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'The Shape of Water' Wins Best Picture at 2018 Oscars


Guillermo del Toro and the cast and crew of "The Shape of Water" accept the award for best picture at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Guillermo del Toro and the cast and crew of "The Shape of Water" accept the award for best picture at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

04:46 UTC: And the Oscar for Best Picture 2018 goes to....

The Shape of Water!

The Cold War fantasy film has been considered one of the favorites for the evening’s top honor. It received a leading 13 nominations for this year’s Oscars, and won four on Sunday night.

It stars Sally Hawkins as a mute (non-speaking) cleaner who falls in love with a secret aquatic creature kept in a government lab.

Guillermo del Toro is on stage with the cast and crew. He urges young filmmakers around the world to use the fantasy genre "to tell the stories that are real in the world today."

"You can do it. This is a door. Kick it open and come in," he adds.

04:42 UTC: The eight films nominated for Best Picture are:

Call Me By Your Name

Darkest Hour

Dunkirk

Get Out

Lady Bird

Phantom Thread

The Post

The Shape of Water

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

04:40 UTC: Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway are back this year to present the Oscar for Best Picture. As you may remember, last year they were given the wrong envelope and announced the wrong movie as the winner.

04:34: UTC: And the Oscar goes to...

Frances McDormand for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri! McDormand played Mildred Hayes, a woman filled with anger over the unsolved rape and murder of her daughter.​ As with Oldman, McDormand was widely expected to take home this Oscar.

In her acceptance speech, McDormand asked every female nominee tonight to stand up "Okay, look around everybody, because we all have stories to tell and projects that we need financed." She ends her speech with two words: Inclusion Rider. Or did she say Inclusion Writer? People on the internet seem divided about what McDormand said and meant.

[Backstage, McDormand explained what she said]

04:30 UTC: And now, Oscar winners Jodie Foster (who is injured and on crutches) and Jennifer Lawrence are on stage together to present the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

The nominees are:

Sally Hawkins - The Shape of Water

Frances McDormand - Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Margot Robbie - I, Tonya

Saoirse Ronan - Lady Bird

Meryl Streep - The Post

04:25 UTC: And the Oscar goes to...

Gary Oldman...as expected! In his acceptance speech, he gives a salute to Winston Churchill, whom he played in the film. Oldman also thanked his mother, who is soon going to be 99 years old.

04:22: UTC: Jane Fonda and Helen Mirren are on stage to present the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

The nominees are:

Timothee Chalemet - Call Me By Your Name

Daniel Day-Lewis - Phantom Thread

Daniel Kaluuya - Get Out

Gary Oldman - Darkest Hour

Denzel Washington - Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Critics have Gary Oldman widely considered the Oldman favorite to win.

04:15 UTC: And the Oscar goes to: Guillermo del Toro. This is his first Oscar win, after four nominations. That makes three Oscar wins so far for The Shape of Water.

Guillermo del Toro, winner of the award for best director for "The Shape of Water" celebrates in the audience at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Guillermo del Toro, winner of the award for best director for "The Shape of Water" celebrates in the audience at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Del Toro started out his speech saying he is an immigrant and made note of other Mexican directors who are also Oscar winners -- Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro G. Inarritu. The men are close friends.

04:13 UTC: Emma Stone, who won for Best Actress in a Leading Role last year, is presenting the Oscar for Best Director. The nominees are:

Jordan Peele - Get Out

Christopher Nolan - Dunkirk

Greta Gerwig - Lady Bird

Guillermo del Toro - The Shape of Water

Paul Thomas Anderson - Phantom Thread

04:06 UTC: Singer Eddie Vedder is performing Tom Petty's song "Room at the Top" in honor of Petty, who died last October. As he sings, a special "In Memoriam" video is playing to honor other entertainers who passed away last year.

04:02 UTC: The Oscar for Best Original Song goes to Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez for "This is Me," which was in tonight's Oscar-winning animated film Coco. They also wrote the song "Let It Go" from the animated movie Frozen.

03:58 UTC: Christopher Walken is on stage now to present the winner of Best Original Score*. The Oscar goes to Alexandre Desplat for The Shape of Water.

*"Score" in this case means the music that is written for a movie or play.

03:48 UTC: The Oscar for Cinematography goes to Roger Deakins for Blade Runner 2049.

Rachel Morrison (Mudbound) was one of the other nominees; she was the first woman ever to be nominated for Best Cinematography in the Oscars' 90-year history.

03:37 UTC: The Oscar for Best Original Screenplay goes to...Jordan Peele for Get Out. Peele is also nominated tonight for Best Director for Get Out.

The other nominees were: The Big Sick, Lady Bird, The Shape of Water, and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. All but one of those nominees are also nominated for Best Picture.

03:33 UTC: The Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay goes to James Ivory for Call Me By Your Name, a coming-of-age film about a young gay man who falls in love for the first time.

03:25 UTC: Actors Ashley Judd, Salma Hayek, and Annabelle Sciorra are on stage. They are talking about a "new path" that has emerged in the past several months, as many women have stood up and spoken about their experiences of sexual harassment and assault. All three women have publicly accused Harvey Weinstein of sexually abusing them.

Ashley Judd, from left, Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek speak at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Ashley Judd, from left, Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek speak at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

03:12 UTC: The Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject is presented to Heaven is a Traffic Jam on the 405.

The Live Action Short Oscar goes to The Silent Child. This film is about a young deaf girl living in a world of silence until her family decides to find a patient, kind caregiver to teach her to communicate with sign language. Rachel Shenton, who wrote the screenplay for The Silent Child, signed using British Sign Language while giving her acceptance speech.

