The 72nd Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS, often pronounced ; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motion ...

(AMPAS), honored films released in 1999 and took place on March 26, 2000, at the Shrine Auditorium in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

, beginning at 5:30 p.m. PST / 8:30 p.m. EST. During the ceremony, the AMPAS presented

Academy Awards The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

(commonly referred to as Oscars) in 23 categories. The ceremony, televised in the United States by ABC, was produced by husband-and-wife producing team

Richard Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stro ...

and

Lili Fini Zanuck Lili Fini Zanuck ( Fini; born April 2, 1954) is an American film producer and director. Personal life She was married to Richard D. Zanuck from 1978 until his death in 2012. Career Zanuck's first film with a producing title was the 1985 ...

and was directed by Louis J. Horvitz. Actor Billy Crystal hosted the show for the seventh time. He first presided over the 62nd ceremony held in 1990 and had last hosted the 70th ceremony held in 1998. Three weeks earlier in a ceremony at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel in

Beverly Hills, California Beverly Hills is a city located in Los Angeles County, California. A notable and historic suburb of Greater Los Angeles, it is in a wealthy area immediately southwest of the Hollywood Hills, approximately northwest of downtown Los Angeles. ...

held on March 4, the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement were presented by host Salma Hayek. '' American Beauty'' won five awards, including Best Picture. Other winners included '' The Matrix'' with four awards, '' The Cider House Rules'' and ''

Topsy-Turvy ''Topsy-Turvy'' is a 1999 British musical period drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh, starring Allan Corduner as Sir Arthur Sullivan and Jim Broadbent as W.S. Gilbert, along with Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville and Ron Cook. The ...

'' with two, and '' All About My Mother'', '' Boys Don't Cry'', ''

Girl, Interrupted ''Girl, Interrupted'' is a best-selling 1993 memoir by American author Susanna Kaysen, relating her experiences as a young woman in an American psychiatric hospital in the 1960s after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Th ...

'', '' King Gimp'', ''

My Mother Dreams the Satan's Disciples in New York ''My Mother Dreams the Satan's Disciples in New York'' is a 1998 short film directed by Barbara Schock. It was made as a thesis film for the AFI Conservatory. In 2000, it won an Oscar at the 72nd Academy Awards for Best Live Action Short Film. ...

'', '' The Old Man and the Sea'', '' One Day in September'', '' The Red Violin'', '' Sleepy Hollow'', and ''

Tarzan Tarzan (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adv ...

'' with one. The telecast garnered almost 47 million viewers in the United States.

Winners and nominees

The nominees for the 72nd Academy Awards were announced on February 15, 2000, at 5:38 a.m. PST (13:38 UTC) at the

Samuel Goldwyn Theater The Samuel Goldwyn Theatre is a screening-only movie theater named after filmmaker Samuel Goldwyn. It is located at 8949 Wilshire Boulevard, Beverly Hills, California, at headquarters of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). ...

, by Robert Rehme, president of the academy, and the actor

Dustin Hoffman Dustin Lee Hoffman (born August 8, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. As one of the key actors in the formation of New Hollywood, Hoffman is known for his versatile portrayals of antiheroes and emotionally vulnerable characters. He is th ...

. '' American Beauty'' received the most nominations with eight total; '' The Cider House Rules'' and '' The Insider'' tied for second with seven nominations each. The winners were announced during the awards ceremony on March 26, 2000.

Sam Mendes Sir Samuel Alexander Mendes (born 1 August 1965) is a British film and stage director, producer, and screenwriter. In 2000, Mendes was appointed a CBE for his services to drama, and he was knighted in the 2020 New Years Honours List. That s ...

was the sixth person to win Best Director for his directorial debut. Best Actor winner

Kevin Spacey Kevin Spacey Fowler (born July 26, 1959) is an American actor. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s, obtaining supporting roles before gaining a leading man status in film and television. Spacey has received various accolade ...

became the tenth performer to win acting Oscars in both lead and supporting categories. By virtue of her father

Jon Voight Jonathan Vincent Voight (; born December 29, 1938) is an American actor. He came to prominence in the late 1960s with his Academy Award–nominated performance as Joe Buck, a would-be gigolo, in ''Midnight Cowboy'' (1969). During the 1970s, h ...

