The 2019 Oscar winners: Green Book wins best picture

By Cansu Küfeli
5 years Ago

The 2019 Oscar winners: Green Book wins best picture

In a night of firsts, the 2019 Oscars saw historically underrepresented communities and their stories ascend to the top of Hollywood’s glitziest awards show.

Green Book’s win caught many by surprise with favorites Roma and Black Panther leading best picture speculation going into a night that was marked in many ways by an ever-present absence.

This year’s Academy Awards went without a host after Kevin Hart withdrew from the show amid controversy. He was replaced by not one individual, but an ensemble of presenters.

But it was the night’s diversity that took center stage.

“WE MADE A FILM ABOUT AN IMMIGRANT”

Among the night’s top winners, Rami Malek, the son of Egyptian immigrants, won the best actor for his portrayal of musical phenom Freddie Mercury in the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. The film took home the most awards on the night, netting four in total including sound editing, sound mixing and film editing.

“We made a film about a gay man, an immigrant, who lived his life just unapologetically himself,” Malek said while accepting his award. “The fact that I’m celebrating him and this story with you tonight is proof that we are longing for stories like this.”

CUARON IS THE FIRST LATINO WHO WON THE AWARD

Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron won his second best director award for his semi-autobiographical black and white film Roma, which chronicles the life of a live-in housekeeper in 1970s-era Mexico City. He is the first Latino to have won the award.

“I want to thank the academy for recognizing the film centered around an indigenous woman. One of the seventy million domestic workers in the world without worker’s rights,” Cuaron said. “As artists, our job is to look where others don’t.”