The last three Oscars were presented in the following order: Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Actor (an odd thing given that Best Picture is typically last). The evening’s top honors went to director Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, with Frances McDormand scoring a slightly surprising upset in the Best Actress category for that same film. Some had expected that Best Actor might have been scheduled to be the final award in order to highlight Chadwick Boseman’s potential victory as the final punctuation on the evening’s events. But things didn’t exactly work out that way, with Joaquin Phoenix announcing Anthony Hopkins’ name and then explaining that the performer wasn’t present at the event to accept the trophy.