's Best Lead Actor win for 1978's '' Coming Home'', Best Supporting Actress winner

Angelina Jolie Angelina Jolie (; born Angelina Jolie Voight; June 4, 1975) is an American actress, filmmaker, humanitarian and former Special Envoy to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award ...

and Voight became the second father-daughter Oscar acting winners. At the age of 11, Haley Joel Osment became the second-youngest actor to receive a nomination in Best Supporting Actor for his role in ''

The Sixth Sense ''The Sixth Sense'' is a 1999 American psychological thriller film written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. It stars Bruce Willis as a child psychologist whose patient ( Haley Joel Osment) claims he can see and talk to the dead. Released ...

'', after

Justin Henry Justin Henry (born May 25, 1971) is an American actor and businessman, known for playing the object of the titular custody battle in the 1979 film ''Kramer vs. Kramer'', a debut role that earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supp ...

was nominated in the same category for 1979's ''

Kramer vs. Kramer ''Kramer vs. Kramer'' is a 1979 American legal drama film written and directed by Robert Benton, based on Avery Corman's 1977 novel of the same name. The film stars Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Jane Alexander, and Justin Henry. It tells the stor ...

'' at the age of 8.

Awards

Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger ().

Academy Honorary Award

Andrzej Wajda Andrzej Witold Wajda (; 6 March 1926 – 9 October 2016) was a Polish film and theatre director. Recipient of an Honorary Oscar, the Palme d'Or, as well as Honorary Golden Lion and Honorary Golden Bear Awards, he was a prominent member of the ...

Irving G. Thalberg Award

Warren Beatty Henry Warren Beatty (né Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker, whose career spans over six decades. He was nominated for 15 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, ...

Films with multiple nominations and awards

The following 17 films received multiple nominations: The following four films received multiple awards:

Presenters and performers

The following individuals presented awards or performed musical numbers.

Presenters (in order of appearance)

Performers (in order of appearance)

Ceremony information

In view of the new millennium, the academy sought to both shorten the telecast and give the ceremony a new look. Husbandandwife producers Richard D. Zanuck and Lili Fini Zanuck were recruited to oversee the production of the 2000 ceremony. AMPAS President Robert Rehme explained the decision to hire the Zanucks saying, "With this new producing team in place, I look forward to a whole new perspective." This marked the first occurrence that a woman was tapped for producing duties at the Oscars. Despite Richard and Lili's promises to make changes to the ceremony, they hired actor and veteran Oscar host Billy Crystal to host the ceremony for the seventh time. Production of the ceremony was reported to be far more ambitious and extravagant than previous ceremonies. Art director Bob Keene designed an ambitiously technological stage design for the telecast that used a floor adorned with flashing lights and several 35 foot columns consisting of

high-definition video High-definition video (HD video) is video of higher resolution and quality than standard-definition. While there is no standardized meaning for ''high-definition'', generally any video image with considerably more than 480 vertical scan lines ...

monitors stacked atop each other. The columns were used to display images of previous Oscar appearances as presenters took the stage, nomination packages, and reaction shots of the acting nominees as the winner was being announced. Because of serious technical challenges concerning movement, lighting, and overheating, Keene and his production design team tested the stage at ABC Prospect Studios before installing it at the Shrine Auditorium. Several other people were involved in the production of the ceremony. Actor

Peter Coyote Peter Coyote (born Robert Peter Cohon; October 10, 1941) is an American actor, director, screenwriter, author and narrator of films, theatre, television, and audiobooks. He worked on films such as ''E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial'' (1982), '' Cro ...

, who served as announcer for the telecast, was often seen before commercial breaks live behind the stage. Musical directors

Burt Bacharach Burt Freeman Bacharach ( ; born May 12, 1928) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Gr ...

Don Was Don Edward Fagenson (born September 13, 1952), known professionally as Don Was, is an American musician, record producer and record executive. Primarily a bass player, Was co-founded the funk-rock band Was (Not Was). In later years he produced so ...

, and Rob Shrock composed a techno-pop soundtrack that substituted for a live orchestra during most of the ceremony. In addition, Bacharach rounded up musicians that included

Garth Brooks Troyal Garth Brooks (born February 7, 1962) is an American country music singer and songwriter. His integration of pop and rock elements into the country genre has earned him popularity, particularly in the United States with success on the co ...

