All the news from the 2015 Oscars – The Verge

Birdman wins Oscar for best picture

2015-02-23T00:22:49-05:00

After a long and controversy-plagued campaign season, director Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) came out on top as the best picture among the 10 nominees in this year's Academy Awards. Beating out fellow front-runners Boyhood, American Sniper, The Imitation Game, and The Theory of Everything, Birdman marks Iñárritu's first Best Picture win (he was nominated in 2007 for Best Picture and Director for Babel.) He also won the award for Best Director earlier in the evening.

Iñárritu took time at the end of his acceptance speech to dedicate his film to his fellow Mexican nationals and make a general pl …

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Steve Wozniak is in Cadillac’s Oscars commercial for some reason

2015-02-23T00:04:08-05:00

You might have missed this, but Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was a part of the Oscars madness tonight. During Cadillac's commercial during the broadcast, the Woz himself can be seen lounging in his study, listening to music that, for one reason or another, is making the room go out of focus.

The ad's part of Cadillac's new and ridiculously named "Dare Greatly" campaign, which also includes appearances from Anne Wojcicki, head of health research company 23andMe, and Oscar-nominated director Richard Linklater. The campaign says its stars have risked it all in their lives, but it's not quite clear what that has to do with cars.

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Eddie Redmayne wins best actor Oscar for portrayal of Stephen Hawking

2015-02-22T23:54:12-05:00

Eddie Redmayne won the award for best actor in a leading role at the 2015 Oscars for his portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. Redmayne has long been considered a front-runner to win this award. Much of Redmayne's performance required him to act with limited mobility as he depicted the progression of Hawking's disease - something that the Academy was clearly quite impressed by. This is Redmayne's first nomination and his first win.

Though Redmayne's performance has been the focus of quite a bit of buzz since before the movie even came out, there were quite a few other great performances that he was up against. Steve Care …

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Alejandro González Iñárritu wins best director Oscar for Birdman

2015-02-22T23:43:06-05:00

Alejandro González Iñárritu is taking home the 2015 Oscar for directing for his film Birdman, a stunning look at fame and a fading star that's presented as though the entire movie were shot in a single take. Iñárritu's win is well deserved: Birdman maintains an impressive tension throughout its entire runtime, has amazing performances from all of its stars, and is filmed in a way that's truly remarkable and unlike anything else.

Iñárritu's second win tonight

This is Iñárritu second win at the Oscars. He's received two nominations in the past - best picture and directing for Babel - and has two other nominations tonight: best picture and orig …

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Watch John Legend and Common perform Best Original Song Glory on the Oscars

2015-02-22T23:37:37-05:00

After a performance that brought the audience to its feet and left some in tears, "Glory," the soaring track from Selma performed by John Legend and Common, earned the Academy Award for Best Original Song. "Glory" was a shoe-in from the start, even with competition from "Everything Is Awesome." Tonight's performance was one we've seen a few times by now, but it's no less powerful here.

During their later acceptance speech, both performers spoke to the ongoing protests against the violence against black youths across the country. "Selma is now because the struggle for justice is right now," he said. It was a powerful moment, and it might wel …

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Citizenfour wins Oscar for Best Documentary Feature

2015-02-22T22:52:16-05:00

At tonight's Academy Awards ceremony, Laura Poitras' Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour won the award for Best Documentary Feature. Despite being the odds-on favorite for the award, the field was competitive this year, including Netflix's critically acclaimed Virunga for the honor.

Citizenfour, which saw wide release last fall, offers an inside look at the first week of the Snowden leaks. Filmmaker Poitras was first contacted by Snowden about the NSA's surveillance activities in January 2013. By May, she had flown out to Hong Kong to conduct her first on-camera interviews with the whistleblower. Her second set of interviews were done wi …

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Watch Patricia Arquette’s call for wage equality in her Oscar acceptance speech

2015-02-22T22:31:29-05:00

Patricia Arquette just won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Richard Linklater's Boyhood. During her acceptance speech, Arquette hurriedly thanked seemingly dozens of people, including Linklater and the Boyhood cast and crew, then made a call for gender equality in Hollywood.

"It's our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America," she said, before music ushered her out.

It was a brief, scattered, and rushed call to action, but it was met by a fist pump of agreement from Meryl Streep and wild applause from the audience. Watch it above.

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Big Hero 6 wins Oscar for Best Animated Feature

2015-02-22T22:26:47-05:00

Even though fans might still lament The Lego Movie being snubbed for the Best Animated Feature award, Marvel and Disney did happily manage to take home the award for the perfectly enjoyable superhero film Big Hero 6. It's Marvel's first major win at the Academy Awards, and Walt Disney Animation Studio's second since last year's win for Frozen.

Big Hero 6, which was loosely adapted from the quirky '90s comic of the same name, was up against the likes of DreamWorks' How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Studio Ghibli's The Tale of the Princess Kaguya. The film quietly became a big hit last year, pulling in $219 million at the box office.

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Here’s where you can watch Oscar-winning animated short Feast

2015-02-22T22:19:23-05:00

It's probably no surprise that Disney won the Oscar for best animated short film this year, but it's a win that's well deserved. Feast is a fun, touching, and gorgeous little movie. You may have seen it playing in front of Big Hero 6, but if you didn't, it's available to rent online. YouTube is charging $1.99 for it ($2.99 for HD), and it's definitely worth the money. Take six minutes and check it out.

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Watch the latest trailer for House of Cards season 3

2015-02-22T22:05:52-05:00

During the Oscars broadcast, a new trailer for the next season of House of Cards aired, giving us a closer look at what might just be the breakdown of Frank and Claire's relationship. Both are in positions of major political power, but, with an election in 2016 on the horizon, the gulf between them has never been more plain. The new season premieres on February 27th.

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