Oscars 2025 Recap: Highlights, Winners
Anora steamrolled through the 2025 Oscars on Sunday, with Sean Baker’s movie winning three major Oscars heading into the best picture announcement, and star Mikey Madison staging an upset for best actress.
“It’s a dream come true. I’m probably going to wake up tomorrow,” Madison said accepting the prize. Many of the people involved with the film no doubt felt the same.
Baker won for directing, original screenplay and editing of his action-tinged black comedy and class commentary about the relationship between a stripper and a Russian oligarch’s heir. The wins mark Baker’s three of four attempted Oscars for the same movie, a feat that has never been achieved.
“I saved this film in the edit. That director should never work again,” Baker quipped from the Dolby stage, referring of course to himself when he won editor.
When he won director, he then took the stage and made a plea for the theatrical experience. “Where did we fall in love with movies? At the movie theater,” he said. “In a time in which the world can feel more divided this is more important than ever.”
Earlier, Baker said upon accepting the original screenplay prize, “I want to thank the sex worker community. They have shared their stories; they have shared their experiences over the years,” noting his “deep respect” for those in the industry.
Just before Baker’s directing win The Brutalist star Adrien Brody took the prize for best actor, his second Oscar after winning for The Pianist more than two decades ago as a 29-year-old. Brody is the youngest best actor winner ever thanks to his role on that film, and he stopped A Complete Unknown star Timothee Chalamet from taking his crown this year. Madison, it’s worth noting, is the first Gen Z winner of a lead acting prize; no man or woman born after 1991 has ever taken the statuette. Madison was born in 1999.
In a long speech — Brody stopped the play-off music with “I’ve done this before” — he talked a lot about not taking acting success for granted and gave a tearful homage to his parents, partner Georgina Chapman and stepchildren. But he ended it with a more social comment, describing “the lingering trauma and repercussions of war and systematic oppression of antisemitism and racism and othering” and said “I pray for a healthier happier and more inclusive world.”
He added, “If the past can teach anything it’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.”
Elswhere, adapted screenplay honors went to Conclave, which sought mainly in vain to stop the Anora train. Peter Straughan took the prize for his story of the jockeying beyond the scenes at the Vatican to replace a recently departed pope.
Coming in the two films were considered frontrunners for best picture after having each won major precursor awards, the top PGA and DGA prizes for Anora and BAFTA and SAG for Conclave.
Supporting actor prizes went to the expected contenders. Kieran Culkin won the first prize of the night, taking the supporting actor award for playing Benji Kaplan, a fast-talking and vulnerable lost soul in Jesse Eisenberg’s Holocaust-history dramedy A Real Pain.
The win mark’s Culkin’s first Oscar in a roughly 25-year career; he had been getting awards attention lately for his former hit HBO show Succession. “I don’t know how I got here. I’ve just been acting my whole life,” said Culkin, 42. He also told a detailed story about negotiating with his wife to have more kids if he wins more awards, which he has now done.
And Zoe Saldaña took supporting actress for her role as Rita Mora Castro, a Mexico City lawyer who helps a drug kingpin transition in Jacques Audiard’s musical drama Emilia Pérez. She cited “the quiet heroism and power in a woman” like her character and also noted that she is “a proud child of immigrant parents” and the “first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award; I know I will not be the last.” (See the star-studded Oscars red carpet 2025 arrivals.)
In the animated category, Flow pulled off a surprise win over DreamWorks Animation/Universal Pictures’ The Wild Robot. The wordless Latvian environmental parable had a much smaller budget and distributor (Sideshow/Janus) than Robot, but charmed voters with its unusual approach. Writer-director Gints Zilbalodis thanked his “mom and dad, and cats and dogs” in his acceptance speech.
“I hope it will open doors to independent animated filmmakers around the world,” he said. The movie could well have been the beneficiary of a newer, more international-minded voting bloc, which is less invested in the Hollywood studio system than traditional Academy members.
Zilbalodis offered a message of global unity amid crisis. “We are all in the same boat; we must overcome our differences and find ways to work together,” he said, as he accepted an honor for a movie which also has creatures facing cataclysm.
The movie was attempting the unprecedented feat of also winning best international feature. That prize, however, went to Brazil’s I’m Still Here, Walter Salles’ look at a Rio family victimized by Brazil’s military dictastorship in the 1970’s. Starring Fernanda Torres, the anti-fascist film is one of the more political winners of the night.
