The 96th Annual Academy Awards were on last night and it was a treasure trove of memeable moments. From Messi the dog’s triumphant appearance to John Cena bearing it all on stage, there was no shortage of viral scenes at Hollywood’s biggest night—some of which overshadowed the awards themselves.
Still, everything was on track (and even on time, a rarity for the program) moving forward when the time came for the final, biggest award of the evening to be revealed: Best Picture.
On hand to present was living legend Al Pacino, who was granted the honor in celebration of the 50th anniversary of The Godfather: Part II’s historic win. The icon took to the stage with the envelope in hand, and—with absolutely no pretense or decorum—just read the name of the winner. Like, just said it.
No preamble. No reading of the nominees. No video packages. Just straight up said it.
The actor arrived at the microphone and simply said, “Only one will take the award for Best Picture. And, uh, I have to go to the envelope for that. And I will. Here it comes. And my eyes see Oppenheimer? Yes.”
There was a pause and awkward silence after the actor read out the name of the film, with even the orchestra seemingly confused as to whether or not they should begin playing once the audience answered with scattered applause.
Eventually, the cast and crew of Oppenheimer made it onto the stage to accept the award.
Of the moment, host Jimmy Kimmel jokingly said, “I guess he’s never watched an awards show before. It seems like everyone in America knows the rhythm of how it’s supposed to go [...] down to ‘And the Oscar goes to…’ But not Al Pacino! God bless him.”
And naturally, viewers had an absolutely field day with the purely chaotic way the biggest award of the evening had been announced with such little pomp and circumstance, taking to X and TikTok to share their best reactions:
I vote we have Al Pacino read every award winner at the next Academy Awards so the show can be all of 15 minutes long.
