This edition of Premiere Party is free for everyone — consider it our Oscars warm-up gift. If you'd like full access to everything I write, we have two limited-time offers through Monday March 16 at 11:59pm EDT — two months free on annual subscriptions or $26 off VIP Lounge. See details and upgrade here. If you decide to become a paying subscriber, thank you! It means a lot.

It’s Sunday, March 5, 2006 and “a conga line of luscious luminaries” is arriving at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. At least, that’s how pre-show host Chris Connelly describes it, to the delight of some of those luminaries. 

Vanessa Lachey, who now has a career locking single people in her dungeon and forcing them to mate, is another of the red carpet hosts. Her first interview is with George Clooney, who is nominated as a supporting actor for Syriana and for writing and directing Good Night, and Good Luck. He would not be as fortunate 20 years later.

Another red carpet correspondent, Cynthia Garrett, then talks to best actor nominee Terrence Howard, who broke out huge with Hustle & Flow and then pretty much immediately ruined his career. 

Then it’s back to Connelly, who is talking with Jennifer Aniston, who was coming off a real banner 2005. In that year, she had both Rumor Has It and Derailed, if you can believe it, two seismic films we are still talking about today. Though, she is ostensibly there to promote her upcoming Nicole Holofcener film Friends with Money, which is very good. Connelly asks Aniston which of her FWM co-stars she’s supporting that night: both Frances McDormand and Catherine Keener are nominees that evening. (McDormand for North Country, Keener for Capote.) Aniston doesn’t seem to love the question. 

Connelly fumblingly asks her, “Is this an enjoyable night for you to be out and about?” Aniston responds, “I don’t know yet. Hopefully! You’re starting it off, so I think it’s pretty okay.” That is the red carpet version of being told to fuck off. 

Offers expire Monday March 16 at 11:59pm EDT: Two months free on annual subscriptions, or $26 off VIP Lounge. Would love to have more of you at the party.

No, no, no, for some reason they’ve once again hired Billy Bush, sex pest scourge of the Oscars red carpet three years running now. He’s there creeping it up with Walk the Line nominee Reese Witherspoon and her then-husband Ryan Phillippe, who was in Crash. They were quite the Oscar duo that year! Bush’s first question is to Phillippe, asking if Witherspoon is, like June Carter Cash, “that strong, tough woman at home?” 

Phillippe gives a polite, compliment-laden answer, as any devoted husband would. Sadly, the couple would announce their separation only seven months later. 

Bush says to Witherspoon, “Somewhere there’s an acting coach out there who told you you couldn’t sing. They’re probably in witness protection right now.” 

Bush asks about their then 6-year-old daughter’s bedtime and the couple gives another polite answer and then it’s time to move on. 

We cut back to Vanessa Lachey, who is interviewing Crash nominee Matt Dillon about his role as a racist L.A. cop. This is the perfect time, setting, and interviewer for a conversation about racism within the police system. 

Not to be outdone by the actual ceremony, the pre-show has a movie montage of their own, a Salute! to the star-crossed love stories of the year, set to Garth Brooks’s “The Dance.” 

After that beautiful package, it’s back to Chris Connelly who is joined by Transamerica best actress nominee Felicity Huffman. Everyone back then spoke perfectly about trans issues, as is reflected in Huffman’s film. To wit, Connelly saying of Huffman’s vocal affect: “Your voice, very disconcerting for a lot of people. What was your low voice like for the people in your life to listen to?” 

Then Connelly has a little ABC-synergy surprise for Huffman. Her Desperate Housewives co-stars have made little videos wishing her luck. First up, the universally adored Teri Hatcher and Nicolette Sheridan send their congratulations. 

“You’re the man,” says Hatcher. Sheridan responds, “She’s not a man. She’s a beautiful woman playing a man who wants to be a woman.” Ay yi yi. 

Marcia Cross and Eva Longoria also send a video and Huffman gets teary.

