‘Black Panther’ Just Won Marvel Studios Its First Ever Oscars

Marvel Studios has accomplished a lot in its first decade of moviemaking. Twenty movies, $17 billion earend in worldwide box office, dozens of stars made, and hundreds of memeable moments. But there’s one major movie moment it’s missed out on year after year: an Oscar win.

That all changed tonight as Black Panther snatched the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, earning Marvel Studios its first ever Oscar win. Ruth E. Carter won for her work on the game-changing film, having previously been nominated for her work on Malcolm X and Amistad.

“Marvel may have created the first black superhero, but through costume design we turned him into an African king,” said Carter while accepting the trophy. “Thank you for honoring African royalty and the empowering way that women can look and lead on screen.”

Black Panther beat out The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, The Favourite, Mary Poppins Returns, and Mary Queen of Scots for the prize, scoring a major achievement for the era-defining movie studio. This is Marvel’s first nomination in the Best Costume Design category and its first win. Immediately after, Hannah Beachler and Jay Hart won for Production Design, upping Marvel and Black Panther’s award count to 2.

Marvel’s actually a major player tonight, more so than it’s ever been before. Two Marvel Studios films, Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War, earned nominations tonight (7 for the former and 1 for the latter). This is by far Marvel’s best showing at the Oscars, but they’re no stranger to the ceremony (they’re just a stranger to the Oscar stage).

Half of Marvel’s 20 movies have been nominated for Oscars, racking up a total of 18 nominations; 7 of those were for Black Panther this year. Marvel’s first movie, Iron Man, scored two nominations at the 2009 ceremonies, one for Sound Editing and one for Visual Effects. Since then, Iron Man 2, Marvel’s The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 were all nominated for Visual Effects, but none won. Avengers: Infinity War is nominated for Visual Effects tonight.

UPDATE: Later in the night, Ludwig Göransson won Black Panther’s third Oscar, this time for Best Original Score.