And the Oscar goes to … ! Spotlight took home the win for Best Picture at the 2016 Oscars on Sunday, February 28, at the Dolby Theatre in L.A., beating out some fierce competition from this year’s top films.
The movie is based on true events, recounting the incredible investigative team at the Boston Globe, and how they uncovered a massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the Catholic Church back in 2001. The flick stars Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber and Michael Keaton.
Spotlight beat out fan-favorite The Revenant, which follows the heroic journey of 1800s frontiersman Hugh Glass, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, and the extreme lengths he goes to in order to get revenge on John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), the man who betrayed and abandoned him.
The Alejandro González Iñárritu–helmed flick has received plenty of critical acclaim this awards season, taking home the Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director – Motion Picture and Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama earlier this year, in addition to nods at the BAFTA Awards, Critics’ Choice Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards.
The other films nominated in the category included The Big Short, Bridge of Spies, Brooklyn, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Martian and Room.
The Big Short chronicles the 2008 housing crisis, and stars Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Christian Bale and Brad Pitt as various players in the banking industry looking to take advantage of the impending collapse of the American economy.
Steven Spielberg’s Cold War–era Bridge of Spies features Tom Hanks as an insurance lawyer who is tasked with providing a pro bono defense for Rudolf Abel (Mark Rylance), a man accused of being a Soviet spy.
Continuing on with the period trend, Brooklyn follows the journey of a young Irish girl named Eilis Lacey (Saoirse Ronan), who leaves home for a fresh start in Brooklyn. She meets and falls in love with an Italian-American suitor, but is torn between him and a hometown boy who she reunites with during a trip back to Ireland.
Charlize Theron and Tom Hardy star in Mad Max: Fury Road, about a woman trying to find her way back home in postapocalyptic Australia with the help of a mysterious drifter named Max (Hardy), a group of female prisoners and a psychotic worshipper.
Matt Damon has his own struggles to deal with in The Martian as stranded astronaut Mark Watney, a man who’s on a mission to survive against impossible odds after being left for dead on the Red Planet, having to grow his own food and figure out a source of water. The sci-fi flick also stars Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig and Michael Peña.
Breakout star Brie Larson and young actor Jacob Tremblay bring Emma Donoghue’s Room to life on screen in the movie adaptation of the bestselling book. In it, Tremblay plays 5-year-old Jack, who learns about the world for the first time after he and his mom (Larson) escape captivity.