Queen Latifah Dana Elaine Owens (born March 18, 1970), known professionally as Queen Latifah, is an American rapper, actress, and singer. Born in Newark, New Jersey, she signed with Tommy Boy Records in 1989 and released her debut album ''All Hail the Que ...

, and

Dionne Warwick Marie Dionne Warwick (; born December 12, 1940) is an American singer, actress, and television host. Warwick ranks among the 40 biggest U.S. hit makers between 1955 and 1999, based on her chart history on ''Billboards Hot 100 pop singles ch ...

to perform a medley of songs previously nominated for Best Original Song. Choreographer

Kenny Ortega Kenneth John Ortega (born April 18, 1950) is an American filmmaker, touring manager, and choreographer. He is known for directing the films ''Newsies'', '' Hocus Pocus'', ''The Cheetah Girls 2'', '' High School Musical'', '' Michael Jackson's T ...

supervised the " Blame Canada" musical number.

Box office performance of nominees

At the time of the nominations announcement on February 15, the combined gross of the five Best Picture nominees was $521 million with an average of $104 million per film. ''The Sixth Sense'' was the highest earner among the Best Picture nominees with $278.4 million in domestic box office receipts. The film was followed by ''The Green Mile'' ($120.7 million), ''American Beauty'' ($74.7 million), ''The Cider House Rules'' ($20.7 million), and finally ''The Insider'' ($26.6 million). Of the top 50 grossing movies of the year, 37 nominations went to 11 films on the list. Only ''The Sixth Sense'' (2nd), ''The Green Mile'' (13th), ''The Talented Mr. Ripley'' (26th), and ''American Beauty'' (27th) were nominated for directing, acting, screenwriting, or Best Picture. The other top 50 box office hits that earned the nominations were ''Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace'' (1st), ''Toy Story 2'' (3rd), ''The Matrix'' (5th), ''Tarzan'' (6th), ''The Mummy'' (8th), ''Stuart Little'' (11th), and ''Sleepy Hollow'' (20th).

Missing paper ballots

Nearly two weeks before Oscar voting was finished, AMPAS reported that 4,000 of the ballots mailed to Academy members were missing. The bags that carried the ballots were mislabeled as third-class mail. On March 6, 2000, 1,000 of the ballots were discovered at a US Postal Service regional distribution center in

Bell, California Bell is an incorporated city in Los Angeles County, California, near the center of the former San Antonio Township (abolished after 1960). Its population was 35,477 at the 2010 census, down from 36,664 in the 2000 census. Bell is located on the ...

. In response to affected members, AMPAS sent replacement ballots sealed in yellow envelopes, and extended the voting deadline by two days to March 23.

Oscar statuettes theft

On March 10, 2000, 55 Oscar statuettes were stolen from a

Roadway Express Roadway Express, Inc. was an American trucking less than truckload (LTL) trucking company. Roadway Express and its holding company, Roadway Corporation, were acquired by logistics holding company Yellow Corporation in 2003 and the parent companie ...

loading dock in Bell, California. In the event the stolen awards were to be still missing during the festivities, AMPAS announced that R.S. Owens & Company, the manufacturer of the awards would produce a new batch of the golden statuettes. Nine days later, 52 of the stolen statuettes were discovered in a trash bin at a Food 4 Less supermarket located in the

Koreatown A Koreatown ( Korean: 코리아타운), also known as a Little Korea or Little Seoul, is a Korean-dominated ethnic enclave within a city or metropolitan area outside the Korean Peninsula. History Koreatowns as an East Asian ethnic enclave have ...

neighborhood of Los Angeles by a man named Willie Fulgear. For the safe recovery of the stolen statuettes, Roadway Express rewarded Fulgear with $50,000, and the academy invited him and his son Allen to the ceremony. Two Roadway Express employees, truck driver Lawrence Ledent and dock worker Anthony Hart, were arrested for the theft of the Oscars. Both men pleaded no contest. Lawrence served six months in prison and Anthony received probation. A third man who was Mr. Fulgear's half-brother was initially charged with the crime, but police dropped those charges after Mr. Fulgear divulged that they were estranged from each other. Three years later, one of three remaining missing Oscar statuettes was discovered during a drug bust at a mansion in Miami, Florida; the other two have yet to be found.

