The 2017 Oscar Nominations are finally out. This year, there are nine movies up for best picture: “Arrival,” “Fences,” “Hacksaw Ridge,” “Hell or High Water,” “Hidden Figures,” “La La Land,” “Lion,” “Manchester by the Sea” and “Moonlight.”
Up for best actress this year is Isabelle Huppert in “Elle,” Ruth Negga in “Loving,” Natalie Portman in “Jackie,” Emma Stone in “La La Land” and Meryl Streep – of course – in “Florence Foster Jenkins.”
For best actor, the Academy nominated; Casey Affleck in “Manchester by the Sea,” Andrew Garfield in “Hacksaw Ridge,” Ryan Gosling in “La La Land,” Viggo Mortensen in “Captain Fantastic” and Denzel Washington in “Fences.”
With the Oscars making its 89th lap around the sun, it’s time to look back at some past legendary winning films, actors and actresses.
In 1940, for the 12th Academy banquet, the classic, magnificent picture “Gone with the Wind” won best picture, and Vivien Leigh, who starred as Scarlett O’Hara, won best actress.
Along with winning two of the most anticipated awards of the year, “Gone with the Wind” swept the stage, winning a total of eight awards, including the honor of best director, for Victor Fleming.
Best Supporting Actress was awarded to Hattie McDaniel, who played the hardworking Mammy, as the first African American to ever win an Oscar.
The 33rd Academy Awards in 1961 saw Elizabeth Taylor accept her lead actress Oscar for “Butterfield 8” onstage. Taylor had just come back from London with a ruthless case of pneumonia that almost killed her.
She took the stage frail and unsteady with no speech prepared. She took her well-deserved Oscar with a full heart, causing a very emotional experience for the audience.
In 1977, Sylvester Stallone, who wrote and starred in the best picture winner of the year “Rocky” jokingly sparred on stage with the amazing boxer Muhammad Ali, who joked that Stallone had stolen his script.
In 1979, two months before his death at age 72, John Wayne took the stage for the 51st Academy Awards to hand out the Oscar for best director.
He passionately told the audience, “Oscar and I have something in common. Oscar first came to Hollywood in 1928; so did I. We’re both a little weather beaten, but we’re still here and plan to be around for a whole lot longer,” as quoted in an article by the Los Angeles Times.
As far as Meryl Streep goes, she holds the record for most Academy Award nominations at a jaw-dropping 20 times since her first Oscar Nomination in 1979 for “The Deer Hunter.”
She won the next year for “Kramer vs Kramer,” as Best Supporting Actress. She won the Best Actress Oscar in 1983 for the heartbreaking “Sophie’s Choice,” and took home the same award again in 2012 for “The Iron Lady.”
This year, Streep is nominated once again, for “Florence Foster Jenkins.” If she takes the stage, nothing less than a Trump bashing is to be expected, considering her recent Golden Globe acceptance speech in which she expressed her feelings on America’s newest president.
This year, right in the middle of so many emotions concerning the recent presidential inauguration and the direction in which President Donald Trump wants to take America, the Academy Awards should be a time for the actors and actresses we so adore to take the stage and express how they feel not only in the form of art, but also politics.
The 89th Academy Awards ceremony will be held Sunday, Feb. 26, beginning at 6 p.m.

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The 26th Annual Academy Awards was held in 1954 at the RKO Pantages Theatre.