Oscars 2024: Wonderful, quintuple tribute leads up to Da’Vine Joy Randolph's lovely acceptance speech

Sometimes a little bit longer can mean a little bit better.

For years, each of the acting Oscar recipients from the previous year would return to announce a new winner — but for the 96^th annual Academy Awards, five previous winners took the stage for the supporting actor and actress presentations, each delivering a message to one of the nominees.

It was a nice touch, especially seeing as how some younger or more casual viewers might not have known, for example, that Mary Steenburgen won the Oscar for 1980’s “Melvin and Howard,” a wonderful early film by Jonathan Demme, who of course directed the multiple Oscar-winning “The Silence of the Lambs,” which starred Jodie Foster, who won Oscar for that movie and was nominated again this year for “Nyad.” Full circle!

As expected, and as was so well-deserved, Da’Vine Joy Randolph (one of a host of first-time nominees in the acting categories) won best supporting actress for her beautiful and strong and heartfelt performance in “The Holdovers.” Randolph thanked her mother for encouraging her and added, "I thank all the people who have been there for me, ushered me and guided me. I prayed for so long. … I always wanted to be different, but now I realize that I just need to be myself. Thank you for you seeing me." It was a lovely moment. Randolph's co-star, Paul Giamatti, was moved to tears by her speech.

(In another welcome break from tradition, instead of the anonymous and often overly cheery and unseen voice-over person guiding us through the evening, this year’s announcer was the fantastic David Alan Grier, who appeared backstage with presenters Catherine O’Hara and Michael Keaton just before one commercial break.)

Other early winners included Justine Triet and Arthur Harrari for original screenplay for “Anatomy of a Fall,” and Cord Jefferson for adapted screenplay for “American Fiction.” In both cases, you can feel and appreciate the richness of the writing from the opening minutes of the film. These are “smaller” films that will leave a big impact with you if you haven’t had the chance to see them yet.

In the animated feature category, another favorite was the winner: “The Boy and the Heron,” from the legendary, 83-year-old Hayao Miyazaki, who has been announcing plans to retire for most of this century and still hasn’t, and we’re all the richer for that.