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You'll be the most in-the-know person at your Oscar party this year.
1. This won't be Will Smith's first time boycotting an awards show.
In 1989, he won the first-ever rap Grammy for "Parents Just Don't Understand," but refused to attend the show because the rap category would not be televised. He's bailing on the Oscars this year to protest the lack of racial diversity among the awards nominees.
2. If Eddie Redmayne wins for <I>The Danish Girl</I>, it will be the third time an actor has won for portraying a transgender character.
Hilary Swank won for Boys Don't Cry and Jared Leto won for Dallas Buyers Club.
3. Jennifer Lawrence is the youngest person to receive four acting nominations.
At 25, Lawrence, who's up for Best Actress for Joy and won three years ago for Silver Linings Playbook, broke the record held by Jennifer Jones, who was 27 when she received her fourth nomination for Duel in the Sun in 1947. Lawrence is also the youngest to earn three nominations, which she achieved at 23 with her supporting nomination for American Hustle.
4. The Weeknd is the first black Canadian to ever be nominated for Best Original Song.
He's up for "Earned It" from 50 Shades of Grey.
5. This is the second time costume designer Sandy Powell, nominated for Cinderella and Carol, is competing against herself.
Seventeen years ago, Powell's work in Shakespeare in Love beat her costumes for Velvet Goldmine. She has won three Oscars total.
6. This year's Oscar statuettes will be 3D-printed.
The new company making them, Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry, is basing them off the original statuettes given out in 1929, using digital scans and 3D printers to create exact replicas. The trophy will still be plated in 24-karat gold, of course.
7. Two actors who were once attached to Steve Jobs are nominated for other movies.
Before Best Actor nominee Michael Fassbender ultimately played the Apple co-founder, both Leonardo DiCaprio and Christian Bale were in talks for the film before passing on it. DiCaprio is up for Best Actor for The Revenant, while Bale is nominated for Best Supporting Actor for The Big Short.
8. The only people nominated for an Academy Award for Straight Outta Compton are white.
They're the screenwriters, Jonathan Herman, Andrea Berloff, S. Leigh Savidge and Alan Wenkus.
9. Marlon Brando lost both of his Oscars.
As in, he literally lost the physical statues. In his autobiography, he admitted he had misplaced his Best Actor award for On the Waterfront, and said he wasn't sure if he ever received the statue he had Sacheen Littlefeather accept on his behalf for The Godfather.
10. Only one Bond theme has ever won Best Song.
"Skyfall" won in 2013, while the iconic "Goldfinger" wasn't even nominated in 1965. "Writing's on the Wall" from Spectre is a contender for the prize this year.
11. The Oscar statuette weighs 8.5 pounds.
So when the recipients say, "Wow, this is so heavy!" they're not kidding.
12. Six Best Picture winners have made clean sweeps -- winning every award for which they were nominated.
They are Wings (2 for 2), Grand Hotel (1 for 1), It Happened One Night (5 for 5), Gigi (9 for 9), The Last Emperor (9 for 9) and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (11 for 11).
13. Until 1989, presenters said "And the winner is…" But they don't say that anymore.
Since then, they've phrased it as, "And the Oscars goes to...". In 2010, producers brought back "And the winner is...," but it only lasted that year.
14. Katharine Hepburn won four acting Oscars -- the record -- but never attended a ceremony to receive one.
The only time she attended the Oscars was to present the Irving G. Thalberg Award to Lawrence Weingarten in 1974. "I'm the living proof that a person can wait 41 years to be unselfish," she said onstage.
15. This is Bryan Cranston's first-ever Academy Award nomination.
He's up for Best Actor for Trumbo. If he wins, he'd only need a Grammy to complete the EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony).
16. Anomalisa was funded on Kickstarter.
The Best Animated Feature Film nominee raised more than $400,000 on the crowdfunding platform, prompting the filmmakers to expand it from a short film to a feature-length one.
17. This is Leonardo DiCaprio's fourth Best Actor nomination.
He's up for The Revenant. The other three were for The Aviator, Blood Diamond and The Wolf of Wall Street. His first nomination was for Best Supporting Actor for What's Eating Gilbert Grape. He was also nominated as a producer on Best Picture nominee The Wolf of Wall Street. He has never won, but this might finally be his year.
18. Shaun the Sheep, nominated for Best Animated Feature Film, has no dialogue.
The only completely silent film to win an Oscar was the first Best Picture winner Wings. The Artist took home Best Picture in 2012 and has no dialogue until the very end, though it did have a score and some sound effects.
19. Lin-Manuel Miranda, Lily Tomlin, Audra McDonald, Dick Van Dyke, Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Cynthia Nixon are all just one Oscar short of getting the EGOT.
Composers Martin Charnin, John Kander and Charles Strouse, and producer Anne Garefino are also an Oscar away from an EGOT. Cross your fingers that Hamilton gets a movie deal!
20. Speaking of EGOT: Kate Winslet, Cher, Martin Scorsese, Liza Minnelli, Helen Mirren, Alan Menken, and Elton John are also each one statue short of it.
They all have Oscars, but Winslet, Cher and Scorsese need a Tony; Minnelli and Mirren need a Grammy; and John and Menken need an Emmy.
21. Gone with the Wind's Hattie McDaniel was the first black person to win an acting Oscar.
She won Best Supporting Actress in 1940. Since then, 13 other black performers have won; Denzel Washington is the only one to win two.
22. As of 2012, 94 percent of Academy voters were white.
When the #OscarsSoWhite controversy entered its second year in 2016, Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs announced sweeping changes to membership rules, hoping to lead to more diverse nominees in coming years.
23. The very first Academy Award winners were notified by telegram.
Winners were informed three months before the first ceremony, which was held May 16, 1929.
24. No film has ever won all four awards for acting.
Of the 15 films that have received acting nominations in all four categories, My Man Godfrey, Sunset Boulevard and American Hustle are the only ones not to win any, while A Streetcar Named Desire and Network each took home three in 1951 and 1976, respectively.
25. An ad price for the 2015 Oscars cost $1.95 million per spot.
Thirty-seven million people tuned in for the broadcast last year.
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