Best Picture
THE SHAPE OF WATER (2017)	Call Me By Your Name (2017)	Darkest Hour (2017)	Dunkirk (2017)	Get Out (2017)
Lady Bird (2017)	Phantom Thread (2017)	The Post (2017)	Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

Best Animated Feature Film
COCO (2017)	Boss Baby (2017)	The Breadwinner (2017)	Ferdinand (2017)	Loving Vincent (2017)

Actor:
GARY OLDMAN in "Darkest Hour," Timothee Chalamet in "Call Me By Your Name," Daniel Day-Lewis in "Phantom Thread," Daniel Kaluuya in "Get Out," Denzel Washington in "Roman J. Israel, Esq."
Actress:
FRANCES McDORMAND in "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri," Sally Hawkins in "The Shape of Water," Margot Robbie in "I, Tonya," Saoirse Ronan in "Lady Bird," Meryl Streep in "The Post"
Supporting Actor:
SAM ROCKWELL in "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri," Willem Dafoe in "The Florida Project," Woody Harrelson in "Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri," Richard Jenkins in "The Shape of Water," Christopher Plummer in "All the Money in the World"
Supporting Actress:
ALLISON JANEY in "I, Tonya," Mary J. Blige in "Mudbound," Lesley Manville in "Phantom Thread," Laurie Metcalf in "Lady Bird," Octavia Spencer in "The Shape of Water"
Director:
GUILLERMO DEL TORO for "The Shape of Water," Paul Thomas Anderson for "Phantom Thread," Greta Gerwig for "Lady Bird," Christopher Nolan for "Dunkirk," Jordan Peele for "Get Out"

The TV telecast of the Oscar presentations appeared to be an all-time low rating (at 18.9), 16% lower than last year’s 22.4 rating (marking a 9 year-low point), and well below the previous low ratings point - the 2008 telecast (at 21.9). In terms of viewership numbers, there were 26.5 million viewers (in the previous year, there were 32.9 million).

There was rampant speculation about the reasons for low viewership - of which these were the most common allegations:

• the decline of audiences for many large TV events (i.e., the Winter Olympics, the Super Bowl), award shows (the Grammys, Golden Globes and Emmys) and TV in general
• the low numbers of people who had actually seen the Best Picture-nominated movies with only modest box-office receipts
• the lack of blockbuster crowd-pleasing films among the top nominees: (Wonder Woman (2017), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017), It (2017), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (2017), and Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi (2017))
• the presumed politicization of the event, peppered with biases and agendas of hypocritical, liberal-leaning Hollywood elites preaching feminism, diversity, and inclusion
• the nearly four-hour, fatiguing run-time (ending at midnight on the East Coast)
• the exhaustion felt by having to hear again about the Harvey Weinstein scandal (known for years by many) that led to two movements, #MeToo and Time’s Up, and the ensuing skeptical belief that enlightened concern to remake the industry was only a passing fad that couldn't be sustained among preening Tinseltown stars
• the sense that the show would be extensively micro-managed in order to prevent a repeat of last year's embarrassing screw-up with the wrong envelopes and announcement of the wrong Best Picture
• the realization that most award categories were highly predictable, and had pre-ordained or expected favorites

The Oscar awards were fairly evenly spread out amongst the 9 films nominated for Best Picture. Seven of the nine Best Picture nominees received at least one award, insuring that no one film would sweep this year's Oscars. Only six films won multiple Oscar trophies: The Shape of Water (4), Dunkirk (3), Darkest Hour (2), Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (2), Coco (2) (the first Animated Feature Film winner with a Latino protagonist), and Blade Runner 2049 (2).

The big winner was Mexican film-maker Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy romance The Shape of Water (with 13 nominations and 4 wins - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Score, and Best Production Design). [Note: It was the tenth film in Oscar history to earn 13 nominations. The current record of 14 nominations was held by only three films, All About Eve (1950), Titanic (1997) and La La Land (2016).]