Rachel Shenton, left, and Chris Overton accept the award for best live action short for "The Silent Child" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Rachel Shenton, left, and Chris Overton accept the award for best live action short for "The Silent Child" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

02:56 UTC: The Academy Award for Best Film Editing goes to Dunkirk. This is the film's third Oscar so far!

02:54 UTC: The Oscar for Best Visual Effects goes to Blade Runner 2049.

02:42 UTC: The Oscar for Animated Feature Film goes to Coco. It is a musical/fantasy/adventure film by Disney/Pixar. The story follows a young boy in Mexico named Miguel, who dreams of becoming a musician like his great-great-grandfather.

While accepting the award, Coco's directors thanked the people of Mexico. "Coco would not exist without your endlessly beautiful culture and traditions," they said.

02:38 UTC: The Oscar for Short Film (Animated) goes to Dear Basketball! American basketball player Kobe Bryant wrote the film. It is based on a letter Bryant wrote in 2015 to announce he was ending his basketball career.

Kobe Bryant, left, and Glen Keane accept the award for best animated short for "Dear Basketball" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Kobe Bryant, left, and Glen Keane accept the award for best animated short for "Dear Basketball" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

02:30 UTC: And the Oscar goes to...Allison Janney for I, Tonya!

In the film, Janney plays LaVona, the mother of American figure skater Tonya Harding. LaVona was the person who put Harding on the ice, paid for her training, and made her skating costumes with the little money she had.

She also abused her daughter as a child, both with words and physical violence.

Tonya Harding has reportedly not spoken to her mother in 15 years.

02:27 UTC: The next Oscar will go to Best Actress in a Supporting Role. The nominees are:

Mary J. Blige, Mudbound

Allison Janney, I, Tonya

Lesley Manville, Phantom Thread

Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird

Octavia Spencer, The Shape of Water

02:20 UTC: The next Oscar will be presented to Best Foreign Language Film.

The nominees are: A Fantastic Woman, Chile; The Insult, Lebanon; Loveless, Russia; On Body and Soul, Hungary; The Square, Sweden.

The Oscar goes to....Chile's A Fantastic Woman! This is Chile's first-ever Oscar win for the category.

A Fantastic Woman tells about a transgender woman who is rejected by her partner’s family after his death. Critics have praised the movie as a major turning point in how transgender people are represented in film. ​

02:10 UTC: Lupita Nyong'o and Kumail Nanjiani are on stage to present the next Oscar, which is for Best Production Design.

Before announcing the nominees and winner, the two note that they are both immigrants; Nyong'o is from Kenya and Nanjiani is from Pakistan as well as the American state of Iowa. ("Two places that no one in Hollywood can find on a map," Nanjiani jokes.)

"And like everyone in this room, we are dreamers," they say.

"Dreams are the foundation of Hollywood and dreams are the foundation of America," Lupita Nyong'o says.

And the Oscar for Best Production Design goes to...The Shape of Water. This is the first Oscar of the night for the film, directed by Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro. But it is probably not the last; it leads all other films this year with 13 nominations.

01:58 UTC: The Oscar for Best Sound Editing goes to Dunkirk.

Dunkirk also just picked up another Oscar for Best Sound Mixing.

01:40 UTC: Greta Gerwig and Laura Dern are on stage to present the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Documentaries are movies or television programs that tell the facts about actual people and events.

And Oscar goes to...Bryan Fogel and Dan Cogan for Icarus. This film led to the uncovering of a major international doping scandal in Russia sports. (You can watch this episode of News Words to help you better understand "doping.")

01:32 UTC: The Oscar for Best Costume Design goes to Mark Bridges for Phantom Thread.

Earlier, the Makeup and Hairstyling Oscar went to Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski and Lucy Sibbick for Darkest Hour.

01:19 UTC: And the Oscar goes to...Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri!

This is his first-ever Oscar nomination and Oscar win.

Sam Rockwell accepts the award for best performance by an actor in a supporting role for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Sam Rockwell accepts the award for best performance by an actor in a supporting role for "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

In Three Billboards, Rockwell played police officer Jason Dixon. Rockwell said this of the film after its release: “It's speaking to a lot of things that are going on in this country. It's talking about racism and misogyny. Ultimately I think it's about love and redemption, but I think it has a lot of anger in it -- a healthy amount of anger.”

01:15 UTC: As always, the first Oscar of the night will be given to the winner of Best Supporting Actor. Here are the nominees:

Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project

Woody Harrelson, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water

Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World

Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

01:05 UTC: Kimmel is discussing the Harvey Weinstein scandal that has rocked Hollywood and led to the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements against sexual harassment and sexual assault. "We can't let bad behavior slide anymore," Kimmel said. "The world is watching us."

Jimmy Kimmel speaks at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Jimmy Kimmel speaks at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

01:00 UTC: The show has begun! Host Jimmy Kimmel is addressing the crowd and television audience. He has already made note of last year's Best Picture announcement mistake; he told tonight's winners not to come up to the stage to accept the Oscar right away. Of course, he is just joking.

00:45 UTC: The 2018 Academy Awards ceremony is about to begin. The event in Hollywood, California, is the biggest night in the American film industry. The National Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards Oscars to the year's best movies and movie makers.

Refresh the page for the latest #Oscars90 news.

While we wait for the action to begin, you can read about this year's nominated films here.

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel is this year's Oscars host. He also hosted last year’s event. That is when presenters Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty famously announced La La Land instead of Moonlight as the Best Picture winner. After the mistake was corrected, Kimmel told television viewers, “I promise I’ll never come back” to host another Oscars.​

But Kimmel is back. And organizers are hoping this year's ceremony avoids such a mistake!

Do you have a favorite film from the past year? Do you have predictions for this year's Oscars? Let us know in the comments section!

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