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Who’s hosting the 2024 Oscars tonight and who hosted past Academy Awards ceremonies?
Jimmy Kimmel will host the 2024 Oscars tonight at 7 p.m. EDT at Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre, joining a small group of legendary entertainers who have emceed the Academy Awards more than three times in its nearly 100-year history.
“I always dreamed of hosting the Oscars exactly four times,” Kimmel said in a statement last November when he was tapped to host the award show again.
Who is hosting the 2024 Oscars?
For over 20 years, Kimmel has been hosting his late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” When Kimmel started hosting the Oscars, he brought onto the Oscars stage a long-running gag from his show, the supposed feud between him and Matt Damon.
“Matt Damon and I have a complicated relationship,” Kimmel told CBS’ “Sunday Morning” with a laugh in 2017.
During the Oscars earlier that year, Damon was announced as a guest when he and Ben Affleck walked onstage to present the nominees for best original screenplay. Then, in the orchestra pit, Kimmel directed the musicians to play off Damon as he was speaking before the winner was announced.
But it didn’t take long for Kimmel to learn that things don’t always go according to plan at the Oscars and some things are just out of the host’s control during the highly choreographed show. The night ended with “La La Land” mistakenly being announced as best picture instead of “Moonlight,” the actual winner.
Kevin Winter/Getty Images
The slipup resulted in the producers of “La La Land” going onstage and giving acceptance speeches as various officials gathered behind them to figure out what went wrong.
Amid the commotion, Kimmel was sitting in the audience next to Damon preparing to close out the show. “So we’re sitting there, and you just kind of figure, well, you know, the host will go onstage and clear this up,” Kimmel said later. “And then I remember, oh, I’m the host.”
The night ended with Kimmel reminding the audience that the Oscars is, after all, just an award show, and he made an offhand promise to never host again.
“I blame myself for this,” Kimmel told the audience. “… I knew I would screw this show up, I really did.”
It turned out the envelope that presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway opened onstage was a duplicate one for the best actress award, which went to Emma Stone of “La La Land” right before the best picture category.
Who hosted the Oscars in the past?
Kimmel’s fourth time hosting is unusual for the show in recent years. In his opening monologue in 2017, he said, “This is my first time here, and the way you people go through hosts, it’s probably my last time here.”
Whoopi Goldberg is the last person to host the show four times, tying Jack Lemmon and passing three-timers Jerry Lewis and David Niven in 2002. Johnny Carson has hosted five times, and Billy Crystal hosted for the ninth time in 2012.
Bob Hope holds the record for the most times as the Oscars’ master of ceremonies at 19, but hosts now rarely return to emcee after their first or second time.
Ten years ago, Ellen DeGeneres used her last time hosting the Oscars to set a record for the most retweets with a celebrity-packed selfie that included Bradley Cooper, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep.
Ellen DeGeneres/Twitter via Getty Images
But not all hosts’ performances work out.
In 2011, Anne Hathaway co-hosted the ceremony with James Franco in a widely panned performance that was an apparent attempt to attract younger viewers. Hathaway told “Entertainment Tonight” in 2019 that the hardest part about hosting is the day after the show and “finding out how you actually did.”
“Because it feels nice – everybody tells you it’s going well and then …,” Hathaway told ET.
In a video promoting Sunday night’s broadcast, best supporting actress nominee America Ferrera described what makes hosting the Oscars such a tightrope walk in a parody of a key speech her character gave in “Barbie.”
“You can never show off, never fall down, never fail, never show fear,” she tells Kimmel. “Nobody says thank you, and everyone has something critical to say online. If it goes well, no one says anything, but if it doesn’t, it’s your fault.”
(The video also takes a moment to let Kimmel, Ferrera and her co-stars Ryan Gosling and Kate McKinnon freak out over “Barbie” director Greta Gerwig not being nominated for best director.)
The Hollywood Reporter called being the Oscars host “the least wanted job in Hollywood” in 2018 following Kevin Hart’s sudden departure from emceeing the upcoming 2019 ceremony amid renewed criticism of past comments he made that were called homophobic.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ended up going without a host for the first time in 30 years and didn’t have an official host again until 2022, when Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes co-hosted the ceremony. However, the most-talked-about moment of the night ended up being Will Smith slapping Chris Rock in the face onstage over a joke Rock made about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith.