After that, Capote nominee Philip Seymour Hoffman is interviewed, but let’s move past that because it is sad. A different kind of sad is watching Billy Bush interview Good Night, and Good Luck lead David Strathairn and asking him, “Would you call yourself a star?” (The answer is no, by the way.)

That awkwardness complete, it’s back to Vanessa Lachey, who is interviewing some kind of scruffy angel sent from heaven?? 

Oh, I’m just kidding. It is of course Jake Gyllenhaal from 20 years ago, a being who captured the mad fancy of many people my age for, well, obvious reasons. Lachey asks him if he likes dungeons and he says a polite no, but I respect her for taking a shot. 

After that, the pre-show reminds us what is nominated for best picture. 

It’s a pretty good lineup, minus Crash, so there’s an 80 percent chance that something worthwhile wins best picture! That’s great! 

Then they bring out three critics—Leonard Maltin, Anne Thompson (now of IndieWire), and some other guy—to offer their predictions for what’s going to win best picture. Can you imagine an Oscars pre-show having lowly critics on to talk about things in our horrible present? I mean, a critic who isn’t on TikTok? It boggles the mind. Anyway, Thompson says she thinks Brokeback will win, but the other two hint that Crash could be the spoiler. Dumb old critics. There’s no way that would happen. 

We then cut to a little preview of the Governors Ball dinner. Look at this gorgeous space. 

The menu includes smoked salmon in the shape of an Oscar statuette, along with a dessert called “Sweet Fantasy.” 

Okay, that’s pretty much it for the pre-show. There are a couple of boring interviews I skipped, but I really don’t think you’ll miss them. Billy Bush bothers some celebrities who are already seated in the auditorium, and then it’s time for the main event. 

It opens with a computer-rendered tour through a Hollywood populated by iconic movie characters. It looks like AI before there was AI. Little did we know then that this was the future of entertainment! All your favorite characters moving strangely around one place.

Putting Glory next to Gone With the Wind is actually insane:

Once we’ve climbed our way out of the uncanny valley, we get some old-fashioned pre-taped comedy. The announcer says, “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome your host, Billy Crystal.” And then Billy pops out of the Brokeback tent and says he can’t do it this year. “I’m a little busy.”

Then Chris Rock, another past host, pokes his head out of the same tent and says he’s busy too. The joke, of course, is that Crystal and Rock are having homosexual intercourse in that tent and are thus too busy fucking to host the Oscars. How droll.

The announcer moves on, welcoming host Steve Martin. But he can’t do it either! He’s too busy spending time with his kids, “so they don’t grow up weird.” 

Can Whoopi Goldberg do it? Oh hell no, she says. 

David Letterman can’t do it either. He has to spend time with Steve Martin’s kids, so they don’t grow up weird. 

Then, oh boy, Mel Gibson appears from the set of Apocalypto and says he can’t host, and then runs away from a jaguar. This was only a few months before his infamous antisemitic rant during a traffic stop, the incident that would completely ruin Gibson’s career until Apocalypto made three times its budget a few months later and then ten years after that Hacksaw Ridge was nominated for best picture and best director at the Oscars. Hollywood never forgets and it never forgives.

One thing Gibson did lose from his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad 2006 is that his wife of many years left him, and eventually she got something like $400 million in the divorce settlement. So, good for her I guess? 

We cut finally to the real host, Jon Stewart, who is waking up from a crazy dream that he is going to emcee the Oscars.

Only, is he really awake? Because next to him in bed is Halle Berry, the woman of many men’s dreams! 

Berry tells Stewart that he is, of course, still dreaming, so Stewart has to wake up again and omg, this time he’s next to George Clooney! Like, the joke is that two men did at some point have homosexual intercourse in that bed. Ribald!

Clooney tells Stewart that he is not dreaming and that it’s time to host the show. Stewart leaps out of bed and then takes to the Kodak stage. 

Stewart’s energy is muted and he stands behind a lectern for some reason. He jokes that there are hundreds of millions of people watching the broadcast from around the world (when’s the last time that was actually true?) and that half of those people are in the process of being adopted by Angelina Jolie. 