The Brutalist, a heavy contender earlier in the season after its Golden Globes win for best drama, saw two other awards when Lol Crawley took home the prize for cinematography and Daniel Blumberg winning for original score.
Many of the crafts honors went to box office smashes. Dune: Part Two took home two prizes, for sound and visual effects. Wicked won a pair of prizes after stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande opened the Oscars with an Oz medley, including “Defying Gravity.”
Production design honors went to Nathan Crowley and Lee Sandales for their elaborate work in the Ozian world. Crowley took home an Oscar after six previous nominations left him empty handed. Costume design saw Wicked’s Paul Tazewell continue his streak of awards this season for his whimsical aesthetic populating the cinematic world of the Broadway hit. Tazewell became the first Black man to win an Oscar for costume design, a fact he noted jubilantly from the stage and O’Brien echoed a few moments later. Tazewell also has an Emmy and Tony on his mantle.
And in the who-knew department, The New Yorker won its first Oscar after seventeen nominations when I Am Not a Robot, Victoria Warmerdam’s head-trip of a film about a sound engineer who discovers she might secretly be an AI, took home the prize for live action short.
The show had a languid pace, with long tributes to many nominees from separate personalities and a choreographed musical homage to James Bond and the Broccoli family, which took on an added undertone in the wake of the sale of creative control of the property to Amazon-MGM.
The grab-bag continued when Mick Jagger turned up to present the award for original song.
“I wasn’t the first choice,” he said. “The producers really wanted Bob Dylan to do it.” Jagger said Dylan deferred to someone younger, leading to the appearance of the Rolling Stones frontman. (Dylan is 83, Jagger is 81.) He then announced the statuette for El Mal, the thumping anti-elites anthem from Emilia Perez by Audiard, Camille and Clément Ducol, marking Audiard’s first-ever Oscar.
“We hope it speaks to the role music and art can continue to play as a force of the good and progress in the world,” Camille said accepting the prize as Jagger looked on.
Political moments were scattered throughout the show. Presenter Daryl Hannah said “Slava Ukraini” and saluted the Ukrainian people as “badasses” when she took the stage.
And when No Other Land — the undistributed film about the Israeli military’s actions in the West Bank and how they affect one family and community — was announced as the winner for best documentary, filmmakers were pointed in their remarks.
“My hope to my daughter is she will not have to live the same life I’m living now, always feeling surveillance and home demolitions and forced displacement that my community is facing every day,” said Basel Adra, a co-director who is one of the fim’s subjects. Yuval Abraham, the Israeli peace activist who also directed the movie and is featured in it, noted a “different path, a political solution without supremacy and with national rights for both our people.” He said that “foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path.”
The show brought a particularly somber In Memoriam, which had a recently added intro as Morgan Freeman came out to salute his friend and Unforgiven co-star Gene Hackman, who was found dead last week. After noting that Hackman said he just wanted to be remembered for doing good work, Freeman said, “Gene you’ll be remembered for that and for so much more.” The orchestral tribute that followed concluded by honoring David Lynch, James Earl Jones and Hackman, three greats who died in the last six months.
The awards began after an extended opening that lasted nearly a half hour. It brought a cinematic tribute to Los Angeles, the Erivo and Grande duet, an Adam Sandler cameo, and host Conan O’Brien riffing, singing and saluting “the magic, madness, grandeur and the joy of film” in the face of tragedy. There were also many jokes about Timothée Chalamet’s youth and yellow suit.
The Oscars brought a particularly somber In Memoriam, which had a recently added intro as Morgan Freeman came out to salute his friend and Unforgiven co-star Gene Hackman, who was found dead last week. After noting that Hackman said he just wanted to be remembered for doing good work, Freeman said, “Gene you’ll be remembered for that and for so much more.” The orchestral tribute that followed concluded by honoring David Lynch, James Earl Jones and Hackman, three greats who died in the last six months.
A separate musical tribute was performed by Queen Latifah for the recently departed Quincy Jones, who was nominated for seven Oscars and also executive produced an Oscars telecast. “Quincy was love lived out loud in human form,” Oprah Winfrey said, joining Whoopi Goldberg to introduce Latifah.
This year’s Oscars hold plenty of drama. It is a wide-open show concluding a wide-open season; one could plausibly make a case for four different movies taking best picture, a scenario that has not happened in decades.
This is a developing story.
Source link
