All Quiet, Everything Everywhere land Oscar trophies

A German remake of First World War epic All Quiet on the Western Front has won the Oscar for international feature as multiverse adventure Everything Everywhere All at Once claimed two acting trophies at the film industry’s highest honours.

Both movies were in the running for the coveted best picture prize at the Academy Awards, where celebrities gathered to celebrate a year that brought crowds back to theatres.

All Quiet, which streamed on Netflix, depicts the horrors of trench warfare through the eyes of a young man initially keen to join the fight.

Director Edward Berger thanked the film’s young star, Felix Kammerer, who joined him on stage.

“This was your first movie, and you carried us on your shoulders as if it was nothing,” Berger said. 

The film also won Oscars for original score, cinematography and production design.

Ke Huy Quan, a one-time child star who gave up acting for two decades, and Hollywood veteran Jamie Lee Curtis won supporting actor and actress for their roles in the offbeat Everything Everywhere.

A weeping Quan, who was born in Vietnam, kissed his gold Oscar statuette as he held it on stage at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles in front of the biggest names in show business.

“My journey started on a boat,” Quan said. 

“I spent a year in a refugee camp. Somehow I ended up here on Hollywood’s biggest stage.”

As a boy, Quan starred in a 1984 Indiana Jones movie and The Goonies in 1985. 

The 51-year-old said he had quit acting for years because he saw little opportunity for Asian actors on the big screen.

“They say stories like this only happen in the movies,” he said. 

“I cannot believe it’s happening to me. This is the American dream.”

Quan’s co-star Jamie Lee Curtis, who built a career in horror films such as Halloween, won best supporting actress for playing a frumpy tax auditor named Deirdre Beaubeirdre.

Curtis, 64, looked upward and addressed her late parents, Academy award nominees Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh.

“I just won an Oscar,” she said through tears.

A crisis response team was on hand in case of an unexpected twist. 

The group was formed after Will Smith smacked Chris Rock on stage last year, tarnishing the film industry’s most prestigious ceremony.

At the start of the show, two US military aircraft flew over the Oscars theatre, and host Jimmy Kimmel landed on the stage by parachute, in a tribute to best picture nominee Top Gun: Maverick.

Comedian Kimmel joked in his opening monologue about the audience reaction to Smith’s attack last year.

“If anything unpredictable or violent happens at the ceremony, just do what you did last year – nothing,” he told the crowd of A-list celebrities. 

“Maybe give the assailant a hug.”

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio was named best animated feature.

The film Navalny, about the poisoning that nearly killed Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most prominent opposition leader, and his detention since his 2021 return to Moscow, won the Oscar for best feature documentary.

Ahead of the awards, nominees dressed in designer gowns and tuxedos touted their movies on a champagne carpet in place of the traditional red.

Several of 2022’s biggest hits at the multiplex were competing in the best picture race, from Top Gun: Maverick and Everything Everywhere to Avatar: The Way of Water and the Australian-made biopic Elvis.

Michelle Yeoh of Everything Everywhere was set to face off in the best actress category with Cate Blanchett, who played a devious orchestra conductor in Tar.