Apparently the theme of this Oscars ceremony was “a return to glamour,” which Stewart mocks by saying it’s better than the previous year’s theme, “Night of a Thousand Sweatpants.” Charlize Theron is not amused!

Stewart moves on to the evils of movie piracy, highlighting what it costs film professionals. “There are women here who could barely afford enough gown to cover their breasts.” Junebug best supporting actress nominee Amy Adams loves it.

George Clooney gets a wee roasting from Stewart, saying “Good Night and Good Luck” is not just Edward R. Murrow’s sign-off, but also how Clooney ends all his dates.

Do you see Meryl Streep behind Clooney? She is there not as a nominee, but to present an honorary award to Robert Altman. Yes, this was back when the honorary awards were actually part of the broadcast, and not shunted off to an un-televised ceremony months earlier, as is tradition now. I think the old way was better, though I can’t imagine having to sit through an entire Oscars just to present an award. Streep shoulda shown up 15 minutes before, hit her mark, and then gotten the hell outta there. But I guess that’s just not the Streep way.

Of Capote, Stewart says the movie is groundbreaking for showing that “not all gay people are virile cowboys. Some are effete New York intellectuals.” Which is a cute enough joke, and the late great Philip Seymour Hoffman agrees. 

Later in his monologue Stewart says he has sad news: “Björk couldn’t be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her.” Remember when Dick Cheney shot someone? What a marvelous parade of political japery the 21st century has been. 

Jack Nicholson is in the audience with his daughter. 

No, of course that is not his daughter, that is Keira Knightley, who is nominated for best actress for her performance in 2005’s Domino. At least I’m pretty sure that’s what she’s there for. 

Stewart riffs on all the remakes of that year (King Kong, War of the Worlds) and jokes that Walk the Line is, “Ray, with white people.” Some people like it!

Others do not…

Before he wraps up his monologue, Stewart references the backlash against Brokeback Mountain, which was that it flew in the face of the Western genre, which was a stupid thing some dumb old men were saying back then. Stewart then shows a clip reel of gay-seeming moments from old Westerns. It’s a funny idea, but the clips don’t really do quite enough to land the joke. Oh well. 

Now it’s time for the first award! Chairwoman of AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. Nicole Kidman takes the stage. She is, for some reason, presenting best supporting actor. I guess last year’s supporting actress winner, Cate Blanchett, was busy, so they just got some other Australian to do it. 

The nominees are Kidman’s The Peacemaker co-star George Clooney, Matt Dillon, Paul Giamatti for Cinderella Man (which was kind of a makeup, oopsie, apology nomination after he got snubbed for Sideways), Jake Gyllenhaal, and William Hurt for A History of Violence. Clooney wins!

This category was a toss-up this year. Clooney won the Golden Globe, Gyllenhaal won the BAFTA, and Giamatti got the SAG. I know there are people out there who think this should have been Gyllenhaal’s, and I see their point. For one thing, it probably would have spared the world Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, which might have been a bad thing for Ben Kingsley’s stock investment portfolio, but otherwise would be a boon for the culture. And of course I am partial to Brokeback out of all these movies.

But still, Syriana is underrated and Clooney is really good in it. Perhaps if he hadn’t won here, he would have been a shoo-in for best actor for Michael Clayton two years later. Although, he’d still be going up against Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood, so who knows. 

Anyway, Clooney takes the stage and accepts the Oscar, which is kind of also an Oscar for Good Night, and Good Luck, it turns out. Which Clooney kind of knows: the first thing he says when he gets to the mic is, “Well, I guess I’m not winning director.” 

But that lightheartedness soon gives way to a particular kind of Oscary self-importance. He ends his speech with the following:

You know, we are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood every once in a while, I think. It's probably a good thing. We're the ones who talked about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular. And we, you know, we bring up subjects, we are the ones—this Academy, this group of people gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I'm proud to be a part of this Academy, proud to be part of this community, and proud to be out of touch.

