I often have disparaging words to share the day after Hollywood holds its annual company picnic, which I watch with the devotion, rooting interest, and fervid intensity that I understand my fellow U.S. residents bring to a football game held annually in February. I invest far too much emotional energy into the awards show that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been staging for almost a century, and this can lead me to wail and rage like a betrayed lover when I see the event handled poorly. So it is with immense appreciation and gratitude that I report that last night’s Oscars ceremony was the best in years.

All credit to the show’s trio of executive producers, Raj Kapoor, Katy Mullan, and Molly McNearney: They corrected almost almost everything that’s been sullying the broadcast for ages, most notably the inexplicable practice of treating the Oscars and the honored movies with a level of snarky disregard that bordered on contempt. Even if a few unkind jokes slipped through the filter, the overall tone was of celebration. From the well-constructed opening montage highlighting nominated films onward, the Oscars ceremony was full engaged in doing its job properly and without the fog of mortification that fell over the stage when past hosts have felt compelled to apologize for the relative obscurity of the nominated works. It helped, of course, that the first and third highest-grossing films of the year were both widely represented, but it’s still a welcome triumph that the producers were so clearly content with letting the Oscars be the Oscars.

The revived practice of presenting the acting awards by bringing five former winners to the stage is the best, most thrilling example of the show’s embrace of its own identity. In addition to making the most celebrity-driven categories of the night that much starrier, the circle of past winners emphasizes the import of the moment. The name that gets tugged out the envelope gets more than a statuette. They are entering the pantheon of one of the great American art forms, and having these lineups of incredible predecessors on stage provides immediate, irrefutable evidence of just how grand that pantheon is. What’s more, the effort to make the citing of each contending individual more personal, best realized with the supporting actress, finally puts truth to the old saw that it’s an honor just to be nominated. I’ll add that a special Oscar should be given to whoever figured out that a wow moment was in reach by having Rita Moreno open her portion of the presentation by simply stating the first name of the nominated Barbie actress.

Last night’s Oscars weren’t perfect, but that’s hardly a reasonable expectation. The “In Memoriam” segment remains a perpetually butchered part of the show because of the mind-boggling insistence on prioritizing performance over remembrance, and Jimmy Kimmel is at best a serviceable host (though it’s surely his presence that puts McNearney, his wife and late night show producer, into a leadership role with the ceremony, so right now I’m prepared to name him host for life to keep her on the payroll). But so much went right, from the generally strong speeches (with several winners clearly understanding that a list of names recited without context isn’t engaging for anyone) to the shrewd efficiencies that led to the show actually threatening to come in under-time, a problem I don’t recall from any other broadcast in my decades of watching. After misbegotten, network-driven attempts to tighten the show by shunting categories into the commercial breaks, drowning out speeches at the first verbal hesitation, and other abominations, Kapoor, Mullan, and McNearney demonstrated that the better route is, well, being thoughtful producers. Going straight from the Killers of the Flower Moon Best Picture clip package to the performance of the film’s best song nominee by Scott George and the Osage singers and dancers keeps the pace brisk and makes for a powerful moment.

Typing of Martin Scorsese’s grim epic, there are the awards themselves. First, spare a kind thought for Marty. He has now had three different films earn ten Oscar nominations and then not nab a single trophy (before Killers of the Flower Moon, both Gangs of New York and The Irishman were 0-10 on the big night). Although there were plenty of places where Academy voters reached a different conclusion than I would, there were no egregious winners, and there were plenty of places where daring but highly deserving choices prevailed, such as The Zone of Interest becoming a highly atypical honoree in the sound category. As I’ve noted before, the Oscars, flawed as they might be, write the first draft of the canon of American film. From my vantage today, the newest first draft isn’t going to require a whole lot of editing.