The Party Report: Oscars 2024 Mixes Fashion, Food and Superstars

There’s nothing quite like the days leading up to the Academy Awards in Hollywood, as the parties begin midweek and reach a crescendo on Oscar Sunday. This year saw some stalwarts fade away and new traditions begin, while the most hush-hush bashes like Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s annual Chateau Marmont late-night fête and Madonna and Guy Oseary’s 16th “The Party” nightcapper (sponsored by Gucci) ban photography, even by invited guests.

But we hear the world’s most famous couple, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce, blew in for Madonna’s A-list Coldwater Canyon extravaganza, joining winners, nominees and other famous faces hanging out into the wee hours. Here are more of our favorite parties where photos (and press) are allowed.

The Governors Ball at the 96th Annual Academy Awards

Dolby Theatre, Hollywood

The first stop after Best Picture is awarded is always the Governors Ball, hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. All the winners turn up to get their statues engraved; this year, that meant the “Oppenheimer” freight train rolled into its last stop of the 2023 movie awards season.

First-time winners included the film’s Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas, Cillian Murphy and Jennifer Lame, as “Oppenheimer” took home seven trophies. Emma Stone’s onstage Louis Vuitton dress emergency was repaired by the time the Best Actress winner arrived; and Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Best Supporting Actress trophy complemented her Louis Vuitton gown nicely, as both women ultimately found good luck with that couture brand.

Everyone fueled up with Wolfgang Puck’s sublime bites, including paella, pasta and his signature pizzas, then it was off to make the rounds, as viewing soirées across the City of Angels turned into after parties – that started at the very early hour of 8 p.m., due to the early start of this year’s show.

Elton John AIDS Foundation 32nd Annual Academy Awards Viewing Party

West Hollywood Park, West Hollywood

Elton John is standing better than he ever did after pulling out all the stops at his 32nd annual Academy Awards viewing party with cohosts David Furnish, Neil Patrick Harris, David Burtka and Tiffany Haddish, together raising a record $10.8 million for his namesake AIDS research foundation to “end AIDS for all.”

TheWrap was in the midst of the scene for the flashy fête and auctions’ after party, held in an impressively constructed event space and featuring bite-sized desserts, two bustling open bars and a show-stopping, soulful performance from Gabriels in the main banquet hall, which capped with a surprise appearance from John himself singing 1978’s little-known “Are You Ready for Love.”

Guests like pop stars Kesha and Avril Lavigne were seen embracing outside the dining room with Kyle Richards along for the ride, then that trio made their way to the dance hall under a massive, mirrored disco ball as Beyoncé’s “Renaissance” played overhead. We spotted Billy Eichner winding through the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd to the bar featuring cocktails from Tequila Don Julio, a brand bent on sponsoring every single Oscar party. Taylor Swift-approved rock trio Muna, meanwhile, held court in the back corner while eager partiers waited for their Hollywood moment in the event’s speakeasy-themed photo booth.

Other familiar partygoers ran the gamut of music industry royalty (Toni Braxton, Brandi Carlile, Smokey Robinson and Elton John’s longtime collaborator, lyricist Bernie Taupin), screen-acting favorites (Danny DeVito, Sharon Stone, Patricia Arquette) and many more. – Benjamin Lindsay

2024 Vanity Fair Oscar Party

Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, Beverly Hills

Vanity Fair’s Oscar party always causes a crazy traffic jam in Beverly Hills, as winners, former winners, ever-hopefuls, ingenues and anyone else who can score the hot ticket gather at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts for the massive indoor-outdoor celebration. It’s a bit surreal to see the world’s most beautiful people standing patiently in line to pose on the massive red carpet, but fun to see which women did a Houdini-like quick change into a whole new ensemble, makeup look and hairstyle.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph switched up her look, with hair piled high and a form-fitting Valdrin Sahiti strapless black gown and black lipstick to match, while Rita Moreno, the nonagenarian EGOT winner (having earned the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award) in the crowd, stuck with her ruffled black Badgley Mischka look from the show. John Legend, another member of the EGOT club (there have only been 19 people who have ever achieved that milestone), went with a traditional black tuxedo with his gorgeous wife Chrissy Teigen on his arm.

