a little Mother’s Day shout-out too. “Mum, I will return your call, I apologise!”
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1:35am Time-travel alert! Next up is the Sound category, which has… already been presented before the show. Dune wins, and it’s been awarded by Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa. We’ve got a cut-down version of the speech. “You, sir, were the spice flowing through our veins,” the team says hailing Denis Villeneuve. Why wasn’t this live? No idea.
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1:30am Bradley Cooper, Timothée Chalamet, Tyler Perry, and Simu Liu have all been pulled on-stage by Regina Hall. For a “COVID test”. We suspect foul play. “I’m gonna swab the back of your mouth… with my tongue.” Might we have that rare thing? An actually funny Oscars ceremony? Signs are looking, er, positive.
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00:20am The first Oscar (on TV, no we won’t stop banging on about that) is Supporting Actress, being presented by Daniel Kaluuya and H.E.R. And it goes to… Ariana DeBose for West Side Story! “Now you see why Anita says, ‘I want to be in America’,” she says, in an emotional speech. “Because even in this weary world we live in, dreams do come true.” She also paid tribute to Rita Moreno (“Your Anita paved the way for tons of Anitas like me”), and spoke about what it means to be an openly queer woman of colour in Hollywood: “There is indeed a place for us.” The competition for best speech of the night just began.
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00:18am Amy Schumer is here doing a great job with her own monologue. She got some jabs in at Don’t Look Up (“I guess the Academy members don’t look up… reviews!”) and at Being The Ricardos (a movie about Lucille Ball with “not one laugh. Brilliant, it’s brilliant!”). And now, we’re onto the first (televised) award of the night…
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1:08am On with the show: Amy Schumer, Wanda Sykes and Regina Hall are presenting this year, delivering a three-pronged opening spiel. Not quite sure how much Samuel L. Jackson liked the jokes at his expense, but a huge cheer for Sykes' response to the 'Don't Say Gay' bill: “We’re gonna have a gay night. Gay gay gay gay gay!”
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1:01am And we are off! And straight into one of the biggest treats of the night: Beyoncé actual Knowles, performing her song 'Be Alive' from King Richard. It's a whole glossy production from a tennis court set, as you'd expect from Queen B.
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00:42am There we go – the pre-show awards have all been handed out, and the countdown is on for the main event. Top up your liquids, have that extra coffee, get that extra sugar hit, and we'll be back at 1am for the main show...
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00:36am Next up, it's Makeup & Hairstyling – and this one goes to The Eyes Of Tammy Faye. True to her word, Jessica Chastain skipped the Red Carpet to be there in time for the award to be handed out. If she gets Best Actress, expect some kind of mention for her incredible makeup team behind her on-screen transformation.
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00:31am OK, Bene Gesserit input theory definitely seems to be gaining ground. We have yet another win for Dune: Production Design. Highly deserved, for making Arrakis, Caladan and Geidi Prime feel like real, actual places. Anyone know how we can book a holiday to any of those destinations? (Maybe not Geidi Prime...)
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00:25am Wait, another one! Dune gets the award for Editing. That's three for Villeneuve's movie already. Have the Bene Gesserit been steering the votes this year or what?
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00:23am Throat-warbling intensifies: Dune has picked up another award! Hans Zimmer has bagged (or, bagpiped) the Oscar for Best Score. And what a thunderous, incredible thing that score is. If you've not seen this live performance, take a few minutes to check it out (since, you know, we can't watch the acceptance speech yet).
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00:20am Another win that hasn't been broadcast yet: Riz Ahmed's The Long Goodbye has bagged Best Live-Action Short. Have we mentioned yet how rubbish it is that none of this is being shown as it happens? Because it's really rubbish.
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00:15am (DJ Khaled voice) Another one! (More from him later.) Two more announced in the room where it happens, but not on the TV or internet where anyone can watch it: Best Documentary Short goes to The Queen Of Basketball. And Animated Short goes to The Windshield Wiper. It really is odd to see (or, not see) these wins unfold away from the main ceremony. Let's see if anyone else references this on the night in their speech...
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00:08am This is all deeply strange, but the first awards are being handed out right now, and they're not being broadcast anywhere yet. But here we go: the award for Sound has gone to Dune! Likely the first win tonight of many for Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi epic. Here's a recording from inside the room:
Now, remind us if there's any legitimate reason why this isn't being streamed anywhere? (Answer: there isn't.)
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11:59pm And we will now be handing over our coverage to our reporter in the room, Guillermo del Toro...
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11:55pm OK then, a little refresher as the clock ticks on: things are gonna be slightly different this year. There's still an hour to go until the ceremony itself begins, but the controversially non-televised categories (including Sound, Editing, and Makeup & Hairstyling) are due to take place shortly – so theoretically, we'll have some winners in the next few minutes. You know what that means, everyone: kettles, loo breaks, snack raids, go-go-go!
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11:49pm Kwisatz Haderach alert! Timothée Chalamet is here, and he's... not brought a shirt. Look, it's very hot on Arrakis. And suddenly, half of Team Empire feels equally hot and bothered.
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11:45pm How's this for a power trio? Steven Actual Spielberg, with Rita 'The OG' Moreno, and Ariana 'The Moment' DeBose spanning decades of Hollywood history.
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11:43pm Peter 3! Andrew Garfield is here, and he's Amazing. (He really needed to hear that.)
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11:35pm Did anyone else just hear James Dyer yelling 'DUUUUUNE?' That's because Denis Villeneuve has finally arrived on the Oscars red carpet! Next stop: Arrakis.
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11:32pm Ariana DeBose is here, so in her honour, here's our TED Talk on why Anita is the best character in West Side Story: over the next 15 minutes, we'll be breaking down every reason why she's the shining light of that story, and why Maria and Tony can (sorry, let us check our notes) absolutely, er, do one. First up, if you look at slide one-
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11:25pm Carry on Campion! (Jane, to be specific.) The director of The Power Of The Dog is here – but will she bag Best Director and Best Picture? Stay tuned.
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11:17pm Oscar gold has already struck, in the form of Lupita Nyong'o. This is what we call: a look.
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11:15pm Women In Movies, Pt. III: all three members of Haim are here, in support of Licorice Pizza! Here's hoping the Academy won't fumble it when it comes down to the wire.
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11:08pm The Power Of The Dog? More like, The Power Of The Powder-Blue Suit! Kodi Smit-McPhee has arrived in an outfit we're definitely going to wear into the_Empire_office one day this week. (Unrelated: does anyone have a hook-up with a stylist who specialises in powder-blue suits?)
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11.03pm She's not the final girl – she's the first woman to arrive! Jamie Lee Curtis is here, and she has a blue ribbon in support of Ukraine.
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10.50pmTen minutes to go until the red carpet coverage begins. For anyone in the UK right now, the broadcast is being preceded by Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Could it be a big night for the ‘berg with West Side Story? And could his go-to cinematographer Janusz Kaminski also triumph? Paging the Blue Fairy for answers…
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10.42pmHello, everyone! It’s live blog time, and Team Empire has gathered in South London with snacks a-plenty to watch the whole thing unfold. Currently being eaten: M&S own-brand ‘Chicky Choccy Speckled Eggs’, which, whisper it, might just be better than actual Mini Eggs. More on these developments as they come. Of course, the real reason we’re here is to bring you all the red carpet arrivals, winners, speeches and more – so stay tuned for all that, and more. Now, who’s sticking the kettle on?