The whimsical Best Picture-winning tale told about a fanciful romance set in the early 1960s between a mute, forlorn cleaning woman (Sally Hawkins) and a misunderstood, imprisoned amphibious, mutant man-monster (Doug Jones) in a secret Cold War lab outside Baltimore. [Note: The design of the creature caught in the Amazon paid homage to The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).] It was the highest-grossing (domestic) Best Picture winner in five years, at $57.4 million at the time of the award. It was only the second movie with a credited female screenwriter (Vanessa Taylor with co-writer Guillermo del Toro) to win Best Picture since World War II. [Note: The first film was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) - co-written by two female screenwriters: Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens.] The R-rated feature (with sexual content, graphic nudity, violence and language) was the sixth consecutive Best Picture winner with this rating, beginning with Argo (2012).

The second most decorated film of the year was Christopher Nolan’s war epic Dunkirk (with 8 nominations and 3 wins, all in technical categories - Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Film Editing) about the fierce battle of the Allies (led by the British) against the Nazi enemy during WWII. WB's Dunkirk was the highest-grossing (domestic) film of the entire group of Best Picture nominees at the time of the awards, at $188 million.

Another WWII biopic also fared well, director Joe Wright's and Focus Film's UK historical character-drama Darkest Hour (with 6 nominations and 2 wins, including Best Actor, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling). It told about the newly-appointed Prime Minister of Great Britain Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman) during the early war years who faced tremendous odds against the Nazis.

The fourth film to do exceedingly well was writer/director Martin McDonagh's black comedy-drama Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (with 7 nominations and 2 wins, including two major performance awards: Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor). The Fox Searchlight film told about an angry, grieving vengeful mother's (Frances McDormand) challenge to local racist, redneck authorities regarding the unsolved rape-murder of her daughter, and her ongoing conflict with Officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell).

A number of other films nominated for Best Picture also picked up various awards:

• writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's historical drama Phantom Thread (with six nominations and only one Oscar, Best Costume Design), about renowned, obsessive dressmaker Reynolds Woodcock (Best Actor-nominated Daniel Day-Lewis) in 1950s London whose life was disrupted by a romance with his determined and willful waitress-muse-lover Alma (Vicky Krieps).
• writer/director Jordan Peele's sleeper hit and horror film Get Out (with 4 nominations and one win, Peele's Best Original Screenplay, the first for an African-American nominee) about a mysterious, secluded Lake Pontaco home, where caucasian Rose Armitage (Allison Williams) took her African-American boyfriend photographer (Best Actor-nominated Daniel Kaluuya) for a weekend visit. Universal's film was the second highest-grossing (domestic) film of the 9 Best Picture nominees at the time of the awards, with $176 million.
• director Luca Guadagnino's gay coming-of-age love story Call Me By Your Name (with 4 nominations and 1 win, Best Adapted Screenplay for James Ivory) set in Northern Italy in the early 1980s. It told about a bonding relationship between a 24 year-old American graduate student and visiting intern (Armie Hammer) and a precocious 17 year-old family member Elio (Best Actor-nominated Timothée Chalamet). [Note: 89 year-old James Ivory, a four-time Oscar nominee and well-known for his Merchant Ivory Productions and acclaimed British period films, finally won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, marking him as the oldest Oscar winner to date. He had previously been nominated three times as Best Director for A Room with a View (1985), Howards End (1992), and The Remains of the Day (1993).]

Two of the Best Picture nominees came away empty handed:

• writer/director Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird (with 5 nominations and no wins), a portrait of the early 2000s in Sacramento, CA during the coming-of-age of a willful Catholic high school teenager (Best Actress-nominated Saoirse Ronan) who had a volatile relationship with her mother (Best Supporting Actress-nominated Laurie Metcalf).
• director Steven Spielberg's (and Fox's) biographical drama The Post (with 2 nominations and no wins), about the era of the Pentagon Papers government scandal and cover-up, and the involvement of the US' first female publisher and heiress Kay Graham (Best Actress-nominated Meryl Streep) at the Washington Post newspaper as it battled a federal restraining order.

