Milestones reached and records broken at this year’s Oscars

Chloe Zhao is only the second woman in the history of the Oscars to be named best director.
A collection of giant Oscar statues (Ian West/PA)
PA Archive
Ian Jones26 April 2021

The 2021 Oscars delivered a string of history-making moments, following a slate of nominations that smashed records for diversity and representation.

Here are the milestones reached in this year’s awards:– Chloe Zhao is only the second woman in the history of the Oscars to be named best director, which she won for her film Nomadland

Her triumph comes 11 years after Kathryn Bigelow became the first ever woman to win best director, for the film The Hurt Locker.

Chloe Zhao is also the first Chinese director to win the award.

SHOWBIZ Oscars
PA Graphics

– Yuh-Jung Youn is the first person from South Korea to win best supporting actress, for the film Minari

She is also the second Asian actress to win the award.

The first was Miyoshi Umeki, who won in 1958 for the film Sayonara.

– Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson are the first black women to win the Oscar for best make-up and hairstyling

Along with Sergio Lopez-Rivera, they collected the award for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.

Daniel Kaluuya is the first British non-white winner of best supporting actor

He is only the sixth non-white actor to win the award.

Denzel Washington was the first, for the film Glory in 1990.

Emerald Fennell is the first British woman to win best original screenplay since the category was established in its current form at the 1958 Oscars

She picked up the award for Promising Young Woman, for which she also bagged a nomination for best director.

(PA Graphics)
PA Graphics

Before 1958, the Oscars had separate categories for original screenplay and original story and, during this era, British writer Muriel Box became the first ever woman to win original screenplay, for The Seventh Veil in 1947.

– Sir Anthony Hopkins 83, is now the oldest person to win an acting Oscar, after being named best actor for his performance in The Father

It is Sir Anthony’s second Oscar, coming 29 years after he won best actor in 1992 for The Silence Of The Lambs.

This is the longest gap between wins by any actor in this category in the history of the Academy Awards.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in