Here’s a complete list of Oscars hosts from the academy, including the emcees for both ceremonies that were held in 1930:
- 2023: Jimmy Kimmel
- 2022: Regina Hall, Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes
- 2021: No host
- 2020: No host
- 2019: No host
- 2018: Jimmy Kimmel
- 2017: Jimmy Kimmel
- 2016: Chris Rock
- 2015: Neil Patrick Harris
- 2014: Ellen DeGeneres
- 2013: Seth MacFarlane
- 2012: Billy Crystal
- 2011: James Franco and Anne Hathaway
Gabriel Bouys/AFP via Getty Images
- 2010: Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin
- 2009: Hugh Jackman
- 2008: Jon Stewart
- 2007: Ellen DeGeneres
- 2006: Jon Stewart
- 2005: Chris Rock
- 2004: Billy Crystal
- 2003: Steve Martin
- 2002: Whoopi Goldberg
- 2001: Steve Martin
- 2000: Billy Crystal
- 1999: Whoopi Goldberg
Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
- 1998: Billy Crystal
- 1997: Billy Crystal
- 1996: Whoopi Goldberg
- 1995: David Letterman
- 1994: Whoopi Goldberg
- 1993: Billy Crystal
- 1992: Billy Crystal
- 1991: Billy Crystal
- 1990: Billy Crystal
- 1989: No host
- 1988: Chevy Chase
- 1987: Chevy Chase, Goldie Hawn and Paul Hogan
- 1986: Alan Alda, Jane Fonda and Robin Williams
- 1985: Jack Lemmon, with co-hosts Candice Bergen, Jeff Bridges, Glenn Close, Michael Douglas, Gregory Hines, William Hurt, Amy Irving, Diana Ross, Tom Selleck and Kathleen Turner
- 1984: Johnny Carson
- 1983: Walter Matthau, Liza Minnelli, Dudley Moore and Richard Pryor
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
- 1982: Johnny Carson
- 1981: Johnny Carson
- 1980: Johnny Carson
- 1979: Johnny Carson
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
- 1978: Bob Hope
- 1977: Warren Beatty, Ellen Burstyn, Jane Fonda and Richard Pryor
- 1976: Goldie Hawn, Gene Kelly, Walter Matthau, George Segal and Robert Shaw
- 1975: Sammy Davis Jr., Bob Hope, Shirley MacLaine and Frank Sinatra
- 1974: John Huston, David Niven, Burt Reynolds and Diana Ross
- 1973: Carol Burnett, Michael Caine, Charlton Heston and Rock Hudson
Fairchild Archive/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images
- 1972: Sammy Davis Jr., Helen Hayes, Alan King and Jack Lemmon
- 1971: No host
- 1970: No host
- 1969: No host
- 1968: Bob Hope
Archive Photos/Getty Images
- 1967: Bob Hope
- 1966: Bob Hope
- 1965: Bob Hope
- 1964: Jack Lemmon
- 1963: Frank Sinatra
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images
- 1962: Bob Hope
- 1961: Bob Hope
- 1960: Bob Hope
- 1959: Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, David Niven, Laurence Olivier, Tony Randall and Mort Sahl
- 1958: Bob Hope, Jack Lemmon, David Niven, Rosalind Russell, James Stewart and Donald Duck
- 1957: Jerry Lewis, with Celeste Holm in New York
- 1956: Jerry Lewis, with Claudette Colbert and Joseph L. Mankiewicz in New York
- 1955: Bob Hope, with Thelma Ritter in New York
- 1954: Donald O’Connor, with Fredric March in New York
Archive Photos/Getty Images
- 1953: Bob Hope, with Conrad Nagel in New York
- 1952: Danny Kaye
- 1951: Fred Astaire
- 1950: Paul Douglas
- 1949: Robert Montgomery
- 1948: No host
- 1947: Jack Benny
- 1946: Bob Hope and James Stewart
- 1945: John Cromwell and Bob Hope
- 1944: Jack Benny
- 1943: Bob Hope
- 1942: Bob Hope
CBS via Getty Images
- 1941: Bob Hope
- 1940: Bob Hope
- 1939: Frank Capra
- 1938: Bob Burns
- 1937: George Jessel
- 1936: Frank Capra
- 1935: Irvin S. Cobb
- 1934: Will Rogers
- 1932: Conrad Nagel
- 1931: Lawrence Grant
- 1930: Conrad Nagel
- 1930: William C. DeMille
- 1929: Douglas Fairbanks and William C. DeMille
FPG/Getty Images
Who has been the best received Oscars host?
