Best Oscar Moments

12th Academy Awards - In a series of firsts, Hattie McDaniel is the first black person to ever be nominated for an Academy Award, the first to win (Best Supporting Actress, 1939, for her role as mammy in Gone With The Wind) and the first to sit at an Academy banquet.

 

72nd Academy Awards - Michael Caine makes one of the best Oscar acceptance speeches ever after winning 1999's Best Supporting Actor award for his role in The Cider House Rules. The British actor was visibly moved, gracious and funny. He joked with fellow nominee Tom Cruise that if he'd won, his price would have gone down.

 

36th Academy Awards - Sidney Poitier made history at a time when black Americans were demanding civil rights. For his role in Lillies Of The Field, he took home the 1963 Best Actor award; the first black man to do so.
 
72nd Academy Awards - In 2000, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker showed their individuality by turning up at Tinseltown's premier event in drag. Matt Stone aped the pink dress Gwyneth Paltrow wore the previous year and Parker mimicked one worn by both Jennifer Lopez (and then Geri Halliwell). Absolutely hilarious; a classic Oscar moment.
 
68th Academy Awards - Jon Blair's documentary Anne Frank Remembered wins the 1995 Best Documentary Feature award. He invited a very special guest to join him onstage. Up stepped Miep Gies, the woman who saved Anne Frank's diary from the Nazis so that the entire world could read it. As one, the audience rose and gave her a heartfelt standing ovation which went on for a long time. It was extremely moving.

 

2009 Awards Special  

 

75th Academy Awards - Presenter Halle Berry announced Adrien Brody, the star of The Pianist, as the Best Actor for 2002. Shocked at his win, Brody seized the married woman (as she was back then) and fiercely snogged her. Halle was stunned (who wasn't?), but the audience loved it and erupted in cheers. Easily the highlight of the night, it was much parodied at subsequent award ceremonies.
 
64th Academy Awards - In the 1940s and 50s, the late Bob Hope reigned as Oscar host; the late Johnny Carson was king in the 1970s and in the modern era, Billy Crystal has proved virtually irreplaceable. The 1992 ceremony was dominated by The Silence Of The Lambs and in a nod to the movie, Oscar host Billy Crystal made a hilarious entrance strapped to a stretcher and wearing a muzzled mask à la Hannibal Lecter. Other great Crystal moments centre around his treatment of the Best Picture nominees; in the past, he's opened the ceremony by editing himself into them or singing a medley of all their plots. Come back Billy, we miss you!
 
63rd Academy Awards - "Here she is - the NC-17 portion of our show!" joked host Billy Crystal as a curvy, Marilyn Monroe-esque Madonna performed the 1990 Best Original Song winner from Dick Tracy. The song was Sooner or Later (I Always Get My Man) and the performance was an absolute scorcher.
 
74th Academy Awards - On the night that Sidney Poitier received the 2001 Honorary Award, he witnessed another black man win Best Actor; Denzel Washington for Training Day. However the night belonged to Halle Berry. Not only was she wearing the best dress, she became the first black woman to take home the Best Actress award. As she accepted, she nearly drowned the audience with her tears (see our feature on Cringeworthy Oscars Speeches for more). It was a truly historic occasion.

 

66th Academy Awards - A shock as 1993's Best Supporting Actress is announced as 11-year-old Anna Paquin for The Piano, and not the widely-tipped Winona Ryder for The Age Of Innocence. Clearly amazed at her win, she stood on the podium with her Oscar, staring at the star-studded audience. For over 20 seconds, all she could do was gasp and gulp and her childlike awe induced laughter of the 'ah, ain't it cute?' kind.

 

2009 Awards Special

 

That's our pick of the best of the Oscars; are you brave enough to see the worst?