Oscars 2017: La La Land Mistakenly Named Best Picture, Moonlight True Winner

No one saw it coming. Not The Academy. Not the audience. Certainly not the dreamers of La La Land. And definitely not the cast and crew of Moonlight. Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, the presenters for Best Picture, had suspected something was off. Nonetheless, they powered through their hesitation to announce the winner for the 89th Academy Awards’ highest honor – La La Land! …Except the true winner of Best Picture was not Damien Chazelle’s salute to dreamers. It was Moonlight, Barry Jenkins’ groundbreaking exploration of a gay black man’s journey of self-discovery.

“Even in my dreams this could not be true. But to hell with dreams, I’m done with it, ‘cause this is true,” Jenkins said in the chaotic aftermath, as La La Land shuffled off the stage to make way for Moonlight. His awed disbelief was echoed all over the world. History was made at the Oscars last night. Both for the well-deserved victory of Moonlight and for the unfortunate gaff of The Academy.

Moonlight Wins Best Picture

Moonlight made history at the Oscars, marking down a major milestone for both the Black and LGBT communities. The film’s Best Picture win was one of three awards it collected last night. Mahershala Ali won Best Supporting Actor, becoming the first Muslim to ever gain an Oscar in an acting role. The film also won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight chronicles in three parts a story never before seen in mainstream cinema: the struggle of a gay, black drug dealer coming to terms with himself and his sexuality. The film’s heartbreaking storytelling has earned international recognition. Moonlight has won awards at several film festivals including the Satellite Awards and Spirit Awards.

The Academy Officially Apologizes For Flub

Twenty-four hours after La La Land was mistakenly named as Best Picture, The Academy released an official apology through Twitter. The statement apologized to everyone involved in the mishap, including La La Land and Moonlight.

The statement reads: “We deeply regret the mistakes that were made during the presentation of the Best Picture category during last night’s Oscar ceremony. We apologize to the entire cast and crew of La La Land and Moonlight whose experience was profoundly altered by this error. We salute the tremendous grace they displayed under the circumstances. To all involved — including our presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, the filmmakers, and our fans watching worldwide — we apologize.”

PricewaterhouseCoopers takes full responsibility for the gaff. The accounting firm has overseen the Oscars’ ballot-counting process for 83 years and released two apologies for the incident. The first apologized to the films, presenters, and public. In the second, PwC clarified that one of their representatives Brian Cullinan had taken from the wrong pile of envelopes to give to the presenters for Best Picture.

Cullinan accidentally gave the backup envelope containing the winner for Best Actress in a Leading Role instead of the envelope containing Best Picture. It was an honest mistake. However, the flub has drawn more controversy with the recent reveal that Cullinan had been tweeting just moments before handing Beatty the wrong envelope.

The Academy intends to review PwC’s backstage processes involved in revealing final results onstage.