In a look back at the performances of past Oscars hosts, Elle gave top billing to Billy Crystal, highlighting how he would pretend to narrate celebrities’ inner-most thoughts as the camera closed in on different stars in the audience.
British newspaper the Independent hailed Bob Hope, noting that the academy bestowed him with an honorary award in 1966, when he was hosting for the 15th time. “You couldn’t tip me or anything, huh?” Hope said after receiving a gold medal from the academy’s president.
In 2020, Vogue included Whoopi Goldberg among its list of the seven best Oscars hosts, noting that she and Jack Lemmon are the only Academy Award winners to have hosted.
“No one can hold a room like Goldberg,” the magazine said.
How are Oscars hosts chosen?
Kimmel’s fourth time as host was announced by Academy CEO Bill Kramer and President Janet Yang in a statement, with Oscars executive producers Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan calling Kimmel “one of the all-time great Oscars hosts.”
Kimmel told entertainment news outlet Deadline that ABC — which has televised the Oscars for decades and broadcasts Kimmel’s late-night show — and Kramer wanted him to host again. Kimmel said Kramer’s enthusiasm played a part in his decision.
“I mean he really wanted me, and he wanted my wife Molly (McNearney) to executive produce, and he even wanted her to executive produce if I wasn’t hosting the show, and you know, that stuff ultimately means something,” Kimmel said.
Kimmel also left the door open to possibly coming back for a fifth time.
“I would never be so presumptuous as to assume that they would want me back year after year after year,” Kimmel told Deadline, “but this year, they wanted me, and they asked me, and so, I’m definitely going to do this one.”
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Hamas leader in Lebanon killed in airstrike as Israel says it killed a 7th Hezbollah commander
The Palestinian militant group Hamas said an Israeli airstrike Monday killed its leader in Lebanon.
Hamas said Fatah Sharif and his family were killed in the strike on the Al-Buss refugee camp in the southern port city of Tyre.
In the past week, Israel has frequently targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence – including a major strike on Friday that killed Hezbollah’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
But on Monday, the first apparent Israeli airstrike on central Beirut in nearly a year of conflict leveled an apartment building.
Houssam Shbaro / Anadolu via Getty Images
It came after Israel hit targets across Lebanon in the past few days and killed dozens of people, with Hezbollah sustaining heavy blows to its command structure, including Nasrallah’s death.
Israeli officials had no immediate comment.
The airstrike hit in central Beirut a multistory residential building, according to an Associated Press journalist at the scene. Videos showed ambulances and a crowd gathered near the building in a mainly Sunni district with a busy thoroughfare lined with shops.
The airstrike killed at least one person and wounded 16, an official with Lebanese Civil Defense said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media. He said the person killed was a member of the al-Jamaa al-Islamiya, or the Islamic Group, a Sunni political and militant group allied with Hezbollah.
A Palestinian leftist faction in Lebanon said three of its members were killed in the airstrike. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said in a statement early Monday that its military and security commanders in Lebanon and a third member were killed in the attack.
Houssam Shbaro / Anadolu via Getty Images
Neither militant group has played a significant role in the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
Earlier, Hezbollah confirmed that Nabil Kaouk, the deputy head of its Central Council, was killed Saturday, making him the seventh senior Hezbollah leader killed in Israeli strikes in a little over a week. They include the group’s founding members who had evaded death or detention for decades.
Hezbollah also confirmed that Ali Karaki, another senior commander, died in the strike that killed Nasrallah. Israel says at least 20 other Hezbollah militants were killed, including one in charge of Nasrallah’s security detail.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least 105 people were killed around the country in airstrikes Sunday. Two strikes near the southern city of Sidon, about 28 miles south of Beirut, killed at least 32 people, the ministry said. Separately, Israeli strikes in the northern province of Baalbek Hermel killed 21 people and wounded at least 47.
