Oscar 2011: winners and The King’s Speech

The King’s Speech takes home the big Oscars, including Best Actor for Colin Firth. Here’s our look at what won, and what we thought of it all…

And so it came to pass that, once more, the Oscars went with a film that was very much within its comfort zone. Taking home the gongs for Best Film, Best Actor, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay,

Elsewhere, The Social Network won awards for its screenplay, its score, and its editing. The Fighter bagged a pair of best supporting trophies, while many awards went along with predictions. Thus, Natalie Portman won Best Actress, Toy Story 3 was Best Animation, Inception took a collection of technical prizes home (as well as a well deserved cinematography Oscar for Wally Pfister).

Inevitably, the debate has begun already as to where Oscar has gone right and wrong here. As I said in my predictions last Friday, I really like The King’s Speech, but giving it prizes for screenplay and direction, given what it was up against there, is veering very much on the side of generous. I do congratulate all involved, and massive credit to Tom Hooper simply for getting the project going. But if I was David Fincher, I’d be wondering what I had to do to get a Best Director statue. No quibbles whatsoever with Colin Firth, mind.

Still, I learned a while back that the best way to deal with some of the choices of the Oscars is to substitute the word ‘Best’ in the category award names for ‘Favourite’. That seems a lot more honest.

The Social Network was only able to pull in awards for best adapted screenplay (Aaron Sorkin), best soundtrack (Trent Reznor) and best film editing, while The King’s Speech pulled in top honors for best actor, best director and the coveted best picture among various other categories.
From the “F Bomb” being dropped to some big upsets, here’s the full list of Oscar 2011 Winners:

1. Best Picture: “The King’s Speech.”
2. Actor: Colin Firth, “The King’s Speech.”
3. Actress: Natalie Portman, “Black Swan.”
4. Supporting Actor: Christian Bale, “The Fighter.”
5. Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo, “The Fighter.”
6. Directing: Tom Hooper, “The King’s Speech.”
7. Foreign Language Film: “In a Better World,” Denmark.
8. Adapted Screenplay: Aaron Sorkin, “The Social Network.”
9. Original Screenplay: David Seidler, “The King’s Speech.”
10. Animated Feature Film: “Toy Story 3.”
11. Art Direction: “Alice in Wonderland.”
12. Cinematography: “Inception.”
13. Sound Mixing: “Inception.”
14. Sound Editing: “Inception.”
15. Original Score: “The Social Network,” Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.
16. Original Song: “We Belong Together” from “Toy Story 3,” Randy Newman.
17. Costume Design: “Alice in Wonderland.”
18. Documentary Feature: “Inside Job.”
19. Documentary (short subject): “Strangers No More.”
20. Film Editing: “The Social Network.”
21. Makeup: “The Wolfman.”
22. Animated Short Film: “The Lost Thing.”
23. Live Action Short Film: “God of Love.”
24. Visual Effects: “Inception.”

The King’s Speech was the big winner at the 2011 Academy Awards.