Oscars 2021 Review: 8 Ups & 8 Downs

1. Saving Best Actor For Last Backfires Spectacularly

The Academy took a bold gamble with the awards running order this year, by announcing the Best Picture Oscar before Best Actress or Best Actor, despite it traditionally always being saved for last.

It's clear that the show's producers were confident of a Chadwick Boseman Best Actor win to end the night on an emotional, news-worthy high, but when Anthony Hopkins scored the upset victory, it couldn't help but end the show on a perversely hilarious anti-climax.

Beyond viewers being denied the catharsis of a devastating speech from the late Boseman's wife Taylor Simone Ledward, Hopkins wasn't present to accept his award, so the show ended with presenter Joaquin Phoenix sheepishly accepting it on his behalf before the feed was promptly killed.

The cynical short-sightedness of producers banking on an Oscar win for Boseman is gross and frustrating for several reasons: it confirms they contrived excessively to make a Moment out of a posthumous win, it undeniably took away from what should've been a wonderful moment for Hopkins - attendance or not - and also made Nomadland's Best Picture win two awards prior feel a little less special.

It is a decision that served nobody well, though should make it unlikely that anyone will attempt to toy with the running order so radically ever again. Yikes.

But these gripes aside, here's what this year's Academy Awards actually got right...