Lebanese media reported dozens of strikes in the central, eastern and western Bekaa and in the south, besides strikes on Beirut. Israel says it targets militants, but the strikes have hit buildings where civilians were living and the death toll was expected to rise.
In a video of a strike in Sidon, verified by the AP, a building swayed before collapsing as neighbors filmed it. One TV station called on viewers to pray for a family caught under the rubble, posting their pictures, as rescuers failed to reach them. The Lebanese Health Ministry reported at least 14 medics were killed over two days in the south.
President Biden said Sunday he would speak soon with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and believes an all-out war in the Middle East must be avoided. “It has to be,” Mr. Biden told reporters at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware as he boarded Air Force One to head to Washington.
Biden says Nasrallah’s death is a “measure of justice”
On Saturday, Mr. Biden said Nasrallah‘s death in the Israeli airstrike was a “measure of justice” for his many victims.
In a statement released by the White House, Mr. Biden said. “Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror,” including thousands of Israelis and Lebanese civilians.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Sunday that Israel’s airstrikes in Lebanon had “wiped out” Hezbollah’s command structure, but he warned the group will work quickly to rebuild it.
“I think people are safer without him walking around,” Kirby said of Nasrallah. “But they will try to recover. We’re watching to see what they do to try to fill this leadership vacuum. It’s going to be tough. … Much of their command structure has now been wiped out.”
Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Kirby sidestepped questions about whether the Biden administration agrees with how the Israelis are targeting Hezbollah leaders. The White House continues to call on Israel and Hezbollah to agree to a 21-day temporary cease-fire floated by the U.S., France and other countries during the U.N. General Assembly last week.
Meanwhile, wreckage from Friday’s strike that killed Nasrallah was still smoldering. Smoke rose over the rubble as people flocked to the site, some to check on what was left of their homes and others to pay respects, pray or simply to see the destruction.
In response to the dramatic escalation in Israeli strikes on Lebanon, Hezbollah significantly increased its rocket attacks in the past week, from several dozen to several hundred daily, the Israeli military said. The attacks injured several people and caused damage, but most of the rockets and drones were intercepted by Israel’s air defense systems or fell in open areas.
The army says its strikes have degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities and the number of launches would be much higher if Hezbollah hadn’t been hit.
Israel says it hit Houthi targets
Also on Sunday, the Israeli military said dozens of its aircraft struck Houthi targets in Yemen in response to a recent attack. The military said it targeted power plants and sea port facilities in the city of Hodeida.
The Houthis launched a ballistic missile attack toward Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Saturday when Netanyahu was arriving. The Houthi media office said the Israeli strikes hit the Hodeida and Rass Issa ports, along with two power plants in Hodeida city, a stronghold for the Iranian-backed rebels. The Houthi-run Health Ministry said the strikes killed four people and wounded 40 others.
The Houthis claimed they took precautionary measures ahead of the strikes, emptying oil stored in the ports, according to Nasruddin Ammer, deputy director of the Houthi media office. He said in a post on X that the strikes won’t stop the rebels’ attacks on shipping routes and on Israel.
A wave of Israeli airstrikes across large parts of Lebanon have killed more than 1,030 people – including 156 women and 87 children – in less than two weeks, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes. The government estimates around 250,000 are in shelters, with three to four times as many staying with friends or relatives, or camping out on the streets.
Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group and political party backed by Iran, Israel’s chief regional rival, rose to regional prominence after fighting a devastating monthlong war with Israel in 2006 that ended in a draw.
Kaouk was a veteran member of Hezbollah going back to the 1980s and served as Hezbollah’s military commander in southern Lebanon during the 2006 war with Israel. The United States announced sanctions against him in 2020.
Hezbollah began firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza triggered the war there. Hezbollah and Hamas are allies that consider themselves part of an Iran-backed “Axis of Resistance” against Israel.
The conflict has steadily ratcheted up to the brink of all-out war, raising fears of a region-wide conflagration.
Israel says it is determined to return some 60,000 of its citizens to communities in the north that were evacuated nearly a year ago. Hezbollah has said it will only halt its rocket fire if there is a cease-fire in Gaza, which has proven elusive despite months of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas led by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.