Everything To Know About The 2023 Oscars

The 95th Academy Awards on March 12 will have a huge elephant in the room. This will be the first Oscars since Will Smith stormed onstage and slapped Chris Rock after he made a joke about his wife Jada Pinkett Smith, resulting in his resignation from the Academy and a 10-year ban from the ceremony. The Academy is enlisting some strong star power in his absence, including surprising performers and A-list Oscar winners.

Everything Everywhere All At Once leads the Oscars nominations this year with an impressive 11 nods, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress for Michelle Yeoh. The Banshees of Inisherin and All Quiet on the Western Front trail behind with nine nominations each, including Best Picture. Yeoh faces off against Cate Blanchett for TÁR, Michelle Williams for The Fabelmans, Ana de Armas for Blonde, and Andrea Riseborough, whose unexpected nomination for To Leslie caused the Academy to launch an investigation into the film’s campaign tactics.

Here’s everything you need to know about the 2023 Academy Awards.

Who Will Perform At The 2023 Oscars?

The 2023 Oscars will air live from Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre on ABC at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on March 12. On Feb. 23, ABC announced that Rihanna will perform at the 2023 Oscars in her Academy Awards debut, following her 2023 Super Bowl Halftime Show, where she announced that she was pregnant with her second child. The nine-time Grammy winner is set to perform “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, which is nominated for Best Original Song and marks her first nod.

On Feb. 24, it was announced that Sofia Carson would also take the Oscars stage for the first time, performing “Applause” from Tell It Like A Woman accompanied by songwriter Diane Warren, who received her 14th Oscar nomination in Best Original Song. This will also mark Warren’s first time performing at the Oscars ceremony, after accompanying Laura Pausini on a performance of her Oscar-nominated track “Io sì (Seen)” from The Life Ahead during the 2021 pre-Oscars telecast.

On Feb. 27, the Academy announced that Best Supporting Actress nominee Stephanie Hsu will join Best Original Song nominees David Byrne and Son Lux to perform their nominated song “This Is A Life” from Everything Everywhere All At Once. Hsu will be filling in for singer-songwriter Mitski, who is nominated for writing the music alongside Bryne and Son Lux singer Ryan Lott.

The next day, it was announced that Best Original Song nominee “Naatu Naatu” from RRR, which won the Golden Globe against Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and Taylor Swift, would be performed in the ceremony by singers Rahul Sipligunj and Kaala Bhairava. On March 6, Billboard announced that Lenny Kravitz will be this year’s In Memoriam performer. Another potential Oscars performer is Lady Gaga, who is nominated for Best Original Song for “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick, but she still has not been confirmed to perform as of March 6.

Who Is Hosting The 2023 Oscars?

Jimmy Kimmel is set to emcee the 2023 Academy Awards, marking his third time on hosting duties, joining Jerry Lewis, Steve Martin, Conrad Nagel, and David Niven as three-time hosts. The late-night host famously hosted the show in 2017, when La La Land was mistakenly announced as Best Picture instead of the actual winner Moonlight and Kimmel had to navigate the debacle to end the show, making him a safe choice to helm the first Oscars since Will Smith slapped Chris Rock onstage.

Who Will Present At The 2023 Oscars?

• Riz Ahmed
• Halle Bailey
• Antonio Banderas
• Elizabeth Banks
• Halle Berry
• Emily Blunt
• Jessica Chastain
• John Cho
• Glenn Close
• Jennifer Connelly
• Paul Dano
• Ariana DeBose
• Cara Delevingne
• Harrison Ford
• Andrew Garfield
• Hugh Grant
• Danai Gurira
• Salma Hayek Pinault
• Kate Hudson
• Samuel L. Jackson
• Dwayne Johnson
• Michael B. Jordan
• Mindy Kaling
• Nicole Kidman
• Troy Kotsur
• Eva Longoria
• Julia Louis-Dreyfus
• Jonathan Majors
• Melissa McCarthy
• Andie MacDowell
• Janelle Monáe
• Elizabeth Olsen
• Deepika Padukone
• Pedro Pascal
• Florence Pugh
• Questlove
• Zoe Saldaña
• John Travolta
• Sigourney Weaver
• Donnie Yen

Typically, Oscars tradition calls for Kotsur, last year’s Best Supporting Actor winner, to present Best Supporting Actress, and vice versa for DeBose, 2022’s Supporting Actress winner. However, given DeBose’s recent viral moment after singing “Angela Bassett did the thing” at the 2023 BAFTAs, it would be wise for producers to switch tradition and have her present Best Supporting Actress, as Bassett is nominated and widely predicted to win this year. If DeBose announces her win by yelling “Angela Bassett did the thing,” she’d simply win the night.

This post will be updated as more details come in.