He’s not wrong, and yet . . . There’s something a little smarmy about it. I believe he was kind of mocked for it back then. And I believe he was responding to some contemporaneous Bush-era thing about how liberal Hollywood was an echo chamber of limousine liberals, which it certainly is not anymore. 

After a commercial break, Stewart returns to the stage and jokes about Clooney’s win, “that’s the kind of thing that could get a guy laid.” Little did anyone know that, of course, Clooney was in a long term Lake Como relationship with Giorgio Armani. Anyway! Stewart then makes the usual note about speeches not running too long, which has been fodder for awards season comedy since time immemorial, but Stewart provides added value. He throws to a pre-taped bit in which Tom Hanks plays a winner who is then, quite rudely, played off. 

What is mostly of note here is that Hanks still has the Robert Langdon hair from The Da Vinci Code. Production for that began the previous summer, so he must have been made to keep his hair that length for reshoots or something? Whatever the reason, it is still a shock to see Hanks with his craziest hairdo of all time. 

The moment for the best visual effects award has arrived, which presenter Ben Stiller sends up by walking out in a green-screen suit and acting like his head is floating disembodied around the microphone for the viewers at home. The gag being that he’s just gyrating strangely in a bodysuit, for all to see. 

The bit continues through the reading of the names of the winners: the team behind King Kong’s remarkable Jack Black hologram.

After that, Reese Witherspoon takes the stage to present best animated feature. Look at that little sassafras! Were we ever so young??

Never forget that on the very night that she won an Oscar, Reese Witherspoon also said “Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit.”

That win is followed by Naomi Watts, who played all the characters in King Kong, introducing the evening’s first best original song nominee. It’s Dolly Parton’s “Travelin’ Thru,” from Transamerica, a pretty little ditty that would have been a nice win had the concerns of pimps and their hardships not been chief on the Academy’s mind that year. 

It really is something that Transamerica got two whole Oscar nominations. I rewatched it recently and it, uh, it’s definitely got some issues, but that a movie about a trans woman got Dolly Parton to write an original song and received Academy Award attention in 2005 is kind of remarkable. Good for Dolly for doing it. And, well, I suppose good for Felicity Huffman and everyone else for trying. (Kevin Zegers, call me.) 

The best part of Parton’s performance is that she gets members of the audience to clap along. 

Once the performance is over, everyone gives Parton a warm thanks. This young man loved it!

Following the commercial break, Stewart acts like he was in the middle of a pitch for Scientology. An amusing bit. 

For some reason, the camera lingers for a long time on Joaquin Phoenix, who seems uncomfortable, as he does for pretty much this entire evening. 

When introducing live action short presenters Luke and Owen Wilson, Stewart calls them two talented brothers, “which I realized is also an excellent way to describe the Baldwin family.” A good burn! He is, of course, referring to Daniel and Stephen.

Here come the Wilsons, who make a joke about Bottle Rocket, which was based on a short, making a whole one million dollars at the box office. 

The Oscar goes to a short film called Six Shooter. And would you look at who made that movie. 

Yes, it’s the ol’ banshee of Inisherin himself, Martin McDonagh! I had completely forgotten that he won an Oscar well before he was a famous filmmaker. He was a pretty renowned playwright at this point, and I suppose this is what propelled him toward In Bruges a couple of years later. So let that be a lesson to all you aspiring filmmakers out there toiling away in the theater: Martin McDonagh already lived your dream so you might as well give up.

I have to say, there is an interesting… swishiness… to McDonagh here that I think he lost somewhere along the way. I say bring it back!

The Wilson brothers come trudging back to the microphone to do best animated short. But they’re not the ones actually presenting. No, those honors go to “two of the biggest stars of the past year, Chicken Little and Abby Mallard.” I don’t have footage of that, unfortunately, so here instead is a clip of Tom Cruise arriving at the ceremony with his date.

For whatever reason, the camera cuts to Will Smith and Jada Pinkett, who seem thrilled to see their old friends on stage. Darren Aronofsky (who was with Rachel Weisz at the time), meanwhile, looks positively taken aback.

