Oscars Time: When to Watch 2019 Academy Awards

The 91st Academy Awards, honoring the best films of 2018, kicks off on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

This is the second consecutive Oscars ceremony to begin at 8 p.m. ET instead of 8:30 p.m. The Academy and ABC moved up the show last year in an effort to make sure it ended before midnight on the East Coast.

ABC will begin red carpet coverage at 6:30 p.m. ET. After the show wraps, ABC will air a special preview episode of its new dramedy Whisky Cavalier with True Blood‘s Scott Foley and former Walking Dead star Lauren Cohan.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences made efforts to keep the show at three hours after last year’s three-hour-and-53-minute epic was the least-watched Oscars ceremony in history, but most of these plans backfired. Ideas to hand out four awards during commercial breaks and only having two of the five Best Original Song nominees performed were both nixed.

However, producers Glenn Weiss and Donna Gigliotti hope limiting winners to just 90-second acceptance speeches will help keep things moving.

“This is what we say: we’ve asked the people to stick to the 90 second rule from the time the name of call to the time they exit the stage they have 90 seconds,” Gigliotti told Good Morning America. “We are asking them to do that because it is a kindness to the people that are following them, so everybody else is going to fall into the same pattern.”

“They asked us for a three hour show, and we’re going to try,” Gigliotti added. “Everybody will go to bed at a reasonable hour.”

This is also the first Oscars ceremony without a host since the disastrous and critically panned 1989 ceremony, which opened with the infamous Snow White and Rob Lowe number. Comedian Kevin Hart was picked, but resigned after old homophobic jokes resurfaced.

Last year’s ceremony opened with an 18-minute introduction and monologue from host Jimmy Kimmel. By contrast, this year will only open with a performance from Queen and Adam Lambert.

The ceremony will include performances of four Best Original Song nominees. Jennifer Hudson will sing “I’ll Fight” from RBG, while Gillian Welch and David Rawlings will perform their song from The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, “When A Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings.” Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga will sing “Shallow” from A Star Is Born, while Bette Midler will sing “The Place Where Lost Things Go” from Mary Poppins Returns. Black Panther‘s “All The Stars” is not being performed since Kendrick Lamar is not attending.

Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic will perform during the “in memoriam” tribute.

The 2018 Best Picture field includes Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Green Book, Roma, Vice and A Star Is Born. Roma and The Favourite are tied for the most-nominated films each with 10, while A Star Is Born and Vice earned eight each. Black Panther, the first superhero movie nominated for Best Picture, earned seven nominations.

The nominees for Best Actor are Christian Bale (Vice); Cooper (A Star Is Born); Willem Dafoe (At Eternity’s Gate); Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody); and Viggo Mortensen (Green Book). The nominees for Best Actress are Yalitza Aparicio (Roma); Glenn Close (The Wife); Olivia Colman (The Favourite); Gaga (A Star Is Born); and Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me?).

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