Oscars 2018: Seven must-see moments

And that's a wrap: the Academy Awards are over for another year. Here are some of the most moving moments from the big night

90th Academy Awards - Oscars Arrivals - Hollywood, California, U.S., 04/03/2018 - Actress Salma Hayek. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
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The Oscars are the climax of the annual film awards season, and the 90th Academy Awards ceremony has just wrapped up. You can read all about the big winners here, and see the most candid pictures from the ceremony here, but here are seven other moments from the night that we think were just as important...

1. Syrian producer Kareem Abeed made it to the ceremony

Soren Steen Jespersen, from left, Feras Fayyad, and Kareem Abeed arrive at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Soren Steen Jespersen, from left, Feras Fayyad, and Kareem Abeed arrive at the Oscars on Sunday, March 4, 2018, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)

Last Men In Aleppo was the first Syrian-produced and directed film to be up for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Oscar, and while sports film Icarus won, producer Kareem Abeed did manage to make it to the awards. Right up until the last minute he wasn't sure if he would make it after he had to appeal when his visa to visit the US was affected by President Donald Trump's controversial travel ban. The ban places travel restrictions on citizens from Syria, North Korea, Iran, Chad, Libya, Venezuela and Yemen.

Pictured above is, from left, producer Soren Jespersen, director Feras Fayyad and producer Kareem Abeed. The latter tweeted this after the ceremony:

(From L) Syrian producer Kareem Abeed, director Feras Fayyad and Danish producer Soren Steen Jespersen arrive for the 90th Annual Academy Awards on March 4, 2018, in Hollywood, California.  / AFP PHOTO / Robyn BECK
(From L) Syrian producer Kareem Abeed, director Feras Fayyad and Danish producer Soren Steen Jespersen arrive for the 90th Annual Academy Awards on March 4, 2018, in Hollywood, California. / AFP PHOTO / Robyn BECK

We spoke to Abeed last month and asked him what he would say in his speech if the film won: "The message that I want to share with the world is that what’s happening in Syria is a global crime. Everyone is watching it and everyone is complicit. What I want from people watching the film is to bear witness to the crimes that are happening in Syria."

"We stand with Ghouta," he tweeted before the ceremony.

2. Honouring the trailblazers: Judd, Hayek and Sciorra's time on stage

Ashley Judd, Annabella Sciorra and Salma Hayek: three women who have accused Harvey Weinstein of misconduct and have become leaders of the Time's Up movement took to the Oscars stage to salute the trailblazers who broke through "the biased perceptions against their gender, their race and ethnicity to tell their stories", as Hayek put it.

The segment honoured industry members including Mira Sorvino to Lee Daniels and from The Big Sick writer Kumail Nanjani to Mudbound director Dee Rees.

"Emily, my wife, had this idea. She wanted to have this website called Muslims Having Fun," Nanjani quipped during the segment, "which is just Muslims eating ice cream and riding rollercoasters and laughing and having fun, because she gets to see that and most of America doesn't."

"We are the interpreters of dreams, and we have a chance to lionise beauty and truth and honour and justice," Sorvino said.

"This year many spoke their truth and the journey ahead is long, but slowly, a new path has emerged," Sciorra said. "On this 90th anniversary evening when the Oscars celebrates timeless classics, we also look forward as well."

3. Jordan Peele is the first black screenwriter to win Oscar for Best Original Screenplay

Jordan Peele was nominated three times on the night, and won Best Original Screenplay for his work writing the intelligent, genre-twisting horror Get Out: "I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible, I thought it wasn't going to work, I thought no one was going to make this movie. But I kept coming back to it because I knew if someone let me make this movie that people would hear it, and people would see it."

