20 Devastating Oscars Moments Hidden In Plain Sight

For years many have complained about the excessive runtime of the Oscars, and in a misguided attempt to combat this in 2022, producers decided to give out eight awards before the main show.

This included categories such as Best Film Editing, Best Original Score, and Best Sound, alongside all three short film awards, and was met with considerable ire from both Oscar fans and high-profile Academy members such as Steven Spielberg.

The decision was apparently made due to pressure from ABC executives to shorten the show's runtime while making more room for comedy skits, film clips, and musical numbers.

Despite considerable protest over the decision, the eight awards were indeed given out off-screen as planned and ultimately only briefly featured in a montage during the show proper.

Given that Dune, which both won the most Oscars and was the highest-grossing Best Picture nominee that year, received half of the eight sidelined awards, it seemed even more egregious.

And on top of this, the show still ended up clocking in at 3 hours, 40 minutes, running longer than the three prior Oscar ceremonies. Thankfully, at least, the outrage was vocal enough that ABC relented and restored all these categories to the main show the next year.