7 ways ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ rewrote the Oscar history books with its 7 wins
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” was exactly that at Sunday’s Academy Awards. The multiverse-hopping smash won seven Oscars and set a whole bunch of records in the process. Here are seven of them, all at once.
1. It has won the most above-the-line Oscars ever
We said this could happen, and it did. “Everything Everywhere” is the first movie to win six above-the-line Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director for Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, Best Actress for Michelle Yeoh, Best Supporting Actor for Ke Huy Quan, Best Supporting Actress for Jamie Lee Curtis, and Best Original Screenplay for the Daniels. The previous record was five, held by the three films who’ve swept the Big Five, “It Happened One Night” (1934), “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” (1976) and “The Silence of the Lambs” (1991).
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2. It’s the first film to win three acting awards, Best Picture and Best Director
Two films have taken home three acting Oscars — “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) and “Network” (1976) — but neither won Best Picture or Best Director. “Everything Everywhere” had been secure in those two categories for a while, so it was a matter of figuring out how many acting statuettes it would claim, especially after it scored a record-setting three individual Screen Actors Guild Awards for Yeoh, Quan and Curtis. It made sense to question whether it could pull off this rare acting hat trick at the Oscars, but it turned out “Everything Everywhere” was unstoppable and it would just be a copy-and-paste job. It’s also the first Best Picture winner to earn more than one acting Oscar since “Million Dollar Baby” (2004).
3. It’s the winningest Best Picture champ in the preferential ballot era
“Everything Everywhere” also won Best Film Editing to bring its Oscar total to seven — the most by a Best Picture champ since the Best Picture lineup was expanded 13 years ago. “The Hurt Locker” (2009) won six in the first year of the preferential ballot, but since then, sweeps by Best Picture winners have been uncommon. Before “Everything Everywhere,” no Best Picture winner had snagged more than four trophies since “The Artist” (2011), which received five. Tech-heavy films like “Gravity” (2013), which won seven Oscars, “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2016) and “Dune” (2021) have swept below the line, but none won Best Picture. “Everything Everywhere’s” seven awards are also the most by a Best Picture winner since “Slumdog Millionaire” (2008) grabbed eight in the final year of the Best Picture field of five.
SEE Full list of Oscar winners
4. It has the earliest release date for a Best Picture winner since “The Silence of the Lambs”
“Everything Everywhere” premiered at the South by Southwest Festival on March 11, 2022, one year and one day before its Oscar stomp, and hit theaters on March 25. “The Silence of the Lambs” was released on Feb. 14, 1991, and cleaned up at the Oscars on March 30, 1992. The final quarter of the calendar year is the popular release window for Oscar hopefuls — usually after hitting a fall festival — but “Everything Everywhere” for sure benefited from the longer lead time as its buzz and fan base grew over the rest of 2022.
4. It is the first film to win Best Actress and a writing award in 24 years
We all know the infrequency with which Best Picture and Best Actress line up — “Nomadland” (2020) finally pulled it off, 16 years after “Million Dollar Baby” last did it — but before Sunday, the last film to win Best Actress and a screenplay award was 1998’s “Shakespeare in Love.” And since there are two writing categories, it doesn’t exactly look great that it’s been so long.
5. It is the first Best Picture winner led by a woman of color
There have been Best Picture winners with POC-fronted casts before, including “Slumdog Millionaire,” “12 Years a Slave” (2013) “Moonlight” (2016) and “Parasite” (2019), but this is the first time with a sole WOC lead. This is also the third consecutive year that the Best Picture winner was headlined by a woman after “Nomadland” and “CODA.”
6. Yeoh is the first Asian Best Actress winner
Yeoh is, of course, also the second woman of color to win the category after Halle Berry, who prevailed 21 years ago for “Monster’s Ball.” With Yuh-Jung Youn having won Best Supporting Actress for 2020’s “Minari,” there have been more Asian actresses who have won Oscars in the last three ceremonies than there had been in Oscar history prior to that (just one, Best Supporting Actress winner Miyoshi Umeki for 1957’s “Sayonara”).
7. This is the first time multiple actors of Asian descent have won Oscars in the same year
Quan is the second Asian Best Supporting Actor winner after Haing S. Ngor, who won for “The Killing Fields,” which was released the same year, 1984, that Quan made his film debut in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” There was a record number of Asian performers nominated this year, with “Everything Everywhere’s” Stephanie Hsu and “The Whale’s” Hong Chau also nominated in Best Supporting Actress.
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