86th Academy Awards

Alfonso Cuarón, Best Director winner and Best Film Editing co-winner

Matthew McConaughey, Best Actor winner

Cate Blanchett, Best Actress winner

Jared Leto, Best Supporting Actor winner

Lupita Nyong'o, Best Supporting Actress winner

Spike Jonze, Best Original Screenplay winner

John Ridley, Best Adapted Screenplay winner

Chris Buck, Best Animated Feature co-winner

Jennifer Lee, Best Animated Feature co-winner

Paolo Sorrentino, Best Foreign Language Film winner

Morgan Neville, Best Documentary Feature co-winner

Catherine Martin, Best Production Design co-winner and Best Costume Design winner

Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger ().[21]

The Academy held its 5th Annual Governors Awards ceremony on November 16, 2013, during which the following awards were presented.[22][23][24]

• Angela Lansbury — An entertainment icon who has created some of cinema's most memorable characters, inspiring generations of actors.
• Steve Martin — In recognition of his extraordinary talents and the unique inspiration he has brought to the art of motion pictures.
• Piero Tosi — A visionary whose incomparable costume designs shaped timeless, living art in motion pictures.

• Angelina Jolie

At the time of the nominations announcement on January 16, 2014, the combined gross of the nine Best Picture nominees at the American and Canadian box offices was $645 million, with an average of $72 million per film.[41] When the nominations were revealed, Gravity was the highest-grossing film among the Best Picture nominees with $256 million in domestic box office receipts.[42] Captain Phillips was the second-highest-grossing film with $105.5 million; this was followed by American Hustle ($105.4 million), The Wolf of Wall Street ($80.7 million), 12 Years a Slave ($39 million), Philomena ($22.3 million), Dallas Buyers Club ($16.8 million), Her ($9.9 million), and finally Nebraska ($8.5 million).[41]

Of the top 50 grossing movies of the year, 47 nominations went to 14 films on the list. Only Frozen (1st), Despicable Me 2 (3rd), Gravity (7th), The Croods (14th), Captain Phillips (29th), American Hustle (30th), and The Wolf of Wall Street (42nd) were nominated for Best Picture, Best Animated Feature or any of the directing, acting or screenwriting awards.[42] The other top 50 box office hits that earned nominations were Iron Man 3 (2nd), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (8th), Star Trek Into Darkness (11th), The Great Gatsby (17th), Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa (31st), The Lone Ranger (38th), and Saving Mr. Banks (48th).[42]

Prior to the introduction of the Academy Awards for Technical Achievement montage, DeGeneres and several ceremony attendees such as Bradley Cooper, Jared Leto, Jennifer Lawrence, Julia Roberts, Kevin Spacey, Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Channing Tatum, Lupita Nyong'o, and Peter Nyong'o (Lupita's brother) participated in a group selfie. The resulting tweet initially disabled the site and was eventually retweeted on Twitter over 3.4 million times.[43] It surpassed the previous record retweet of Barack and Michelle Obama's post-election hug photo, which had been retweeted 778,000 times, in just 35 minutes.[44]

While introducing the performance of "Let It Go" from Frozen, actor John Travolta accidentally mispronounced singer Idina Menzel's name as "Adele Dazeem". As a result, Travolta became the subject of mockery and ridicule in the media.[45] According to a source for E!, Menzel revealed that she was not upset about the mishap.[46] Afterwards, Menzel reportedly printed up satirical playbills that promoted her name as Adele Dazeem, noting her past work in Nert (Rent), Wicked-ly (Wicked) and Farfignugen (Frozen).[47][48] Three days after the ceremony, Travolta publicly apologized to Menzel for mispronouncing her name.[47] The following year, Menzel and Travolta appeared onstage together as award presenters, with the former introducing the latter as "Glom Gozingo".[49]

The show received a mixed reception from media publications. Some media outlets were more critical of the show. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette television critic Rob Owen wrote, "Ms. DeGeneres brought predictable respectability to Sunday's 86th Academy Awards. Too bad this particular brand of predictable respectability was a bore." He also criticized the clip packages saluting movie heroes as "big a waste of time as Oscar montages almost always are."[50] Columnist Alan Sepinwall of HitFix commented, "It was a long, disjointed ceremony, and what was fun and likely to endure came entirely from the winners and their speeches." He went on to say that many of DeGeneres's stunts fell flat and that The Wizard of Oz 75th anniversary tribute "felt much too random."[51] Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter said, "It was a turgid affair, badly directed, poorly produced and featuring an endless string of either tired or wince-inducing moments by DeGeneres, who, by the last 30 or so minutes, seemed to have given up entirely." In addition, he noted that the show was overstuffed with montages and stunts that dragged down the pacing of the telecast.[52]

Other media outlets received the broadcast more positively. Television critic Matt Roush of TV Guide commented that DeGeneres "made the Oscars' inevitable dull patches felt less painful than usual." He also praised the cast and several musical numbers from the show.[53] Frazier Moore of the Associated Press lauded DeGeneres's performance writing that, "She seemed to be committed to an unspoken theme for the evening: Humanize Hollywood's glitterati for the viewers. In return, the stars were on their best behavior." He concluded, "All in all, a sleek show was the Oscarcast. Few bombshells, fewer embarrassments, from fade-in to fade-out." [54] Entertainment editor Marlow Stern of The Daily Beast raved, "DeGeneres followed in the footsteps of the most successful awards show hosts—Billy Crystal, the duo of Fey & Poehler, etc.—who have taken advantage of the audience, engaging in gleeful interactions with the plethora of A-listers there (when they’re not mocking them)."[55]

The American telecast on ABC drew in an average of 43.74 million people over its length, which was a 6% increase from the previous year's ceremony.[56] An estimated 72 million total viewers watched all or part of the awards.[57] The show also earned higher Nielsen ratings compared to the previous telecast with 24.7% of households watching over a 38 share.[58] In addition, the program scored a higher 18-49 demo rating with a 13.3 rating over a 33 share among viewers in that demographic.[59] It is the second highest-rated Oscars telecast on 21st-century U.S. television, trailing only behind the 72nd ceremony held in 2000.[13]

In July 2014, the ceremony presentation received eight nominations for the 66th Primetime Emmys.[60] The following month, the ceremony won one of those nominations for Outstanding Art Direction for a Variety, Nonfiction, Reality, or Reality-Competition Program (Derek McLane, Joe Celli, and Gloria Lamb).[61]