Four other films did well in terms of overall nominations (and some Oscar wins), although they were not nominated for Best Picture:

• director Denis Villeneuve’s unconventional sci-fi Blade Runner 2049 (with 5 nominations and 2 wins, Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects); Roger Deakins took home his first Oscar for Cinematography after fourteen nominations (in some of the most classic films ever made from 1994 to 2017, a period of 23 years). He had been nominated 13 times for an Oscar for Best Cinematography without a win — an Academy record. [Note: Competing in the same category, Rachel Morrison was the first woman ever nominated for the Cinematography Oscar, for Mudbound (2017).]
• director Craig Gillespie's dark comedic Tonya Harding biopic I, Tonya (with 3 nominations and 1 win, Best Supporting Actress); TV star Allison Janey won for her supporting work in the film.
• writer/director Dee Rees' (and Netflix's) WWII period drama set in rural Mississippi during the era of Jim Crow laws, Mudbound (with 4 nominations and 0 wins); Rachel Morrison's nomination for Best Cinematography was a milestone first for a female.
• the top-grossing film of the year, co-writer/director Rian Johnson's sci-fi blockbuster Star Wars: The Last Jedi (with 4 nominations and 0 wins).

In the category of Best Director, the winner was 53 year-old Mexican film director Guillermo del Toro for the whimsical fantasy film, The Shape of Water. The film brought co-writer/director del Toro his third and fourth Academy nominations, for Best Director (his first nomination and win in the category) and Best Original Screenplay. He had previously been nominated twice for another fantasy film, Pan's Labyrinth (2006), for Best Original Screenplay and Best Foreign Language film.

[Note: From 2013 to 2017, Mexican film-makers have won Oscars for Best Director in four of the five years, for unconventional films. Del Toro became the third Mexican-born filmmaker to win the award. And the consecutive string of non-Americans (6) winning Best Director stretched from 2010 to 2015.]

The other Best Director nominees in the category were:

• 47 year-old Paul Thomas Anderson for his 8th feature film, Phantom Thread about the London fashion industry in the 1950s; he also received a nomination for Best Picture for the film
  [Note: It was only his second Best Director nomination, although it was his 8th Oscar nomination overall; he had previously been nominated Best Director for the Best Picture-nominated There Will Be Blood (2007), and he had four nominations for his screenplays for Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999), There Will Be Blood (2007), and Inherent Vice (2014).]
• 34 year-old actress/writer/director Greta Gerwig for the comedy-drama, Lady Bird, her solo directorial debut film
  [Note: Gerwig was also nominated for Best Original Screenplay, marking her first two Academy nominations. Gerwig's nomination for Best Director made her the fifth woman to be nominated for Best Director. She was the third American woman nominated as Best Director, and the first woman to be nominated as Best Director for her solo directorial debut.]
• 47 year-old British film-maker Christopher Nolan for the WWII war epic Dunkirk
  [Note: This was Nolan's first nomination as Best Director. He also had two previous nominations for his screenplays: Best Original Screenplay for Memento (2000) and Inception (2010).]
• 38 year-old African-American writer/director Jordan Peele for Get Out, his solo directorial debut film
  [Note: Peele's nomination for Best Director made him the fifth black director ever nominated for the Oscar. He received an Oscar for his nomination for Best Original Screenplay - and became the first African-American to earn such an Oscar. He also received honors as the producer of the Best Picture nominee. He therefore became the first black filmmaker (and the third filmmaker of all time, after Warren Beatty and James L. Brooks) ever nominated for the trifecta of directing, writing, and producing in the same year for his debut feature film.]

All four of the recipients of Oscar gold for individual performances were widely predicted to win.

