The 91st annual Academy Awards–otherwise known as the Oscars–will be held on February 24th at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California. The eight films nominated for the biggest honor of Best Picture and two of them, “The Favourite” and “Roma,” are tied for the most nominations with ten each.

2018 was a huge year for movies, and it is looking like 2019 will only be better. Films like Black Panther, Mary Poppins Returns, Avengers: Infinity War, and the previously mentioned Roma with ten total nominations are up for awards.

(Producer Dan Cogan and director Bryan Fogel, Time Magazine)

Roma is an interesting case because of how it was made but also how it was distributed. It is in Spanish (nominated for Best Foreign Language Film) and follows the life of a middle-class Mexican family and their live-in maid in the early 1970s. With nominations of Best Cinematography, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Production, one can only assume it is a beautiful story tied in with beautiful quality. It was distributed to the public on the popular streaming service Netflix, and while it wasn’t the trendiest of Netflix’s exclusive films such as Birdbox or Bandersnatch, it definitely didn’t lose anything when it comes to popularity.

Some harsh host drama has been built up leading to the show this year involving Kevin Hart. He was chosen to host this year’s ceremony on December 4th of 2018, almost three months before it would premiere. However, two days later, some of Harts old tweets from 2011 surfaced where he said, “Yo if my son comes home & try’s 2 play with my daughters doll house I’m going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice ‘stop that’s gay,” and this drove the academy to give him an ultimatum. He was requested to publicly apologize for these homophobic comments or he would lose the job as host. He refused to apologize as he claimed this was his past self and/or a different person, and he would prefer people to recognize that than have him apologize for something he isn’t, saying an official response on his Instagram account, “I passed on the apology. The reason why I passed is because I’ve addressed this several times. This is not the first time this has come up. I’ve addressed it. I’ve spoken on it. I’ve said where the rights and wrongs were. I’ve said who I am now versus who I was then. I’ve done it. I’ve done it. I’m not going to continue to go back and tap into the days of old, when I’ve moved on and I’m in a completely different space in my life.”

As of now, there is no replacement to fill Hart’s role, and supposedly, there are plans for no host at all. If this is true, it will be the first time since the 61st Oscars that this has happened. Host or not, many are excited about this years academy awards, and I’m sure it will be good if not better compared to previous ceremonies.