Chicken and Abby do a bit about how ducks don’t get pants in animated movies, which the audience really laughs at for some reason. Anyway, a film called The Moon and the Son wins. It was directed by animation historian John Canemaker. He thanks his (male!!!!!) life partner and NYU Tisch School of the Arts, which is the having a male life partner of colleges.

Once that’s done, Jennifer Aniston takes to the stage to present best costume design. 

Did Eric Bana just run afoul of his wife for looking too intently at Aniston?

Luminaries of their field Colleen Atwood and Sandy Powell were both nominated that year (among others), but Atwood prevails for Memoirs of a Geisha, a movie that I don’t think anyone really remembers, partly because it was a big Oscar disappointment. It received six nominations, but only in the technical categories. That is probably not what director Rob Marshall expected for his big followup to Chicago, nor what producer Steven Spielberg hoped for. It also wasn’t a hit with critics or at the box office. Oh well. It still wins three awards tonight! 

Atwood gives a gracious speech and at the end makes sure to thank the people of Japan, who had a very mixed response to the film. It didn’t do great business in the country, and the film was criticized for casting the three female leads with Chinese actresses, rather than with people from, y’know, Japan. 

This was Atwood’s second of four career Oscar wins. She did the costumes for One Battle After Another last year, but was not nominated. She actually hasn’t been nominated since 2017, so it might be time again.

Moving on! Russell Crowe takes the stage to present a montage Salute! to biopics, for some reason. Well, I guess it sort of makes sense, considering Walk the Line was a big nominee that evening, and of course the enormously successful biopic Big Momma’s House 2 had just been released a few weeks before the ceremony. 

Here are a few samples: 

After a commercial break, Will Ferrell and Steve Carell come out to present best makeup. The gag is that they’re wearing crazy makeup. It’s cute!

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe wins, probably because they managed to get such definition on James McAvoy’s goat legs, which have never looked quite right in any other movie. (Remember how hot Mr. Tumnus was?) 

I gotta say, it’s fun to see this guy at the Oscars!

When the winners are done with their speeches, Stewart comes out and jokes that he thought Cinderella Man should have won. “Imagine the difficulty in making Russell Crowe look like he got into a fight.” Jamie Foxx laughs so much he chokes. Nicole Kidman, in turn, laughs at Jamie choking. 

After that, Stewart throws to a pre-taped infant Rachel McAdams, who had hosted the science and technical awards a couple weeks previously. For some reason Stewart introduces her as “the very clothed Rachel McAdams.” I don’t get that. Did Rachel McAdams have a naked thing in 2005? 

That boring bit of business passes quickly, and then it’s on to a big award: best supporting actress! Last year’s best supporting actor, Morgan Freeman, takes the stage to introduce the nominees. 

This one was not exactly a nail-biter—Rachel Weisz had won the SAG and the Globe already; she did not win BAFTA, but probably because she was nominated in lead actress there (Thandiwe Newton won the supporting BAFTA for Crash, which she failed to translate into an Oscar nom)—but it was a heartbreaker. Michelle Williams deserved the win for Brokeback Mountain. Amy Adams deserved it for Junebug. Ditto Catherine Keener in Capote and, sure, Frances McDormand in North Country. But Weisz was the somewhat peculiar winner here. She’s excellent in the movie, but to this day no one can quite explain to me why she was the frontrunner all season. It was by no means the flashiest performance of the five, and the movie was respected but not beloved. Who knows! 

The nominee clips are good, mostly because, yes, they did use “Jack Twist? Jack Nasty” for Williams. That’s very important. Frances McDormand agrees.

Anyway, Weisz wins.

Weisz was quite pregnant at the time, with a child who the internet tells me is now at Harvard. So, we’re all 3,000 years old. Isn’t that nice? Weisz gives a brief, gracious speech and then takes her leave.

