At the most important award of the night Damien Chazelle’s musical La La Land was given the Oscar for Best Picture over Barry Jenkins’ emotional drama Moonlight.
Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty announced the Oscar presentation, but Beatty was mistakenly holding the award envelope for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Emma Stone). The confused Beatty assumed the card was for La La Land, and called them up to receive the award.
But while La La Land producer Fred Berger began his acceptance speech he was interrupted by another of the film’s producers Jordan Horowitz who exclaimed “there’s a mistake, Moonlight you guys won Best Picture!”
Warren Beatty did his best to explain the mishap, but he clearly shared blame for awarding Best Picture to the wrong party.
It was a shocker, to say the least, one that many critics including NBC News predicted wouldn’t happen.
But this year the most prestigious film award went to the underdog, albeit one that was nominated for a total of eight Oscars, taking home Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Mahershala Ali) and Best Adapted Screenplay along with Best Picture.
Here’s a list of all the Oscar nominations this year.
