Top 10 Amy Adams Oscar Moments

Amy Adams. I adore her. I know you probably adore her too. She is the subject of my most popular elusive Oscar video I made in 2022. I decided it was time to make my Oscar-ranking video about Amy Adams, but before I get to that, we are celebrating the greatest, most memorable Amy Adams moments at the Oscars. Are you ready? Let's start with number 10, her first Oscar nomination for Junebug. Amy Adams in Junebug. So this is where it all began for Amy Adams. She had been working in film and TV for a few years. She's on The Office. She, of course, was in Drop Dead Gorgeous 1999. That was her debut. But her breakthrough in the world of movies was 2005's Junebug, where she got in pretty much everywhere that award season, including the Oscars. This is where her journey with the Academy Awards began, even though she lost that night to Rachel Weisz for The Constant Gardener. As you'll find out in my Oscar-ranking video, this is one of her best nominations. Number nine, introducing best cinematography with Bill Murray. You look like 146 million domestic. Thank you, Bill. Thank you. Everybody over at Sony thanks you as well. So in 2014, Amy Adams was at the Oscars as a nominee best actress for American Hustle. She presented cinematography with Bill Murray, who was not nominated for anything. But I've always loved that moment at the end when Murray paid tribute to his Ghostbusters co-star, his Groundhog Day director, Harold Ramis, who had passed away a few months before. Oh, we forgot one. Harold Ramis for Caddyshack Ghostbusters and Groundhog Day. And just like the entire audience, Amy Adams gives Ramis a huge round of applause. Number eight, Whoopi Goldberg's speech. She was compelling and moving without a doubt. Bless you, Amy. So as I've talked about on the channel before, one of my favorite Oscar ceremonies of all time was the ceremony in early 2009, when for each of the four acting categories, five previous winners in that category came out on stage and said a little something about the night's nominees. Amy Adams was on her second nomination that night, best supporting actress for Doubt, and Whoopi Goldberg, who had won supporting actress for Ghost in the early 90s, was there to say a few words about Adams. And I just love how Goldberg began referencing, of course, when she played a nun in Sister Act. It's not easy being a nun. It was very cute and funny, and I loved Adams' reaction. Number seven, introducing Best Adapted Screenplay. Here are the nominees for Best Adapted Screenplay. Arrival, screenplay by Eric Heiser. So this moment makes the list, not necessarily because she says or does anything of significant note. I mean, it's a great victory in the category that night. Moonlight wins Best Adapted Screenplay, such a well-deserved victory, one of the best in that category of the 2010s. This makes the list because that was the year Amy Adams was notably snubbed in Best Actress for Arrival. Remember that? She got in everywhere. Golden Globes, BAFTA, SAG. At the Oscars, Arrival got into Best Picture and Best Director and a ton of categories, but it missed Best Actress, and it feels like with six Oscar nominations to her name, the one that should have happened was Arrival. It's very weird that she didn't get in for that. But you know what? She showed up to that Oscars ceremony anyway. She is there presenting a category. She could have stayed home that night. She could have said, you know, F the Academy for snubbing me on that one. I'm not showing up to this year's Academy Awards. No. Of course, Amy Adams is there, and she is supporting her movie Arrival, which outside of the acting categories, you could say, did very well in its number of Oscar nominations. Number six, Ellen DeGeneres' college joke. I mean, Amy Adams, you went to college, right? No? Okay, well, who cares? So in DeGeneres' monologue in early 2014 at the Oscars, she pokes fun at a lot of celebrities, actors in the audience. Amy Adams is there on her fifth nomination for American Hustle, and you knew DeGeneres was going to poke fun at her at some points, and the joke was all about college. How many people in the audience had spent any time getting a college education, and like, we eventually get over to Amy Adams, who just kind of slinks down in her seats and shakes her head. Nope, she didn't go to college. And you know what? Based on her expression there, she seems perfectly okay with that. Number five, introducing the best shorts categories. Like the groundbreaking, very short film with a very long title, Electronic Labyrinth THX 1138EB. The filmmaker was George Lucas. So I love two things about this introduction Amy Adams does for the shorts in early 2011. That's the night she's there on her third nomination for The Fighter. I love what she has to say about the importance of shorts, how George Lucas got his start directing short films, and look where that took him eventually. But another reason this makes the list is that six years before they're in Nocturnal Animals, Todd Ford's magnificent, underrated drama, I would say, from 2016, Amy Adams and Jake Gyllenhaal are together on stage. Little do they know, in that moment, they are going to go on to collaborate in a film. Number four, introducing best original score. Would the unseen shark in Jaws be as menacing without this? All right, so I do think this is her best intro at the Oscars. I've talked about a