85th Academy Awards

Ben Affleck, Best Picture co-winner

George Clooney, Best Picture co-winner

Ang Lee, Best Director winner

Daniel Day-Lewis, Best Actor winner

Jennifer Lawrence, Best Actress winner

Christoph Waltz, Best Supporting Actor winner

Anne Hathaway, Best Supporting Actress winner

Quentin Tarantino, Best Original Screenplay winner

Adele, Best Original Song co-winner

Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger ().[30]

The Academy held its 4th Annual Governors Awards ceremony on December 1, 2012, during which the following awards were presented.[31][32][33]

• Hal Needham — An innovator, mentor, and master technician who elevated his craft to an art and made the impossible look easy.[34]
• D. A. Pennebaker — Who redefined the language of film and taught a generation of filmmakers to look to reality for inspiration.[34]
• George Stevens Jr. — A tireless champion of the arts in America and especially that most American of arts: the Hollywood film.[34]

• Jeffrey Katzenberg — who has led our community in enlightened philanthropy by his extraordinary example.[34]

In January 2012, AMPAS announced that it would create electronic voting system starting with the 2013 ceremony as another method for members to select the nominees and winners during the process.[50] According to AMPAS Chief Operating Officer Ric Robertson, the implementation of the digital ballot was designed to increase participation among members in the voting process and to provide an alternative method of voting in case of emergency.[50] Despite several Academy officials denying such reasons, some industry insiders speculated that the introduction of electronic voting was another move toward moving future awards galas to January.[51] The deadline to submit nomination ballots was originally scheduled for January 3, but technological errors and glitches prompted the Academy to move the deadline one day later.[52]

None of the nine Best Picture nominees were among the top ten releases in box office during the nominations. However, four of those films had already earned $100 million in American and Canadian ticket sales.[53] At the time of the announcement of nominations on January 10, Lincoln was the highest-grossing film among the Best Picture nominees with $144 million in domestic box office receipts. The other three films to earn $100 million prior to nominations were Django Unchained with $112 million, Argo with $110 million, and Les Misérables with $103 million. Among the five remaining Best Picture nominees, Life of Pi was the next highest-grossing film with $91.8 million followed by Silver Linings Playbook ($35.7 million), Beasts of the Southern Wild ($11.2 million), Zero Dark Thirty ($4.4 million), and finally Amour ($311,247).^[B][54] The combined gross of the nine Best Picture nominees when the Oscars were announced was $620 million with an average gross of $68.9 million per film.[54]

Of the top 50 grossing movies of the year, 61 nominations went to 15 films on the list. Only Brave (8th), Wreck-It Ralph (13th), Lincoln (17th), Django Unchained (23rd), Argo (26th), Les Misérables (27th), Flight (30th), and Life of Pi (31st) were nominated for Best Picture, Best Animated Feature, or any of the directing, acting, or screenwriting awards.[55] The other top 50 box office hits that earned nominations were Marvel's The Avengers (1st), Skyfall (4th), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (6th), Ted (13th), Snow White and the Huntsman (15th), Prometheus (20th), and Mirror Mirror (44th).[55]

During the opening monologue, MacFarlane is told by James T. Kirk (William Shatner) (Captain Kirk set in the next day) about how he was going to ruin the telecast, Captain Kirk then shows him a music video where MacFarlane sings We Saw Your Boobs. Its lyrics lists out movies that featured scenes of actresses' disrobing.[56]

The song has mixed reviews. On the positive side, The Guardian reported, "MacFarlane was employed partly to puncture the event's pomposity, which he did by lightheartedly pointing out that some of the world's most self-important people regularly get their kit off for money".[57] SheKnows wonders if the live reaction of some of the actresses were indeed acting as the "pre-recorded spoof apparently looked real enough for social media to worry about it".[58] On the negative side, actress Jane Fonda stated, "if they want to stoop to that, why not list all the penises we’ve seen? Better yet, remember that this is a telecast seen around the world watched by families with their children and to many this is neither appropriate or funny."[59] California assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal and state senator Hannah-Beth Jackson expressed their disappointment at MacFarlane, ABC, and AMPAS in a press release reading, "there was a disturbing theme about violence against women being acceptable and funny. From topical jabs about domestic violence to singing about 'boobs' during a film's rape scene, Seth MacFarlane crossed the line from humor to misogyny."[60] Amy Davidson of The New Yorker interpreted the song as hostile to women.[61]

In a press release statement, the Academy defended MacFarlane for expressing his artistic freedom, "If the Oscars are about anything, they're about creative freedom. We think the show's producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, and host Seth MacFarlane did a great job and we hope our worldwide audience found the show entertaining."[62]

The show received a mixed reception from media publications. Some media outlets were more critical of the show. Columnist Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly commented "By calling constant attention to the naughty factor", MacFarlane created "an echo chamber of outrage, working a little too hard to top himself with faux-scandalous gags about race, Jews in Hollywood, and the killing of Abraham Lincoln."[63] The Washington Post television critic Hank Stuever bemoaned, "There was nothing notably terrible about the show, and nothing particularly enthralling." Regarding MacFarlane's performance as host, Stuever noted, "What you got was a combination of sicko and retro, an Oscar show hosted by someone who waited until Oscar night to discover that he's only so-so at stand-up comedy."[64] Television editor Alan Sepinwall of HitFix lamented that the ceremony made for a "frequently messy, but occasionally surprising and/or entertaining evening." He added that MacFarlane "had some funny moments here and there, but he missed way more than he hit, and Frat Boy Seth quickly assumed dominance as the evening went along."[65]

Other media outlets received the broadcast and more positively. Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter praised MacFarlane's performance saying that he did "impressively better than one would have wagered." He also noted that he added "plenty of niceties with a little bit of the Ricky Gervais bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you thing and worked the juxtaposition rather nicely.[66] Chicago Tribune television critic Nina Metz lauded MacFarlane for keeping "a solid handle on the proceedings." She also remarked that the host "opened with a series of jokes that were bona fide winners, landing on just the right tone: confident but not cocksure".[67] Associated Press critic Frazier Moore extolled MacFarlane observing that he "seized the camera Sunday as host of ABC's Oscarcast and proved to its vast audience that he's a ridiculously versatile entertainer, a guy who can be as charming as he is famously irreverent, even polarizing."[68]

The American telecast on ABC drew in an average of 40.38 million people over its length, which was a 3% increase from the previous year's ceremony.[6] An estimated 77.92 million total viewers watched all or part of the awards.[69] The show also drew higher Nielsen ratings compared to the two previous ceremonies with 24.47% of households watching over a 35.65 share.[70] In addition, the program scored its highest key demo ratings in six years with a 13.71 rating over a 33.45 share among viewers in the 18–49 demographic.[71]

In July 2013, the ceremony presentation received nine nominations for the 65th Primetime Emmys.[72] The following month, the ceremony didn't win any of the nominations.[73]