In the category of Best Actor in a Leading Role, the winner was 59 year-old English actor Gary Oldman, with his second nomination (and first win) in the Best Actor category, for his role as British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during the early years of WWII, in the British war drama Darkest Hour. [Note: Oldman was previously nominated for his role in the Cold War espionage film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011).]

The other four Best Actor nominees in the category were:

• 63 year-old Denzel Washington, with his eighth performance nomination of his career (he became the most nominated black actor of all-time), as the title character - a lawyer in writer/director Dan Gilroy's legal drama Roman J. Israel, Esq.; the nearly-forgotten movie did very poorly at the box-office and was poorly received by critics
  [Note: Washington had two previous Oscar wins, Best Supporting Actor for Glory (1989), and Best Actor for Training Day (2001). He has also been nominated as Supporting Actor for Cry Freedom (1987), and as Best Actor for Malcolm X (1992), The Hurricane (1999), Flight (2012), and Fences (2016). He has a ninth nomination as producer for Best Picture-nominated Fences (2016).]
• 60 year-old English actor Daniel Day-Lewis, with his sixth nomination in the Best Actor category, for his role as fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock in 1950s London, in Phantom Thread - allegedly his final film role before retiring
  [Note: Day-Lewis held the record as the only actor to have received three Best Actor Oscars, for My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (1989), There Will Be Blood (2007), and Lincoln (2012). He was also nominated for In the Name of the Father (1993) and Gangs of New York (2002).]
  
• 22 year-old American actor Timothee Chalamet, with his first nomination as sensitive 17 year-old Elio, the lead role in director Luca Guadagnino's homosexual romance Call Me By Your Name; in the film set during the early 1980s, he fell in love with Oliver (Armie Hammer), a college university graduate student and intern who had come to stay with Elio's family.
  [Note: At age 22, Chalamet became the third-youngest Best Actor nominee in Oscar history.]
• 28 year-old British born black Daniel Kaluuya, with his first nomination as photographer Chris, in the horror film Get Out

In the category of Best Actress in a Leading Role, the winner was 60 year-old Frances McDormand, with her fifth Oscar nomination and second Best Actress win, as angry and grieving mother Mildred Hayes, who rented three billboards in her hometown to publicize the botched case following the rape and murder of her teenage daughter Angela seven months earlier, in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. [Note: McDormand was previously nominated thrice as Best Supporting Actress, for Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000), and North Country (2005). Her other previous Oscar win was for Best Actress for Fargo (1996).]

The other four Best Actress nominees in the category were:

• 68 year-old Meryl Streep, with her 21st Academy Award nomination (a significant record), as Washington Post publisher-heiress Katharine Graham during the Vietnam War-era at the time of the Pentagon Papers scandal, in Steven Spielberg's political thriller The Post
  [Note: Streep's nominations ranged all the way from The Deer Hunter (1978) to the present day. She had won three times: Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), and Best Actress for Sophie's Choice (1982) and The Iron Lady (2011). At the time of these Oscar presentations, she had seventeen nominations for Best Actress and four for Best Supporting Actress.]
• 41 year-old British-born actress Sally Hawkins, with her second nomination, in the role of mute Baltimore janitor Elisa Esposito working in a secret government facility in the 1960s who bonded with an amphibious humanoid-creature, in the fantasy drama The Shape of Water
  [Note: Hawkins was previously nominated as Best Supporting Actress for Blue Jasmine (2013).]
• 27 year-old Australian actress Margot Robbie, with her first Oscar nomination, in director Craig Gillepsie's biographical drama about controversial figure skater Tonya Harding, who was managed by her abusive mother LaVona Golden (Oscar-winning Allison Janney), in I, Tonya (with three nominations, including Best Supporting Actress and Best Editing)
• 23 year-old Saoirse Ronan, with her third nomination and second Best Actress nomination, for her role as Christine "Lady Bird" McPherson, a Catholic high-school senior in the early 2000s in the Sacramento area, who fought constantly with her overbearing mother Marion McPherson (Oscar-nominated Laurie Metcalf), in the coming-of-age comedy-drama Lady Bird
  [Note: Ronan was previously nominated as Best Supporting Actress for Atonement (2007), and Best Actress for Brooklyn (2015).]