Past the commercial break, Lauren Bacall comes out to introduce a Salute! to film noir, probably because the enormously successful film noir Big Momma’s House 2 had just been released a few weeks before the ceremony. 

Now it’s time for a little comedy bit, in which Stewart says that Oscar campaigning has gotten really down and dirty. He then plays three FYC commercials that are in the style of political smear ads, narrated by Stephen Colbert. 

The Keira Knightley one knocks Charlize Theron for getting nominations when she dirties herself up, whereas Knightley looks radiant in Pride & Prejudice.

The Reese Witherspoon ad is old people talking about how weird and foreign-sounding the other nominees’ names are.

The Judi Dench smear ad features a bunch of made-up other Dames saying bad things about poor Judi.

The crowd… likes it?

Man of the moment Terrence Howard then takes the stage to present best documentary short. Short like Terrence Howard’s movie star career!

During his presentation, Howard announces his new subscription-based business venture.

A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin wins. Producer Corinne Marrinan says, “I’d like to thank the Academy for seating me next to George Clooney at the nominees luncheon.” 

Then it’s on to documentary feature, presented by one Charlize Theron, who is coming to us from space.

Charlize shows us what movies are available to watch on our spaceship flight.

And, of course, March of the Penguins wins. The penguins’ handlers take them to the stage.

The film’s narrator, Morgan Freeman, watches rapt from backstage. It looks like he just got an idea about Jennfier Lopez.

As the Frenchies and their penguins leave the stage, the announcer says, “Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome a beautiful and versatile entertainer and actress, Jennifer Lopez.” Did she… write that line herself? It kind of feels like she did…

Either way, Lopez is there to present the performance of “In the Deep,” the Bird York song from Crash. 

This is a much more elaborate production than Dolly Parton had. There’s cars and fire and fog and dancers representing the characters from the film. 

We cut to commercial and when we return it’s time for Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves to present best art direction. They are paired together to promote the upcoming The Lake House, but it looks like they’ve been doing a little side project of their own backstage.

Memoirs of a Geisha wins. Let’s move on! It’s Samuel L. Jackson’s turn to present a Salute!. This one is a tribute to movies about social justice, kind of. Political movies? Issues movies? Methinks this has something to do with Clooney’s acceptance speech; this is the Academy positioning its industry as a thought leader of social change during the revanchist, anti-intellectual Bush years. It is funny to see clips of The Day After Tomorrow set to Aaron Copland’s “Rodeo,” but otherwise this is a well-intentioned enough little reel.

After that rousing segment, then Academy president Sid Ganis comes out to speak a bit more about the power of movies, and in particular the power of seeing movies in theaters. It’s a snooze and it sure as shit didn’t work, so let’s press on. Salma Hayek is the next presenter. She’s there to hand out best original score, and lemme tell ya, Salma Hayek striking a seductive pose and saying “Brokeback Mountain” is a thing to behold. It’s also nice that Itzhak Perlman performs selections of each nominated score, live on stage. 

Brokeback Mountain wins for Gustavo Santaolalla’s gorgeous, indelible score. Which means it’s now on its way to a best picture victory! Right? Right??

After that, Jake Gyllenhaal comes out to present a Salute! to big spectacle movies, stumbling a bit over the corny patter written for him. 

Once that montage ends, Stewart makes fun of the sheer amount of montages that have played at this ceremony. “We’re out of clips,” he quips. Next we turn to presenters Jessica Alba and Eric Bana, there to award best sound mixing. Bana, of course, had Munich in 2005, while Alba had Fantastic Four, Sin City, and Into the Blue. The Honest Company was but a gleam in her eye at this point. 

King Kong wins, because Peter Jackson’s job in the 2000s was to get New Zealand nerds technical awards. Once that’s done, Lily Tomlin and “the most nominated actor in Oscar history, 13-time-nominee Meryl Streep” take the stage for Robert Altman’s honorary award. They are very warmly received.

Tomlin and Streep are, of course, in 2006’s lovely A Prairie Home Companion together, which would turn out to be Altman’s final film, a fitting one given its themes of mortality and enduring creativity. The pair do a really fun bit of Altman-esque overlapping dialogue as they introduce Altman. 

