Jordan Peele made history on Sunday by becoming the first black filmmaker to win an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
The film, “Get Out,” is a social thriller about racism that is also Peele’s directorial debut. The horror/comedy movie breaks the mold as to which films traditionally exceed at the Academy Awards. The award is Peele’s first Oscar.
“This means so much to me. I stopped writing this movie about 20 times because I thought it was impossible,” he said during his acceptance speech.
“I thought it wasn’t gonna work, I thought no one was gonna make this movie but I kept coming back to it because I knew if someone let me make this movie, that people would hear it and people would see it,” he continued. “So I want to dedicate this to all the people who raised my voice and let me make this movie.”
The screenplay beat out other nominees “The Big Sick,” “Lady Bird,” “The Shape of Water” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”
Peele continued to share his excitement on Twitter.
Peele was only the fourth black filmmaker to be nominated for the Best Original Screenplay category, following Suzanne de Passe (“Lady Sings The Blues”), Spike Lee (“Do The Right Thing”) and John Singleton (“Boyz N the Hood”).
“Get Out” was nominated in four categories on Sunday. The film, which had a $4.5 million budget, was 2017′s most profitable film, earning more than $176 million domestically.
This post has been updated with quotes from Peele.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misstated the amount “Get Out” earned domestically. It made more than $176 million.