In the category of Best Supporting Actor, the winner was 49 year-old Sam Rockwell, with his first Oscar nomination, for his performance as racist Officer Jason Dixon involved in an ongoing controversy with angry town mother (McDormand) over a rape-murder case, in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri. [Note: Having two Best Supporting Actor nominees in the same film (Rockwell and Harrelson) hasn't occurred very often. The last time was when Harvey Keitel and Ben Kingsley were both nominated (and lost) in this category in Barry Levinson's Bugsy (1991).]

The other four Best Supporting Actor nominees in the category were:

• 88 year-old Christopher Plummer, with his third Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination, for his performance as oil tycoon J. Paul Getty who refused extortion demands from Mafia kidnappers of his grand-son, in director Ridley Scott's crime thriller All the Money in the World (the film's sole nomination) - Plummer had replaced the original male star, Kevin Spacey, and reshot all of the actor's scenes after Spacey became involved in sexual assault allegations
  [Note: With this nomination, Plummer became the oldest person ever nominated for an acting Academy Award at the age of 88, a record previously held by the 87-year-old Gloria Stuart for Titanic (1997). At the age of 82, Plummer previously won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Beginners (2010), becoming the oldest person to ever win an Academy Award for acting. He was also previously nominated for The Last Station (2009).]
• 70 year-old Richard Jenkins, with his second Oscar nomination, for his role as struggling homosexual advertisement illustrator Giles, the friend of mute next-door neighbor Elisa Esposito (Hawkins), in The Shape of Water
  [Note: Jenkins was previously nominated as Best Actor for The Visitor (2007/8).]
• 62 year-old Willem Dafoe, with his third Best Supporting Actor nomination, as Bobby Hicks - the manager of the rundown Magic Castle Motel in Kissimmee Florida near Walt Disney World, and the father of Jack Hicks, in co-writer/director Sean Baker's drama The Florida Project (the film's sole Oscar nomination)
  [Note: Dafoe's previous two similar nominations were for Platoon (1986) and Shadow of the Vampire (2000).]
• 56 year-old Woody Harrelson, with his third Oscar nomination and second Best Supporting Actor nomination, as suicidal Sheriff Bill Willoughby who suffered from terminal pancreatic cancer and faced the wrath of frustrated grieving mother Mildred (McDormand) of a rape-murder victim, in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri
  [Note: Harrelson's previous two nominations were Best Actor for The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), and Best Supporting Actor for The Messenger (2009).]

In the category of Best Supporting Actress, including mostly-first time nominees (with three strong mother roles among the five female characters), the winner was 58 year-old Allison Janney, with her first Oscar nomination, for her role as controversial iceskater Tonya Harding's abusive, 'white-trash' mother LaVona Fay Golden, in the biographical drama, I, Tonya.

The other four Best Supporting Actress nominees in the category were:

• 45 year-old Octavia Spencer, with her third Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, for her role as Zelda D. Fuller, the co-worker, next-door neighbor and interpreter for mute Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins), in The Shape of Water
  [Note: Spencer's two previous nominations were for Hidden Figures (2016) and a win for The Help (2011). Spencer was now tied with Viola Davis for the most Academy Award nominations for a black female actor with three nominations each.]
• 47 year-old African-American singer/actress Mary J. Blige, with her first acting nomination (and second nomination), for her role as tenant farmer wife/mother Florence Jackson, in writer/director Dee Rees' (and Netflix's) WWII period drama set in rural Mississippi during the era of Jim Crow laws, Mudbound - with four nominations, including Blige's two nominations, Best Cinematography (Rachel Morrison, the first such nomination for a female), and Best Adapted Screenplay (Dee Rees became the second black woman to be nominated by the Academy for screenwriting)
  [Note: Blige's Oscar nomination was supplemented by a second co-nomination for the film's Best Original Song - Mighty River.]
• 61 year-old British-born actress Lesley Manville, with her first Oscar nomination, for her role as Cyril Woodcock, the wry sister of famed fashion designer Reynolds Woodcock (Day-Lewis) who managed his day-to-day affairs and business operations in 1950s London, in Phantom Thread
• 62 year-old Laurie Metcalf, with her first Oscar nomination, as Marion McPherson - the controlling mother of the title character, in Lady Bird

