Al Pacino's Awkward 2024 Oscars Flub Made A Mess Of The Night's Biggest Award

Oscar night just wouldn't be complete without some bizarre, strange, or outright embarrassing moments to keep everyone talking the next day. The 96th Academy Awards ceremony provided exceptional moments like Ryan Gosling's "I'm Just Ken" performance revealing a secret Ken, but the event also had its share of awkward beats, including Jimmy Kimmel's cringeworthy Robert Downey Jr. joke. However, the most incredulous moment may have come toward the very end of the night when Al Pacino came on stage to recite the Best Picture nominees and just ... didn't do that.

It's customary for the presenter to read off all of the nominees, celebrating the best films of 2023, before revealing the winner. It's the final award of the night, so it's expected to build some suspense into the proceedings. Instead, Pacino went straight for the gusto by stating, "Uh, I have to go to the envelope for that. And I will. Here it comes ..." He followed this by simply saying, "My eyes see 'Oppenheimer.'" There was a palpable sense in the air that the crowd didn't know what to make of what he had just said because they didn't immediately applaud, perhaps thinking he was about to mention all of the nominees. Things pick up when he begins reading the producers' names, clearly indicating that "Oppenheimer" had won.

It was a huge moment for the "Oppenheimer" team, but many people online were focused on Pacino's odd handling of the presentation. On X (formerly known as Twitter), @SpencerAlthouse wrote, "I'm obsessed with the way Al Pacino announced Oppenheimer as Best Picture. couldn't have been more chaotic or confusing lol."

Traditionally, the Best Picture presenter lists the nominees before reciting the famous "And the Oscar goes to..." and announcing the winner. Maybe Al Pacino thought the ceremony was running a bit long, so he decided to keep things brief so that everyone could start going to afterparties. Regardless, his reading was the most memorable aspect of the evening for many and led to a flurry of hot takes.

X user @mellabee_29 couldn't have been happier with how Pacino's presentation went: "Al Pacino not even presenting the rest of the nominations and going straight to the winner is such a hilarious yet Oscar worthy performance in its own right." On a night filled with pomp and circumstance, @malikuzumakii found it humorous how low-key Pacino's delivery was: "Al pacino gives the most anti-climactic oscar win ever lmaoo."

That's not even getting into the litany of memes and gifs people have come up with for the occasion. X user @megclecticmusic joked about how the Academy wanted Pacino to read off all 10 nominees, which is followed by the classic gif of the woman saying, "Ain't nobody got time for that." Granted, at least Pacino said the correct movie's name, as opposed to the infamous incident during the 2017 ceremony where "La La Land" was announced as the best picture winner before it was corrected to the actual winner — "Moonlight." 

Al Pacino's awkward handling of reading off the Academy Award Best Picture winner is natural fodder for comedy, but there are still those who wish there was a bit more gravitas to the final moments of the ceremony. "Oppenheimer" was a frontrunner to win best picture for much of the awards season, and the moment could've been a final opportunity to pay tribute to many great movies from 2023, like "Killers of the Flower Moon" and "Past Lives." As it stands, many appear to believe the ceremony ended with a whimper rather than a bang.

Plenty of people on X had jokes, but @NickBrownCO was more sentimental about the missed opportunity, writing, "Wish Al would have read all of the nominees first. I was looking forward to seeing the sizzle reels, and a bit of tension." The best picture win for "Oppenheimer" was the film's seventh win of the night, and the acceptance speeches helped make up for the initial awkwardness as producers Emma Thomas and Charles Roven subsequently thanked numerous people for helping make the movie a reality. 

Making a movie based on J. Robert Oppenheimer was a bizarre and decades-long journey that finally came to fruition with Christopher Nolan's epic biopic. In the end, Al Pacino's odd reading of its Best Picture win is merely a strange footnote to an incredible awards season.