Critical reviews

The show received a positive reception from most media publications. Television critic Monica Collins of the ''

Boston Herald The ''Boston Herald'' is an American daily newspaper whose primary market is Boston, Massachusetts, and its surrounding area. It was founded in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States. It has been awarded eight Puli ...

'' praised producers Richard and Lili Fini Zanuck for overseeing a show that was "clean, snappy, high-gloss and very well produced." She also quipped that host Billy Crystal did not need to save the show this time because "everything seemed to come together. ''

The San Francisco Examiner The ''San Francisco Examiner'' is a newspaper distributed in and around San Francisco, California, and published since 1863. Once self-dubbed the "Monarch of the Dailies" by then-owner William Randolph Hearst, and flagship of the Hearst Corporat ...

'' Wesley Morris wrote "the show was downright hip, more so than it's been in decades." He also gave high marks for the "techno-chic" production elements from the music and stage design. Columnist Paul Brownfield of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'' raved that "the 72nd annual Academy Awards telecast was hipper than in years past, sleeker in look and edgier in tone." He added that Crystal was "the perfect antidote to the entire evening's self-serious posturing." Some media outlets were more critical of the show. John Carman of the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The pa ...

'' lamented that despite being solid and tidy, "the show never quite managed the big surprises, sloppy excesses and emotional highs we hope to see." ''

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Descended from the ''Pittsburgh Gazette'', established in 1786 as the first newspaper published west of the Alle ...

'' television critic Rob Owen criticized the uneven pacing of the ceremony writing that the telecast "started slowly – 20 minutes of Billy Crystal's spoofs and singing that weren't as funny as his past Oscar intros – and never got up to speed." Caryn James of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' remarked that "the four-hour show turned into a zombie." She also stated that the telecast was bloated with too many tributes to Hollywood's past.

Ratings and reception

The American telecast on ABC drew in an average of 46.52 million viewers over its length, which was a 3% increase from the previous year's ceremony. An estimated 79.11 million total viewers watched all or part of the awards. The show also drew higher

Nielsen ratings Nielsen Media Research (NMR) is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre, films (via the AMC Theatres MAP program), and newspapers. Headquartered in New York City, it is best known for the Nielsen rat ...

compared to the previous ceremony with 29.64% of households watching over a 48.32 share. It also drew a higher 1849 demo rating with a 19.86 rating over a 39.34 share among viewers in that demographic. In July 2000, the show received nine nominations at the 52nd Primetime Emmy Awards. Two months later, the ceremony won one of those nominations for Louis J. Horvitz's direction of the telecast.

''In Memoriam''

The annual ''In Memoriam'' tribute, presented by actor

Edward Norton Edward Harrison Norton (born August 18, 1969) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received numerous awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe Award and three Academy Award nominations. Born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised ...

, honored the following people. * Sylvia Sidney - Actress *

Jim Varney James Albert Varney Jr. (June 15, 1949 – February 10, 2000) was an American actor and comedian. He is best known for his broadly comedic role as Ernest P. Worrell, for which he won a Daytime Emmy Award, as well as appearing in films and n ...

- Actor * Ernest Gold – Composer * Ruth Roman - Actress * Henry Jones - Actor *

Robert Bresson Robert Bresson (; 25 September 1901 – 18 December 1999) was a French film director. Known for his ascetic approach, Bresson contributed notably to the art of cinema; his non-professional actors, ellipses, and sparse use of scoring have l ...

– Director *

Desmond Llewelyn Desmond Wilkinson Llewelyn (; 12 September 1914GRO Register of Births: DEC 1914 11a 490 NEWPORT M. – Desmond W. Llewelyn, mmn = Wilkinson – 19 December 1999GRO Register of Deaths: JUN 2000 A70E 247 EASTBOURNE – Desmond Wilkinson Llewelyn, D ...

- Actor * Allan Carr – Producer *

Mario Puzo Mario Francis Puzo (; ; October 15, 1920 – July 2, 1999) was an American author, screenwriter, and journalist. He is known for his crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably '' The Godfather'' (1969), whi ...

