The ceremony was televised in the United States by ABC, and was produced by Bill Mechanic and Adam Shankman and directed by Hamish Hamilton.

[11][12] Other winners were Avatar with three awards, Crazy Heart, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire, and Up with two, and The Blind Side, The Cove, Inglourious Basterds, Logorama, Music by Prudence, The New Tenants, The Secret in Their Eyes, Star Trek, and The Young Victoria with one.

After the previous year's telecast, which saw a 13% increase in viewership, many within the Motion Picture Academy proposed new ways to give the awards a more populist appeal.

AMPAS then-president Sid Ganis announced that the ceremony would feature ten Best Picture nominees, rather than traditional five.

[25] "Having 10 Best Picture nominees is going to allow Academy voters to recognize and include some of the fantastic movies that often show up in the other Oscar categories, but have been squeezed out of the race for the top prize," Sid Ganis said in a press conference.

[29] David Rockwell's proscenium curtain, decorated with 100,000 Swarovski crystals, was reused as part of the stage design for this year's telecast.

[32] Many critics, reporters, and entertainment industry analysts cite the AMPAS's decision to expand the roster of Best Picture nominees from five to ten films as one of the reasons for this.

At the time of the announcement on February 2, Avatar was the highest-grossing film among the Best Picture nominees with $596 million in domestic box office receipts.

Only Avatar (1st), Up (5th), The Blind Side (8th), Inglourious Basterds (25th), District 9 (27th), The Princess and the Frog (32nd), Julie & Julia (34th), Coraline (42nd) and Up in the Air (43rd) were nominated for directing, acting, screenwriting, Best Picture or Animated Feature.

[35] The other top-50 box office hits that earned nominations were Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2nd), Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (3rd), Star Trek (7th) and Sherlock Holmes (11th).

ET, thirteen minutes after the awards ceremony began, Cablevision resumed transmission of the WABC feed.

The Boston Globe television critic Matthew Gilbert lauded the hosts performance saying that "The delivery was expert and warmly conversational, like one of those old-school comedy teams.

"[49] Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune gave an average critique of the ceremony but acclaimed the cast.

[50] The American telecast on ABC drew in an average of 41.62 million people over its length, which was a 13% increase from the previous year's ceremony.

[51] The show also drew higher Nielsen ratings compared to the two previous ceremonies with 24.89% of households watching over a 36.69 share.

[56] The following month, the ceremony won one of those nominations for Outstanding Art Direction for Variety, Music or Nonfiction Programming (David Rockwell and Joe Celli).

[59] A separate tribute was held earlier in the evening for the late filmmaker John Hughes, presented by actors Matthew Broderick, Molly Ringwald, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Anthony Michael Hall, Macaulay Culkin and Jon Cryer.

[17][60][61] The 77th telecast had previously featured a special memorial to Johnny Carson presented by Chris Rock and Whoopi Goldberg.