It goes over like gangbusters and they give each other a big hug at the end.

Altman takes the stage and everyone gives him a standing ovation and he’s very gracious. He talks about his career not being over, that he’s got more stuff coming. Which was true! But he did, sadly, die later that year. Anyway, it’s a really nice, humble speech. 

When we return from commercial, it’s time for Ludacris to introduce the third and final best original song nominee, Three 6 Mafia’s “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” from Munich. It’s a lively performance, and I had forgotten that Taraji P. Henson really gets to wail at the end. 

After the performance, Queen Latifah presents the award. Three 6 Mafia wins and the room goes wild.

The group delivers an enthused, if brief, speech that gives the show a much-needed shot of energy. Which it will need, because the next category is… sound editing. But Stewart wants to spice that up some, so there’s another fake attack ad about sound mixers. 

It’s cute, and nice that one of the nerdier categories gets to be involved in the fun. Presenter Jennifer Garner then walks out, but almost doesn’t make it to the mic! 

King Kong wins, as Peter Jackson movies tend to win. After that, it is time for In Memoriam, introduced by George Clooney.

2005 doesn’t seem to have been a total bloodbath like 2025 was (the In Memoriam reel at the Oscars on Sunday is going to be five hours long), but here are some of the notable departed. 

Will Smith then enters to give out what was then called “best foreign language film.” Smith endeavors to greet many of the non-English speakers watching around the world, saying hello in Japanese, good evening in French, a joke about Philadelphia in Spanish, and then, “what happens in Bangkok, stays in Bangkok.” Which isn’t Thai at all! 

One of the nominated films is Hany Abu-Assad’s Paradise Now, from “the Palestinian Territories.” Another is a movie about WWII.

Paradise Now won the Golden Globe that year, but an Oscar victory was not meant to be. The winner was instead Tsotsi, from South Africa, setting director Gavin Hood on the course to direct such wonderments as Rendition, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Ender’s Game. (And Eye in the Sky and Official Secrets, which are good!) Graciously, Hood asks the cameras to be put on the two young leads of the film, Presley Chweneyagae and Terry Pheto. 

If you don’t want to be bummed out, I would suggest not googling either of their names and “national lottery scandal.” Let’s move on! Stewart comes out to introduce the next presenter, but before doing so does a little score keeping. “Martin Scorsese: zero Oscars. Three 6 Mafia: one.” Perhaps those words resonated with the Academy, who would pile on Scorsese’s The Departed just a year later. 

Zhang Ziyi is the presenter for best editing. 

Crash wins, perhaps sending a little tremor through the auditorium, a suspicion that something might be fomenting as we march toward best picture. Though, Brokeback was not nominated in this category, so I’m sure it means nothing!

Okay, now it’s time to get to a really big award: best actor. Last year’s winner, Hilary Swank, takes the stage. 

It’s, uh, really depressing that two of the nominees here are now dead. Sensing you are sad, Joaquin Phoenix turns to camera and says, “I love you” and then something else.

Of course, Philip Seymour Hoffman wins, as he had at the Globes, SAGs, BAFTAs, Critics Choice, National Society of Film Critics, etc. (He was runner up at New York Film Critics Circle, losing to Heath Ledger.) This was entirely expected, and yet nonetheless exciting. 

Hoffman gives Swank a hug and whispers something in her ear.

Hoffman’s speech is very nice, especially when he shouts out his mother, who raised four kids on her own. He tells people in the audience to congratulate her if they see her out that night. 

After a commercial break, John Travolta presents best cinematography, which affords him the opportunity to say “DP.” 

Because Batman Begins is nominated, Travolta also gets to say “Pfister.” Quite a night for the star of the upcoming Wild Hogs. Memoirs of a Geisha wins, the last of its three awards. Travolta calls it “Momars of a Geisha,” which is close enough.