Most Obvious Omissions and Snubs:

• Best Picture:
  - Wonder Woman, a blockbuster of major proportions - a female-directed (Patty Jenkins), female-led (Gal Gadot) superhero film, was absent from every category of awards, including the technical awards.
  - Director Denis Villeneuve’s unconventional sci-fi Blade Runner 2049, the sequel to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982) that has often been rated one of the greatest sci-fi films ever, was the only film with 5 or more nominations (all technical or craft awards) without a Best Picture nomination. It won two of its five nominations for its technical craft: Best Visual Effects, and Best Cinematography (14-time nominee Roger Deakins with his first Oscar win).
  - Writer/director Sean Baker's low-budget arthouse film, The Florida Project, failed to receive recognition for its story of a poor young mother and her 6-year-old daughter living in a seedy Orlando-area motel. It failed to win its single nomination - Best Supporting Actor for Willem Dafoe.
  - I, Tonya - Craig Gillepsie's fictionalized biopic about competitive ice skater Tonya Harding (Margot Robbie), received three Academy nominations, but none of them recognized it as a Best Picture contender. Allison Janey won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role as Tonya Harding's mother.
  
  
• Best Actor:
  - James Franco did not receive a nomination for his comedic role as eccentric Tommy Wiseau, in The Disaster Artist. Many speculated it was because of multiple accusations of sexual misconduct just before the close of nominations.
  - Perennial favorite Tom Hanks and two-time Best Actor winner (not nominated since 2000, 17 years earlier) was denied a nomination for his role as irascible Washington Post Editor in Chief Ben Bradlee, in Spielberg's The Post. [Note: Hanks has now been in a total of five Best Picture-nominated films without being nominated himself - The Post (2017), Bridge of Spies (2015), Captain Phillips (2013), Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2011), and Toy Story 3 (2010) (voice-over role).]
  - Christian Bale was nowhere to be seen in the nominees, as legendary Capt. Joseph J. Blocker in director Scott Cooper's western Hostiles.
  
  
• Best Actress:
  - Jessica Chastain was neglected for her role as Molly Bloom - a former ski champion and high-stakes poker gamer in Aaron Sorkin’s Molly’s Game.
  
  
• Best Supporting Actor:
  - Armie Hammer was not in the list of nominees for his role as visiting graduate school intern Oliver who bonded with a teenage boy, in the gay film Call Me By Your Name.
  
  
• Best Supporting Actress:
  - Holly Hunter was snubbed for her role as protective mother Beth in The Big Sick - in fact, the independent film was denied in every category except one nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
  - Black actress Tiffany Haddish was left out of the Supporting Actress category for her role as Dina in Malcolm D. Lee's popular hit comedy Girls Trip.
  
  
• Best Director:
  - British writer/director Martin McDonagh was not nominated as the director of the favored, Best Picture-nominated Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, although he did receive a Best Original Screenplay nominaton.
  - Dee Rees' Mudbound was snubbed in the categories of Best Picture and Best Director, and was ultimately shut-out.
  - Steven Spielberg's The Post had only two nominations, Best Actress for Meryl Streep, and Best Picture, and lost both of them.
  
  
• Best Animated Feature Film:
  The most obvious snub was the absence of The Lego Batman Movie.