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Chloé Zhao, the Chinese-born director of “Nomadland,” also made history by becoming the first Asian woman -- and woman of color -- to win the directing Oscar.

She’s also only the second woman, after Kathryn Bigelow (“The Hurt Locker”), to win best director in the Academy’s 93 years.

Zhao also had the last laugh in taking the best picture prize for “Nomadland,” the tone poem on the American urge to roam that she produced with the film’s star, Frances McDormand. Though the film’s victory was long predicted, it still tasted sweet.

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Chris Pizzello/AP
PHOTO: Chloe Zhao, winner of the awards for best picture and director for "Nomadland," poses in the press room at the Oscars, April 25, 2021, at Union Station in Los Angeles.
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More of a shock was McDormand’s win for best actress over the night’s toughest competition -- Viola Davis (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”), Carey Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman”), Andra Day (“The United States vs Billie Holiday”) and Vanessa Kirby (“Pieces of a Woman”). The sight of Mulligan, my choice for the prize, sitting with nowhere to go in a dress of Oscar gold, was the show’s most poignant.

As all who know her can attest, McDormand is a force of nature. Having won two best actress prizes already for “Fargo” and “Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri,” McDormand now has a third, only one Oscar short of a tie with Katharine Hepburn, whose four acting Oscars still stand as a record.

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ABC News
PHOTO: Actress Frances McDormand speaks after winning the Oscar for Best Actress in the movie "Nomadland," April 25, 2021, in Los Angeles.
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I particularly loved the wolf howl McDormand let out on stage in honor of Michael “Wolf” Snyder, the “Nomadfland” sound mixer who died tragically of suicide on March 1. Somehow, McDormand made that howl a bigger and more personal tribute than any Oscar.

Bet you didn't have Frances McDormand howling like a wolf in her Best Picture acceptance speech on your #Oscars bingo card.https://t.co/LsffGKAhao pic.twitter.com/X48Io0TO7p

— Good Morning America (@GMA) April 26, 2021

Still, the shock of the night was saved for last, traditionally a time for the best picture prize. The producers decided instead to give the prime spot to best actor, fully expecting, as we all did, that the Oscar would go posthumously to the late Chadwick Boseman for his career best performance in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” An award that would end the telecast on a note of bittersweet triumph.

Instead, presenter Joaquin Phoenix announced the winner in absentia to be Anthony Hopkins in “The Father,” a harrowing tale of encroaching dementia that Hopkins handled with his customary brilliance.

BREAKING: Anthony Hopkins wins the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for \"The Father.\"#Oscarshttps://t.co/ScDUrk0xaG pic.twitter.com/YSGkTUeG1R

— Good Morning America (@GMA) April 26, 2021

But, still, this was the Academy’s last chance to honor an actor it previously failed to even nominate for a career of stunning performances. I know we critics are supposed to remain objective, but the Boseman snub hurt.

It also ended the Oscar 2021 show on an anticlimax, perhaps inevitable in a year when nothing was as it used to be, when we are all left hanging about what’s next for movies.

What the show did right was instilling a sense of movie love that can withstand any assault. Even in the year of a deadly virus and virulent social injustice, that love endures.

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