few of them already in this video. And I just, you know, when Amy Adams comes out on stage to introduce a category, I get very happy. I love seeing her, and she always has a sense of pride in what she's doing and talking about. It doesn't feel like a job to Amy Adams when she's at the Oscars and presenting something. I do think her best introduction happened in early 2008. That was the year she was not nominated for Enchanted in Best Actress, even though that would have been such an inspired Oscar nomination. However, Enchanted was nominated for a few things that which I'm going to get to in a moment. But at that ceremony, she does introduce best original score, and it's lovely. The way she references some of the very famous movie scores, most of which were in the 70s, bringing up Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Rocky. It's such a great way to introduce the category, and the way she pulls it off is masterful. Number three, Amy Adams, everything you do, but your performance in American Hustle blew my mind. So a moment I have always adored at the Oscars that does involve Amy Adams is Cate Blanchett's Oscar acceptance speech for Blue Jasmine. The way she acknowledges the other actresses in her category. I love what she says about Sandra Bullock poking fun a little bit at her performance in Gravity. Sandra, I could watch that performance to the end of time, and I sort of felt like I had. But I really love how she opens with praising Amy Adams, not just her performance in American Hustle, but everything she does. I mean, a compliment like that coming from the great Cate Blanchett, that must have meant everything to Amy Adams, and you can see it in her reaction, just how much that means to her. And remember, Amy Adams has been nominated at the Oscars six times, and rarely does the winner who took the prize over her say anything about Adams. The only other person who says something nice about Adams is, of course, her The Fighter co-star, Melissa Leo, who won in her category. But the best acknowledgement of Adams from any of her competition, who ended up winning a prize over her, the best one is Cate Blanchett. Number two, the hand connection between Amy Adams and Melissa Leo. This is the first Academy Award and second nomination for Melissa Leo. Two years ago, she was nominated as Best Actress for Frozen River. So speaking of Melissa Leo winning the Oscar and Best Supporting Actress for The Fighter, this does bring me to one of the great Amy Adams moments at the Academy Awards. Most of us that night knew Leo was going to win. She was victorious in the category at the Golden Globes, at Critics' Choice, at SAG. Like, she did really well that season. It seemed pretty sewn up by Oscars night. Helena Bonham Carter had won at BAFTA, so especially with the King's Speech taking picture and director at the Oscars, Helena Bonham Carter did seem to be the spoiler in the category, someone who might have taken the prize over Leo. But after Kirk Douglas' long rambling introductory speech for Best Supporting Actress, after that was finally over and he announced Leo as the winner, I absolutely love what Amy Adams did. She got up on her feet with this look of pride on her face. Sisterhood, really, as she connected her hand with Leo's as Leo is making her way to the stage. It felt so real, so authentic, no competition happening between those two actresses. In that moment, Adams looked so happy for her co-star to win the Academy Award and shows the And finally, that takes me to the number one choice. What do I think, up to this day, is the best Amy Adams Oscar moment? Obviously, I might have to update this list one day if Amy Adams ever does win her elusive Oscar. I still feel in my heart it's going to happen, and let's face it, that will be the number one Amy Adams Oscar moment in history. But before that day gets here, there is one freaking amazing Oscar moment with Amy Adams that happened in early 2008. My number one pick is her performance at the Oscars of Happy Working Song from Enchanted. This is her best Oscar moment. I mean, I can't imagine how terrifying that must have been for Amy Adams. An actress, more than she is a singer, going on that stage by herself with nobody else around her singing Happy Working Song from Enchanted, which was nominated that night in Best Original Song. It's kind of amazing, actually, when you watch this clip back, that there aren't other performers on stage, that there's nothing for her to really respond to, or act with, or anything. It's just her singing her heart out for the entire auditorium, for the millions of people watching on TV. A top commenter on the YouTube clip says that this was the scariest moment of her life, singing alone on stage in front of all of those celebrities, all of those nominees. But you know what? She pulled it off. She did not miss a single note. She does a beautiful rendition of that song, showing us in so many ways her talent, what she is able to achieve in movies and on the Oscar stage. It is quite remarkable. I don't know about you, but I am a lifelong fan of Amy Adams. I'm so happy she has received six nominations to date. I hope there are many, many more to come. I hope there are many, many more Oscar appearances from the great Amy Adams. But to date, if I had to pick the best one, the best Oscars moment for Amy Adams, it would be her performance of Happy Working Song. Wasn't this fun?