Academy Awards

The Academy Awards, or "Oscars", is an annual American awards ceremony hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognise excellence in cinematic achievements in the film industry as assessed by the Academy's voting membership. The various category winners are awarded a copy of a statuette, officially called the Academy Award of Merit, which has become commonly known by its nickname "Oscar". The awards, first presented in 1929 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, are overseen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

The awards ceremony was first broadcast to radio in 1930 and televised in 1953. It is now seen live in more than 200 countries and can be streamed live online. The Oscars is the oldest entertainment awards ceremony; its equivalents, the Emmy Awards for television, the Tony Awards for theatre, and the Grammy Awards for music and recording, are modeled after the Academy Awards.

88th Academy Awards

The 88th Academy Awards ceremony will be held at the Dolby Theatre on February 28, 2016 and hosted by Chris Rock. A total of 2,947 Oscars have been awarded since the inception of the award through the 87th. The 88th awards ceremony has become the target of a potential boycott, based on critics' perception that its all-white acting nominee list reflects bias. In response, the Academy has initiated "historic" changes in membership by the year 2020.

Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio (/dᵻˈkæpri.oʊ/; born November 11, 1974) is an American actor and film producer. He has been nominated for numerous awards, and has won three Golden Globe Awards. DiCaprio began his career by appearing in television commercials, after which he had recurring roles in TV series such as the soap opera Santa Barbara and the sitcom Growing Pains in the early 1990s. He began his film career by starring as Josh in Critters 3 before starring in the film adaptation of the memoir This Boy's Life (1993) alongside Robert De Niro. DiCaprio was praised for his supporting role in the drama What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), and gained public recognition with leading roles in the drama The Basketball Diaries (1995) and the romantic drama Romeo + Juliet (1996), before achieving international fame with James Cameron's epic romance Titanic (1997), which became the highest-grossing film to that point.

Since the 2000s, DiCaprio has received critical acclaim for his work in a wide range of film genres. His subsequent films include The Man in the Iron Mask (1998), the biographical crime drama Catch Me If You Can (2002) and the epic historical drama Gangs of New York (2002) which also marked his first of many collaborations with director Martin Scorsese. DiCaprio was also acclaimed for his performances in the political war thriller Blood Diamond (2006), the neo-noir crime drama The Departed (2006), the espionage thriller Body of Lies (2008), the drama Revolutionary Road (2008), the psychological thriller Shutter Island (2010), the science fiction thriller Inception (2010), the biographical film J. Edgar (2011), the western Django Unchained (2012), and the period drama The Great Gatsby (2013).

Natalie Portman

Natalie Portman (born Neta-Lee Hershlag; Hebrew: נטע-לי הרשלג‎; June 9, 1981) is an actress, film producer and film director with dual American and Israeli citizenship. Her first role was in the 1994 action thriller Léon: The Professional, opposite Jean Reno, but mainstream success came when she was cast as Padmé Amidala in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (released in 1999, 2002 and 2005).

Born in Jerusalem to an Israeli father and American mother, Portman grew up in the eastern United States from the age of three. She studied dancing and acting in New York, and starred in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace while still at high school on Long Island. In 1999, Portman enrolled at Harvard University to study psychology, alongside her work as an actress; she completed a bachelor's degree in 2003. During her studies she starred in a second Star Wars film and opened in New York City's Public Theater production of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull in 2001.

Portman starred in the 2004 drama Closer, appeared in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith the following year, and won a Constellation Award for Best Female Performance and a Saturn Award for Best Actress for her starring role in the political thriller V for Vendetta (2006). She played leading roles in the historical dramas Goya's Ghosts (2006) and The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), and also appeared in Thor (2011) and its 2013 sequel. In 2010, Portman starred in the psychological horror film Black Swan. Her performance received widespread critical acclaim and she earned her first Academy Award for Best Actress, her second Golden Globe Award, the SAG Award, the BAFTA Award and the BFCA Award in 2011.

Kate Winslet

Kate Elizabeth Winslet, CBE (born 5 October 1975), is an English actress and singer. She is the recipient of an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, four Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, a Grammy Award and three BAFTA Awards. She is the youngest person to receive six Academy Award nominations with seven nominations in total, and is one of the few actresses to win three of the four major American entertainment awards (EGOT). In addition, she has won awards from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association among others, and an Honorary César Award in 2012.

Brought up in Berkshire, Winslet studied drama from childhood, and began her career in British television in 1991. She made her film debut in Heavenly Creatures (1994), for which she received praise. She garnered her first Academy Award nomination for her role as Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility (1995) before achieving global stardom with the epic romance Titanic (1997), which was the highest-grossing film of all time at that point and earned her a second Academy Award.nomination Winslet's performances in Iris (2001), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Finding Neverland (2004), Little Children (2006), Revolutionary Road (2008), and Steve Jobs (2015) continued to draw praise from film critics and earned her another three Academy Award nominations. In 2008, the critic David Edelstein described her as "the best English-speaking film actress of her generation".