– Screenwriter *

Rory Calhoun Rory Calhoun (born Francis Timothy McCown, August 8, 1922April 28, 1999) was an American film and television actor. He starred in numerous Westerns in the 1950s and 1960s, and appeared in supporting roles in films such as ''How to Marry a Millio ...

- Actor *

Frank Tarloff Frank Tarloff (February 4, 1916 – June 25, 1999) was a blacklisted American screenwriter who won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for '' Father Goose''. A child of Polish immigrant parents, Tarloff grew up in Brooklyn, New York, ...

– Screenwriter * Marc Davis – Animator *

Hedy Lamarr Hedy Lamarr (; born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler; November 9, 1914 January 19, 2000) was an Austrian-born American film actress and inventor. A film star during Hollywood's golden age, Lamarr has been described as one of the greatest movie actress ...

- Actress *

Victor Mature Victor John Mature (January 29, 1913 – August 4, 1999) was an American stage, film, and television actor who was a leading man in Hollywood during the 1940s and 1950s. His best known film roles include '' One Million B.C.'' (1940), '' My Darli ...

- Actor * Garson Kanin – Screenwriter *

Roger Vadim Roger Vadim Plemiannikov (; 26 January 1928 – 11 February 2000) was a French screenwriter, film director and producer, as well as an author, artist and occasional actor. His best-known works are visually lavish films with erotic qualities, suc ...

– Producer/Director * Mabel King - Actress *

Oliver Reed Robert Oliver Reed (13 February 1938 – 2 May 1999) was an English actor known for his well-to-do, macho image and "hellraiser" lifestyle. After making his first significant screen appearances in Hammer Horror films in the early 1960s, his ...

- Actor *

Albert Whitlock Albert J. Whitlock (15 September 1915 – 26 October 1999) was a British-born motion picture matte artist best known for his work with Disney and Universal Studios. Life and career Whitlock began his film career as a page at Gaumont Studios in ...

– Special Effects *

Ian Bannen Ian Edmund Bannen (29 June 1928 – 3 November 1999) was a Scottish actor with a long career in film, on stage, and on television. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in '' The Flight of the Phoenix'' (1965), the first ...

- Actor * Abraham Polonsky – Screenwriter *

Dirk Bogarde Sir Dirk Bogarde (born Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde; 28 March 1921 – 8 May 1999) was an English actor, novelist and screenwriter. Initially a matinée idol in films such as '' Doctor in the House'' (1954) for the Rank Org ...

- Actor *

Edward Dmytryk Edward Dmytryk (September 4, 1908 – July 1, 1999) was an American film director. He was known for his 1940s noir films and received an Oscar nomination for Best Director for '' Crossfire'' (1947). In 1947, he was named as one of the Hollywoo ...

– Director * Lila Kedrova - Actress * Charles 'Buddy' Rogers - Actor/musician *

Madeline Kahn Madeline Gail Kahn (''née'' Wolfson; September 29, 1942 – December 3, 1999) was an American actress, comedian and singer, known for comedic roles in films directed by Peter Bogdanovich and Mel Brooks, including '' What's Up, Doc?'' (1972), ' ...

- Actress * George C. Scott - Actor

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

;Official websites
Academy Awards Official website

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Official website

Oscar's Channel
at

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

(run by the

) ;News resources
Oscars 2000

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadc ...

Academy Awards coverage
CNN ;Analysis
1999 Academy Awards Winners and History
Filmsite
Academy Awards, USA: 2000
Internet Movie Database {{DEFAULTSORT:Academy Awards, 72 1999 film awards 2000 in American cinema Academy Awards ceremonies 2000 in Los Angeles 2000 awards in the United States March 2000 events in the United States Television shows directed by Louis J. Horvitz

Winners and nominees

Awards

Academy Honorary Award

Irving G. Thalberg Award

Films with multiple nominations and awards

Presenters and performers

Presenters (in order of appearance)

Performers (in order of appearance)

Ceremony information

Box office performance of nominees

Missing paper ballots

Oscar statuettes theft

Critical reviews

Ratings and reception

''In Memoriam''

See also

References

Bibliography

External links