In his perfectly brief but passionate acceptance speech, he also dedicated the award to everyone who "bought a ticket" to the movie, and encouraged others to see it. Actor Stephen Amell tweeted out this very good point as to why Peele more than deserved the win:

4. Tiffany Haddish recycled her look and wore national dress with pride 

Comedian Tiffany Haddish (L) and US actress Maya Rudolph present the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject during the 90th Annual Academy Awards show on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood, California. / AFP PHOTO / Mark Ralston
Comedian Tiffany Haddish (L) and US actress Maya Rudolph present the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject during the 90th Annual Academy Awards show on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood, California. / AFP PHOTO / Mark Ralston

We wonder if comedian and actor Tiffany Haddish heard the collective fist pump from women around the world when she walked on the award show stage in a dress she's worn at least two other times in public.

Her white Alexander McQueen gown is hardly "affordable" at about Dh14,000, but at least she acknowledges that by wearing it many times.

"My whole team told me, 'Tiffany, you cannot wear that dress on SNL, you already wore it. It's taboo to wear it twice," Haddish said when wearing the dress on Saturday Night Live after having worn it to the Girls Trip premiere. "I said, 'I don't give a dang about no taboo, I spent a lot of money on this dress. This dress cost way more than my mortgage."

That said, Haddish did wear a different dress for the red carpet, opting for a traditional Eritrean dress and wrap in honour of her father, who died last year: "He said one day I would end up here and if I ever ended up at the Oscars to honour my people so I'm honouring my fellow Eritreans," she told ABC on the red carpet.

Comedian Tiffany Haddish arrives for the 90th Annual Academy Awards on March 4, 2018, in Hollywood, California.  / AFP PHOTO / ANGELA WEISS
Comedian Tiffany Haddish arrives for the 90th Annual Academy Awards on March 4, 2018, in Hollywood, California. / AFP PHOTO / ANGELA WEISS

5. 'Erasing the lines in the sand': Guillermo Del Toro's speech 

Guillermo Del Toro - to many people's surprise - won Best Director and Best Picture at the 90th Academy Awards for The Shape of Water . He hadn't won an Oscar before, in part due to the fact that his fantasy-style filmmaking (Pan's Labyrinth, Crimson Peak) isn't typical Academy fodder.

He began his Best Director speech with: “I am an immigrant and in the last 25 years, I’ve been living in a country all of our own. Part of it is here, part of it is in Europe, part of it is everywhere. Because I think the greatest thing that art does, and that our industry does, is erase the lines in the sand when the world tells us to make them deeper.”

During his Best Picture acceptance speech he had some words of encouragement for young filmmakers: “This is a door. Kick it open and come in.”

6. Twitter support for Lebanese film The Insult

While Ziad Doueiri's film The Insult didn't win the Best Foreign Film Oscar - that honour went to Chilean film A Fantastic Woman - fans of the movie gave the team behind it a shout-out from around the world on Twitter. The film stars Adel Karam and digs into the sect­ar­ian re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal fault lines that still exist in Leb­a­non, al­most 30 years af­ter the end of the coun­try's bloody civ­il war.

Karam shared this photo, thanking Lebanese fans:

And here were some heartwarming responses:

7. Female nominees stand with Frances McDormand 

Frances McDormand - very deservedly - took home the Oscar for Three Billboards, and as she accepted the honour she asked for all female nominees, from all categories, to stand with her. (She asked Meryl Streep to stand as well: "If you do it everyone else will.").

"If I fall over pick me up because I've got some things to say," McDormand, who won her only other Oscar for her work in Fargo, said to begin her frank and fantastic speech.

“Look around, ladies and gentlemen, because we all have stories to tell and projects we need financed. Don’t talk to us about it at the parties tonight, invite us into your office in a couple days - or you can come to ours, whichever suits you best - and we’ll tell you all about them.”

“I have two words to leave with you tonight: inclusion rider,” was McDormand's final mic drop - referring to a "rider", or a part of a contract in which powerful Hollywood stars can demand certain things before they take on a role.

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Read more:

As it happened: the 90th Academy Awards

Host Jimmy Kimmel doesn't hold back in Oscars monologue

14th time's the charm: cinematographer Roger Deakins finally snags Oscar

Guillermo del Toro on the deeper meaning in ‘The Shape of Water’

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