Oscars 2021: Chloe Zhao wins best director, Anthony Hopkins best actor

Nomadland won best picture while its star Frances McDormand took home the lead actress Oscar on Sunday on a night of several firsts and a return to Hollywood glamour after a long pandemic shutdown.

In a major upset, Britain’s Anthony Hopkins won the best actor trophy for his role as a man battling dementia in The Father. The Oscar had been widely expected to go to the late Chadwick Boseman for his final film, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

China native Chloe Zhao was named best director for Searchlight Pictures’ Nomadland, making her the first Asian woman and only the second woman ever to take home the trophy. She described making the film about the traveling van community in modern America a “crazy, once-in-a-lifetime journey.”

Youn Yuh-jung, 73, won the best supporting actress Oscar for her role as a cantankerous grandmother in immigrant tale Minari. She was the first South Korean actor or actress to win an Oscar.

It has been 11 years since Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win the director Oscar, for Iraq war drama The Hurt Locker.

Britain’s Daniel Kaluuya was named best supporting actor for his role as 1960s Black Panther activist Fred Hampton in Judas and the Black Messiah.

The movie Soul, the first from Pixar to feature a black lead character, won best animated feature.

Social distancing forced a rethink of the ceremony, moving it to Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. After strict COVID-19 testing and quarantine protocols, nominees and their guests sat, mostly maskless, in a cabaret-style set or chatted in an outdoor courtyard.

The winners were chosen in a secret ballot by the 9,000 members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Here is the complete list of winners:

Best picture: Nomadland

Best actress: Frances McDormand, Nomadland

Best actor: Anthony Hopkins, The Father

Original screenplay: Promising Young Woman, Emerald Fennell

Adapted screenplay: Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton, The Father

International film: Another Round, Denmark

Best supporting actor: Daniel Kaluuya, Judas and the Black Messiah

Best supporting actress: Yuh-Jung Youn, Minari

Best director: Chloé Zhao, Nomadland

Sound: Sound of Metal

Makeup and hairstyling: Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Costume design: Ann Roth, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom

Live action short film: Two Distant Strangers

Animated short film: If Anything Happens I Love You

Animated feature: Soul

Documentary short subject: Colette

Documentary feature: My Octopus Teacher

Visual effects: Tenet

Production design: Mank

Cinematography: Mank

Film editing: Sound of Metal

Original score: Soul, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross and Jon Batiste

Original song: ‘Fight for You’ from Judas and the Black Messiah (Music by H.E.R. and Dernst Emile II; Lyric by H.E.R. and Tiara Thomas)