Award season is upon us, with the Golden Globes and The Grammy’s in the rearview mirror, we set our sights on The Oscars. Perhaps the biggest night of the year for actors, directors, editors and everyone in contention for an award. This year, The Oscars was nail biting and thrilling until the very last award.

The biggest award of the night, the picture of the year award has a lot of heat this year. With blockbusters as nominees like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Black Panther”, we were in for a ride. But, what I was most excited about was watching how the unspoken hero of this category would do. “Roma”, a black and white Mexican flick with small name production companies and Netflix backing it up, was surely an underdog for this award. I am just happy to see a film without an all star cast, big time director and practically unlimited budget making it this far. Ultimately, it took home Best Foreign Film and Best Director for Alfonso Cuaron.

This year’s Oscars would not be as exciting without a fan favorite up for a third of the awards presented that night. “A Star is Born” was nominated for eight Oscars this year, including the Best Picture award. “A Star is Born” broke records at the box office and won a Golden Globe award along with four nominations the same night. It is clear to see why this film has caught the Academy’s attention, but it only won Best Original Song “Shallow” for Lady Gaga, Mark Ronson, Anthony Rossomando, and Andrew Wyatt.

With the nominations diverse this year, we had an exciting, rounded Oscars that shared the love from blockbusters to more low budget, independent films.

Written by Andrew Spiegel, Staff Writer