Hulu left film fans seething Sunday night after a glitch-filled livestream of the Academy Awards shut down suddenly for many viewers during a pivotal moment.
Just as two-time Oscar winner Emma Stone was about to present the award for Best Actress ― and before the Best Picture presentation ― the feed cut off for a number of viewers.
Instead of seeing the winner, they got a message claiming the event had ended:
Best Actress, for those who missed it on Hulu, went to Mikey Madison for “Anora,” which also won Best Picture a few minutes later in a moment that many Hulu viewers also missed.
The cutoff ironically came moments after Sean Baker, who won Best Director for “Anora,” delivered an impassioned plea for film lovers to return to movie theaters and for distributors to ensure their pictures play on the big screen rather than going right to streaming services.
While some people reported no interruptions in service, others complained of glitches, login problems and other errors throughout the night ― and based on the social media reaction, the outage during Best Actress may have been the most widespread of all.
Hulu said on its Twitter feed that its tech team made “some backend changes to get things back up and running,” but many still couldn’t play it ― with some reporting that the event had disappeared off the Hulu page altogether.
Hulu, which is owned by Disney, began trending fast as outraged fans took their anger onto social media: