It's been a good year for Europe at the Oscars, though this isn't obvious at first glance.
ADVERTISEMENTIn this year's Oscars, best foreign-language film, the most likely category for a big European win, went to Chilean A Fantastic Woman: not much to celebrate there, you might think...
... well, you'd be wrong. Sebastián Lelio's A Fantastic Woman was produced not only in Chile and the US, but also in Germany and Spain. Europe couldn't help but do well in this category: it was competing as part of an all-Europe shortlist against On Body and Soul (Hungary), The Square (Sweden/Germany/France/Denmark/US), Loveless (Russia/France/Germany/Belgium) and The Insult (Lebanon/France/Belgium/US).
Best actor win for the UK
South London-born Gary Oldman took the best actor award for his role playing Winston Churchill in British director Joe Wright's Darkest Hour. The film, about Churchill's early days as Prime Minister during the Second World War, also won the award for best make-up and hairstyling (Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski and Lucy Sibbick).
Dunkirk: armfuls of Oscars
Proving that the Second World War has not yet given up its rich seam of movie subjects, Christopher Nolan's film depicting the 1940 evacuation of Dunkirk from the perspective of land, sea and air scooped Oscars in the category of film editing (Lee Smith), sound mixing (Mark Weingarten, Gregg Landaker and Gary A. Rizzo), and sound editing (Alex Gibson and Richard King). The picture was a joint production between the UK, Netherlands, France and the US, and, with eight nominations, it was the second most nominated movie on the listings.
Behind all big winners...
... there lies a European production team. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, which won out in the best actress and best supporting actor categories, was written and directed by Londoner Martin McDonagh. One of best picture The Shape of Water's other gongs was for best original score, composed by Frenchman Alexandre Desplat.
And finally, British-born cinematographer Roger Deakins finally broke his run of bad luck at the Academy with a win for Bladerunner 2049.