How to watch the Oscars for free: Live stream the 94th Academy Awards anywhere in the world
The 2022 Oscars take place this Sunday 27 March. Here's how to watch it for free anywhere in the world
The 94th Annual Academy Awards is all set for Sunday 27 March 2022, in Los Angeles. Coverage from the red carpet will begin at 11pm UK time, with the prestigious award ceremony starting at 1am UK time in the wee hours of Monday morning.
There are two ways to watch this year’s Oscars for free regardless of where in the world you live. US viewers can watch the 2022 Academy Awards on ABC by subscribing to Hulu + Live TV (free trial for new customers). You can access the service from abroad using a good VPN service, like ExpressVPN or NordVPN (both offer month-long free trials for new customers). Meanwhile, UK viewers can watch the entire ceremony on Sky Cinema or via a Now TV Cinema Membership (with a seven-day free trial).
After last year’s temporary relocation to the Los Angeles’ Union train station due to Coronavirus, this year sees the return to the red-carpeted home of the Academy Awards: Dolby Theatre. Another change is with hosting duties which, for the first time since 2018, have an official lineup rather than different stars introducing select awards. Actress Regina Hall, comedian Amy Schumer, and all-around entertainer Wanda Sykes make up the hosting team for 2022, which is also the first all-female lineup ever.
But the films are the real reason everyone is watching. This year, the most nominated movies include The Power of the Dog with 12 nominations, Dune with 10, and West Side Story with seven. Director of The Power of the Dog, Jane Campion, is up for the Best Director award alongside Paul Thomas Anderson for Licorice Pizza and Sir Kenneth Branagh for Belfast.
In the best actress category, Britain’s Olivia Coleman received her third nomination alongside a star-studded field of Nicole Kidman, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Stewart and Penelope Cruz. Meanwhile, there are also British hopes in the best actor category with Benedict Cumberbatch up for his role in The Power of the Dog alongside Andrew Garfield who is widely tipped to win for his starring role in Tick, Tick… Boom!. The other front runner is Will Smith, who would be winning the first Oscar of his career for King Richard, following two previous best actor nominations.
Big names also fill up this year’s musical nominations, including Beyoncé and Darius Scott for King Richard’s ‘Be Alive’, Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell for James Bond’s ‘No Time to Die’, and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s infectious ear-worm ‘Dos Oruguitas’ from the Encanto soundtrack.
On the night, a whole host of other awards are set to be given out too, so if you want to catch all the Academy Award-winning action, read on below for details on how to watch the show where you are.
How to watch the Oscars in the UK: Sky Cinema
If you happen to have a Sky TV subscription, you’re in luck because the TV and broadband giant holds the exclusive rights to air the Oscars in the UK, as it has done for the past few years. This year, the ceremony will once again be aired on the company’s dedicated Sky Cinema Oscars HD channel. This will be followed by a highlights package on Sky Max at a later date.
To access this, you’ll need to add Sky Cinema to your existing Sky TV package, which will currently set you back an extra £11/mth on top of whatever you’re already paying for your existing Sky TV subscription.
Apart from this Sunday’s Academy Awards, the channel is airing all the major Oscar-nominated films for the next few weeks. This means you can feast your eyes on previous year’s Oscar winners, including Titanic, Bohemian Rhapsody, Walk The Line and A Star is Born – and thousands of other films until 31 March. Alternatively, if you already have a Sky TV subscription, then you can watch the entire Oscar ceremony on Sky Go on your PC or mobile phone.
How to watch Oscars for free in the UK: Now Cinema Membership
If you don’t want to commit to Sky Cinema’s long-term contracts, then your best option to watch the Oscars this year is to subscribe to Now Cinema Membership. This costs £9.99/mth but comes with a 7-day trial for new customers to give you a taster of what Now has to offer, meaning you can watch the action for FREE – so long as you cancel your subscription thereafter.
The build-up starts at 11pm before the main event begins at 1am on Monday, 30 March. The coverage is scheduled to finish at 4.15am.
How to watch Oscars for free in the US: Hulu + Live TV
The 94th Academy Awards ceremony will begin at a more favourable 8pm EST/5pm PCT in the US on Sunday, 27 March. ABC will broadcast live coverage of the entire ceremony. There are different ways to get access to this channel, including the Hulu+ Live TV Plan, fuboTV and YouTube TV. All three services give you instant access to multiple channels and all have a free trial for new customers. If you’re not bothered about watching the event live, it will also be available to stream on Monday, 28 March via a regular Hulu subscription.
How to watch the Oscars for free abroad: use a good VPN
You’ll find that all of the above streaming services are geo-blocked, which means that you won’t be able to watch the Oscars if you’re outside the US or UK unless you use a good VPN service. If that’s applicable to you, we recommend subscribing to a VPN service because – apart from letting you access geo-blocked content from abroad – a good VPN encrypts your IP address, thereby keeping all your browsing activity private from everyone, including your ISP.
READ NEXT: Best VPN services
ExpressVPN: When choosing a VPN for streaming, there simply isn’t a better option than ExpressVPN due to its ability to bypass the geo-blocking of streaming services without a hitch. With more than 3,000 servers in 94 countries, you’ll be able to stream at a fast enough pace to keep up with the live Oscars action this year wherever you are – and across five devices should you so choose. Even better still, you’ll get 3 months free if you follow the link below, saving a massive 49% on the total cost. But, should you find the service isn’t to your taste, there’s a lengthy 30-days no-questions-asked moneyback guarantee.
Read our full ExpressVPN review for more details
NordVPN: While ExpressVPN is a top tier option for streaming, our favourite all-around package comes from NordVPN which shares many of the same features and more. What makes this VPN ideal for watching the 94th Academy Awards is its exceptionally fast speeds. Using a 200Mbits/sec fibre line, we found impressive download speeds of 182Mbits/sec from NordVPN’s US servers. Everything is secure too since NordVPN is based in Panama meaning your data is well beyond the reach of any authorities, plus there’s built-in ad and malware blocking so you’ll stay safe online.
Read our full NordVPN review for more details