Previous Oscar winners Jennifer Lawrence and Matthew McConaughey had a happy moment on the VF carpet, too, helping to celebrate 30 years of this iconic event, along with the countless others who made sure to make the legendary party. See a full gallery of arrivals here and then for fun, compare to what they wore to the Academy Awards show here.

DirecTV Streaming With the Stars Oscar Viewing Party

Spago Restaurant, Beverly Hills

DirecTV started a new Oscar-night tradition this year by hosting their first annual Streaming With the Stars Oscar Viewing party. They started out with a bang, combining a perfect place – Wolfgang Puck’s iconic Spago restaurant in Beverly Hills – with a host whose Academy Awards history is legendary.

Rob Lowe was 35 years old in 1989, with a successful film career and a huge fan following. Then Alan Carr, the producer of that year’s Oscar show, had a brainstorm and convinced Lowe to jump into an 11-minute opening musical number, singing and dancing alongside Snow White and a multitudinous cast of other characters. And the rest is history, as that has long been considered the biggest fiasco in the history of the Academy Awards.

“I flash back on it every year, every Oscar Sunday,” he told TheWrap with a hearty laugh. “It’s impossible to forget. And I was probably the only one who gave Will Smith a standing ovation when he smacked the shit out of Chris Rock, because instantly I wasn’t the biggest fiasco of the Oscars any more!”

Lowe, who’s been known to be the DirecTV spokesman in the past (along with his doppelgänger “super creepy Rob Lowe”) brought his son to the bash, joining a gaggle of “Real Housewives” from various cities including Erika Jayne, Guerdy Abraria, Lesa Milan and Kelly Bensamon, and other familiar faces like Paula Abdul and Audrina Patridge. From caviar by Meredith Marks to Champagne by Dom Perignon and Spago’s luscious bites – plus popcorn and candy, too – DirecTV’s first venture into Oscar celebrations was a culinary winner.

Women in Film

Catch Steak Restaurant, Los Angeles

Women in Film threw its 17th Oscar Nominees Party ahead of the 96th Annual Academy Awards, with a celebration held at Catch Steak Los Angeles, honoring the 75 Oscar nominations garnered by women in front of and behind the camera.

Sponsored by Johnnie Walker, the bash offered themed drinks like “77 Pear-fect Nominees,” as well as sublime appetizers to soak up all that scotch, before all of the nominated women on hand gathered onstage to introduce themselves and announce their nominations.

WIF CEO Kirsten Schaffer pointed out that only three women in history have won the Oscar for Best Directing, yet still only one — which wasn’t Greta Gerwig for “Barbie,” the billion-dollar-plus blockbuster — was nominated this year. That was Justine Triet for “Anatomy of a Fall.”

“We’re rooting for you, Justine!” Schaffer proclaimed.

“I don’t know why they gave me a mic, but I’m Danielle Brooks,” “The Color Purple” star and Best Supporting Actress nominee Danielle Brooks said with a laugh. Other Hollywood women (and men, too) who filled the party to capacity included Celine Song, Eva Longoria, Gloria Calderón Kellett, Anna Sophia Robb, Mayan Lopez, Sherry Cola, Dylan Mulvaney, Diane Warren, Cara Jade Myers, Jeffrey Wright and many more.

“There’s so many women nominated this year that we can’t fit them all on the stage!” Schaffer exclaimed. – Dessi Gomez

The 18th Annual Oscar Wilde Awards

Bad Robot Studio, Santa Monica

Every year during the lead-in to Oscar Sunday, the Irish, Irish-Americans and the people who love them gather in Los Angeles to rejoice in the unique creativity that emanates from the Emerald Isle. It’s also a celebration of the longstanding U.S.-Ireland Alliance created by the org’s president, Trina Vargo, to encourage Hollywood’s decision-makers to bring film and TV production to Ireland.

“Oppenheimer” Best Actor Oscar winner Cillian Murphy popped by, as did other Irish-born 2024 nominees including Ed Guiney and Andrew Lowe, whose “Poor Things” was nominated for Best Picture. But all eyes were on the three honorees – Richie Baneham, Pierce Brosnan and Molly Shannon – and their famous friends, as guests packed in a bit too close on the top floor of Bad Robot, J.J. Abrams’ studio in Santa Monica, shivering in the cold.