It’s finally time for best actress. Last year’s best actor, Jamie Foxx, comes out to present. “Three 6 Mafia,” he says in amazement when he gets to the mic. 

“Four of them are fine ladies, one of them is a great dame,” Foxx says of the nominees. A cute line that refers to the fact that in her native Tennessee, Reese Witherspoon is a peeress. 

Foxx opens the envelope, and of course Witherspoon wins. She had won the Globe, the BAFTA, and the SAG in the lead up to the Oscars, so this was a foregone conclusion. 

Witherspoon, who was just about to turn 30, gives a humble, poised speech, sincerely thanking all those involved in making the movie. “Thank you, T-Bone!” she says at one point. 

She thanks her parents, her husband Ryan Phillippe, and tells her kids to go to bed. All the required beats.

Witherspoon then closes her speech by quoting June Carter Cash, who used to say, “I’m just tryin’ to matter.” Witherspoon says that’s how she feels too. It’s a sweet ending to a strong, if definitely carefully rehearsed, speech. 

Folks, we are getting down to the wire. It is time for the screenplay awards. First up, Dustin Hoffman gives out best adapted screenplay. 

Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana win for Brokeback Mountain. McMurtry takes a moment to greet the stars of the film.

They give sort of serious, stilted speeches, but whatever. It’s a good win! And it probably means Brokeback is winning picture. Though, wait, oh, no. Now we’re on to original screenplay, presented by Uma Thurman.

Crash wins, ugh, and Paul Haggis and Robert Moresco go up to accept their award. While Haggis speaks, we see various members of his cast watching in appreciation. Plus some people who weren’t involved. Do you think this is the only time in human history that Matt Dillon, Ludacris, and Frances McDormand have sat rapt with attention as they listen to a future apostate of Scientology give a speech?

Okay! Only two more awards to go. We go to best director, presented by one Tom Hanks, who has recovered from his run in with those musicians, but has not recovered from his haircut. 

Ang Lee wins! Surely this means a Brokeback victory is sewn up. 

Lee looks at his Oscar and says, “I wish I knew how to quit you,” like from the movie. He won’t have to quit it! He’ll win another of these for Life of Pi in just a few years’ time. 

Okay, so we’re feeling good, right? We got best score, best adapted screenplay, best director. Sure, none of the acting nominees won, but that’s okay. I think we’re in pretty good position for an historic Brokeback Mountain best picture crowning. All we need is for presenter Jack Nicholson to do the formalities and we can begin celebrating a new era of Hollywood. 

Nicholson lists the nominees, opens the envelope. His poker face betrays nothing about what he’s seen written on the notecard. 

And then he says them, six of the worst words in modern Hollywood history: “And the Oscar goes to, Crash.”

Team Crash is ecstatic, as is their right, but it is kind of strange to be so excited that your dumb racism panacea is the movie that upset a far better, far more important movie. 

How did this happen? Well, it’s complicated, but it does involve Lionsgate sending out tens of thousands of DVDs (a relatively new practice at the time) just as voting was getting underway, buoyed by a strong Oprah Winfrey endorsement and the support of various other groups like the NAACP. I can understand the enthusiasm for what Crash is trying to be about, but the way it is about what it is about is just not good. The movie has totally soured in hindsight, even more than it was sour back then—probably even for many of those who voted for it. Brokeback Mountain, meanwhile, still stands as something rare and special. But I guess if you make a movie for rich people in L.A., rich people in L.A. are going to vote for it. Oh well. 

If you want to watch Haggis and his producer Cathy Schulman give their speech, you can do so on YouTube. At one point, Schulman says, “we are humbled by the other nominees this year,” which is fair because the other nominees are all so much better! What a downer note to end this recap. But I suppose that’s fitting as, two decades later, it often feels like there’s nothing but downer notes. It has well and truly become harder and harder out here for all of us pimps.

You can get two months free on annual Premiere Party subscriptions, or $26 off VIP Lounge. Would love to have more of you fully at the party. Offers expire Monday March 16 at 11:59pm EDT.