Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel has opened the 96th Annual Academy Awards with a bang!

Sitting on the infamous Barbie bench with Margot Robbie, who tells him “You’re beautiful” before he says he is “hungry” and “had to go host the Oscars.

“Thank you for having me back and congratulations to each and every one of you for making it to the Academy Awards. And for making it on time. The show, as you know, is starting an hour early this year, but don’t worry, it will still end very, very late. In fact, we’re already five minutes over and I am not joking.”

Jimmy wasted no time in throwing shade at Madame Webb before celebrating the “biggest movie of the year, Barbie”.

While he said that Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie had won something better than an Oscar, the “genetic lottery”, he also told off the crowd — who were the ones who voted — for cheering when he said that people thought Greta Gerwig should have scored a nomination.

“Now Barbie is a feminist icon, thanks to Greta Gerwig, who many believed deserved to be nominated for best director tonight.”

“Hold on a second. I know you’re clapping, but you’re the ones who didn’t vote for her, by the way. Don’t act like you had nothing to do with this.”

Kimmel then poked fun at Robert Downey Jr. saying this was “the highest point” of his “long and illustrious career”; before saying that it wasn’t actually “one of the highest points”, given his previous drug battle.

“I mean, look at this guy,” Kimmel said. “He’s so handsome. He’s so talented. He’s won every award there is to win. Is that an acceptance speech in your pocket? Or do you just have a very rectangular penis?”

Then, he spoke about Downey Jr’s film where he played a villain, where Tim Allen turns into a dog.

“If you ever decide to remake that film, I have just the guy to play Tim Allen,” he said.

He also made reference to all “the great movies that held audiences captive this year”.

” I mean that literally, your movies were too long this year. The average length of the top 10 movies was two hours and 23 minutes. That’s up 30 minutes from three years ago.”

Next, he made a point to reference Robert DeNiro and Jodie Foster who were both nominated for Taxi Driver in 1976 and are now both nominated again.

“In 1976, Jodie Foster was young enough to be Robert De Niro’s daughter. Now she’s 20 years too old to be his girlfriend,” Kimmel joked.

Lily Gladstone was also honoured in the monologue.

“I also want to congratulate Lily Gladstone, who is the first Native American to be nominated for Best Actress,” he said. “Lily was ready to quit acting and take a job at the Department of Agriculture tracking murder hornets, right? And now she’s nominated for an Oscar which is so great for her, but also makes me worried that no one’s tracking these Murder Hornets.”

Finally, Kimmel spoke about the Hollywood Strike, paying homage to the crews as well as the “heavily botoxed, Hailey Bieber smoothing-drinking, diabetic prescription abusing, gluten sensitive nep babies with perpetually shivering chihuahuas”.

Speaking of the crews, he said: “This is a coalition of strong, hard-working mentally tough American labourers. Women and men who would 100% for sure die if we even had to touch the handle of a shovel. The reason we were able to make a deal is because of the people who rallied beside us, so before we celebrate ourselves, let’s have a very well-deserved round of applause for the people who work behind the scenes. The teamsters, the truck drivers the lighting crew [et al]…”

The crews received a standing ovation.

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