‘The Shape of Water’ named Best Picture at 90th Annual Academy Awards

“The Shape of Water” director Guillermo del Toro; ABC/Rick Rowell(LOS ANGELES) — Last year, Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty fumbled the winner of the Best Picture award at the Oscars after being handed the wrong envelope.  At the 90th Annual Academy Awards on Sunday night, the Bonnie & Clyde co-stars returned for a do-over and this time, they got it right.  While Beatty did fumble with the envelope, he correctly announced that Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water had won the Oscar for Best Picture.

The movie — a sci-fi fantasy about a mute woman who falls in love with and helps free a fish-like creature from a government lab — won four Oscars, including Best Director for del Toro. It had gone into the ceremony with the most nominations: 13.  Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk was the next most-awarded, with three Oscars.

“I was a kid enamored with movies growing up in Mexico. I never thought this could happen and it happens,” said del Toro. “Everyone that is dreaming of using fantasy to tell the stories about things that are real in the world today, you can do it. This is a door; kick it open and come in.”

As expected, Sam Rockwell and Allison Janney won Best Supporting Actor and Actress, for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and I, Tonya, respectively.  Gary Oldman won Best Actor for Darkest Hour, and Frances McDormand won Best Actress for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. 

McDormand’s acceptance speech came off as slightly unhinged.  Announcing she “had some things to say,” she punctuated her remarks with hysterical laughter.  She ended her speech by asking every female nominee in the room stand up, and then saying, “Look around, everybody, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed…I have two words to leave with you tonight: inclusion rider.”  That’s a contractual rider that enables the signatory to demand greater diversity in casting and the crew.

Oldman’s speech ended with a message to his mother whom, he said, would be “99 years young” on her next birthday. “Put the kettle on…I’m bringing Oscar home!” he said.

Janney got big laughs at the start of her speech when, rather than starting to thank people, she exclaimed, “I did it all by myself!”

Part of Rockwell’s speech focused on how his parents instilled in him a love of movies early on.  “When I was eight years old, I was sent to the principal’s office and my father was saying, ‘We have to go. It’s Grandma,’” Rockwell recalled. “I said, ‘What’s wrong with Grandma?’ He said, ‘Nothing, we’re going to the movies.’”

Rockwell dedicated his award to “my old buddy Phil Hoffman!”  Rockwell and Phillip Seymour Hoffman were friends.  Hoffman died in 2014.

Jordan Peele became the first African-American to win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, for Get Out.  He had also been nominated for Best Director and Best Picture for that film.  Peele told the crowd that though he had some trepidation about the movie, “I knew if someone let me make this movie that people would hear it and people would see it.”

Peele also thanked the Get Out audiences, saying, “To everyone who went and saw this movie, everybody who bought a ticket, who told somebody to buy a ticket, thank you. I love you for shouting out at the theater, for shouting out at the screen. Let’s keep going.”

Other winners included James Ivory for Best Adapted Screenplay for Call Me by Your Name, and Coco’s “Remember Me” for Best Original Song. All five nominated songs were performed on the show, but Keala Settle’s performance of “This Is Me,” from The Greatest Showman, brought the house down.

The telecast ran way over three hours, despite the fact that Jimmy Kimmel attempted to encourage the winners to keep their speeches short by offering an $18,000 Jet Ski to the winner who had the briefest speech.  At the end of the night, the Jet Ski was presented to Best Costume Design winner Mark Bridges, whose remarks clocked in at just 36 seconds.

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