Three-time Oscar winner James Cameron began the ceremonies with a laugh, saying, “This is the Oscar Wilde Award, which is probably the closest I’m going to get to an Oscar after my whole ‘king of the world’ thing!” The Canadian (and Scottish) auteur was there to award Baneham with the Oscar Wilde, honoring the Irishman who has supervised animation and VFX on Cameron’s “Avatar” films since 2005.

Roma Downey then took the mic to wax ecstatic over Brosnan, the night’s second awardee; both remembered their childhoods in Ireland and the lure of Hollywood that brought them both to living permanently in L.A.

“I have been an actor all my life,” Brosnan mused, “a working actor is what I am. And I wish all the young men and women here tonight who have dreams of creating a career, I wish them every success.”

With pints of Guinness and drams of Writers Tears Whiskey to warm them up, the party rollicked on, as Maura Tierney, Donal Logue, Lily Rabe, Hamish Linklater, Miss Universe Ireland Fionnghuala O’Reilly and many other of Ireland’s finest enjoyed their special night out on the town.

GBK Brand Bar’s 15th Annual Oscar Luxury Lounge

Beverly Wilshire Hotel, Beverly Hills

There were lots of luxury gifting suites all over town on the days leading up to Oscar Sunday, from WOW to Ignite: A Fire Gifting Lounge to Ecoluxe to Babor’s Oscar Retreat up in the hills and DPA’s soirée at Anahit Ghazaryan’s Beverly Hills atelier, but the only one to draw big guns like EGOT winner Viola Davis and Emmy and Tony winner Neil Patrick Harris was the GBK Brand Bar, celebrating its 15th year as grandaddy of them all.

It’s no wonder the Hollywood stars and Oscar nominees turn up at GBK. This year’s celebration gifted over $100,000 worth of luxury goods, with travel packages leading the way. Who doesn’t want to go to Uganda to see the gorillas with Lush African Safari, head off to Greece to enjoy Andronis Arcadia and Gundari resorts or escape to Turks and Caicos to discover Sailrock Resort’s beautiful luxury beachfront villas?

And, as Cheech Marin, Ricki Lake, Storm Reid, Cedric the Entertainer, Christopher McDonald and a host of 2024 Oscar nominees including Nazrin Choudhury, Tal Kantor, Amrit Gicelter and Misan Harriman discovered, there were Ike’s Love and Sandwiches and California Caviar to nosh on, paired with Fog Crest Wines and DeBrand Fine Chocolates – plus many more gifts to enjoy, too.

And there were puppies as part of the charity initiative always present at GBK lounges, which raised over $80,000 benefiting Angel City Pit Bulls, Paws for Life K9 Rescue, Food on Foot and The Collective Identity Mentoring.

Saint Laurent x Vanity Fair x NBCUniversal “Oppenheimer” Party / Giorgio Armani Oscar Party Honoring Martin Scorsese

YSL at a Private Residence/Giorgio Armani, Beverly Hills

Haute couture has always been at the heart of the Academy Awards experience, and as the years go by, more and more top designers are having ultra-chic, ultra-private soirées that remind the A-listers in town for Oscar weekend that their looks are the top fashion-forward choices. It’s especially true in recent times, as stars have begun to wear one ensemble to the actual Academy Awards show, then do one – or even two – quick changes as they flit from one high-profile after party to another.

This Oscar week brought two of the world’s most famous labels to the scene, as Saint Laurent joined forces with Vanity Fair and NBCUniversal on Friday night to honor “Oppenheimer” with a very posh dinner at an unnamed private residence.

Naturally, members of the “Oppenhomie” gang turned up, with Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr. and Josh Hartnett on the scene, along with Channing Tatum and Zöe Kravitz, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sharon Stone, Donald Glover, Jon Hamm, and “The Holdovers” newcomer Dominic Sessa. Saint Laurent clad most of the big names, of course!

And then on Saturday evening, it was time for Giorgio Armani’s Oscar Party salute to Martin Scorsese, as Roberta Armani invited her A-list friends to the Armani atelier on Rodeo Drive for cocktails and a look at the latest styles. Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” nominees Lily Gladstone, Robert De Niro and Cara Jade Myers all wore their Armani finery, as did Nicolas Cage, Willem Dafoe, Sissy Spacek and Jeffrey Wright as they all mixed and mingled.

Please send party/event invites to Jenny.Peters@TheWrap.com.

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