The hostless 91st Academy Awards were filled with highs and lows in every aspect. The past controversy is that the Oscars are whitewashed, garnering the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite,  with overall bland winners, this cannot be said of this year. The diverse winners list made for an entertaining night for all those who watched.

Out of the four winners in either best actor or best supporting actor categories, three of them were people of color: Regina King, Mahershala Ali, and Rami Malek. Along with the acting awards many other awards were given to people of color. Alfonso Cuarón won two awards for his film Roma, one for best director and the other for cinematography. Ruth E. Carter and Hannah Beachler won awards for both production and costume design for  Black Panther, they are two out of the three women of color to win awards outside of acting.

But not all of the awards were very well received. The winner of best picture was Peter Farrelly’s Green Book. The movie favored to win was Cuarón’s Roma or Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman. Much of the criticism comes not from a dislike of the movie but a dislike of which movies it was put up against. It didn’t have the artistic value of Roma, the relevance of BlacKkKlansman, or the visuals of Black Panther. But nonetheless, it won. Spike Lee directed the movie BlacKkKlansman giving him his first Oscar in his entire 33 year career. Lee gave a very passionate acceptance speech where he spoke on many feelings he had, some of those being about him finally being recognised as an award winner, and other about the political climate of the United States, which goes along with the subject of the film.

Although this year’s academy awards were hostless, after the controversy of Kevin Hart’s previous homophobic tweets, the presenters made up for it. From Awkwafina and John Mulaney, to Serena Williams, the star studded night was always rolling with a new famous face for every award. Although I myself did not personally see a large amount of the show the parts that I did see were great, since there was no host, it was funny and missing the dry humor that is usually seen with the jokes made by an all night host and made it go by quicker. That quicker pace of the allowed for more enjoyable entertainment for all those who were watching.