Mar
2,
2025
The 2025 Oscars saw “Anora” win big with 5 Academy Awards including Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Directing, Best Actress in a Leading Role, and Best Picture.
The Oscars ceremony took place at The Dolby Theater in Hollywood on Sunday, March 2nd and opened with a stunning tribute to the music of “Wicked”performed by Cynthia Erivo and Arianna Grande including the iconic “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “Defying Gravity.”
Academy Awards host Conan O’Brien then literally emerged from the body of Demi Moore (in a clip à la “The Substance”) and onto the Oscars stage. His opening monologue featured a fun bit with a dressed down Adam Sandler, followed by a musical number where Conan promised, “I won’t waste time” as a Dune sand worm played chopsticks on the piano and a dancing Deadpool frolicked across the stage!
Robert Downey Jr. presented the first award of the evening giving nods to the tough competition in the Best Supporting Actor category before announcing Kieran Culkin’s win. Culkin’s speech showed love to fellow nominee Jeremy Strong, his long time manager and his wife…who apparently owes him 2 kids!
Another notable moment in the ceremony was the award for Best Costume Design which went to Paul Tazewell for “Wicked,” making him the first black man to ever receive the award for costume designer. This was Tazewell’s first win and second nomination, having previously been nominated for “West Side Story.”
Actress Amy Poehler took the stage to present two awards — Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay which went to Peter Strong for “Conclave” and Sean Baker for “Anora” respectively. In his speech, Baker honored sex workers for their contributions to the film. “They have shared their stories, they have shared their life experiences with me over the years. My deepest respect, thank you. I share this with you,” he said.
The ceremony also included a tribute to the James Bond franchise and its outgoing producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, one week after the rights to 007 were acquired by Amazon. While the performances were great, the tribute felt awkward and out of place amid the flow of the ceremony. The sequence was kicked off by Demi Moore’s “Substance” co-star Margaret Qualley, who performed a dance routine to the iconic Bond theme, before singers Doja Cat performed “Diamonds are Forever” and Raye sang “Skyfall”.
Luckily Conan got the audience back on board with a funny segment titled “Cinema Streams” reintroducing the concept of movie theaters to today’s youth.
CinemaStreams: A new way to watch movies #Oscars2025 pic.twitter.com/RZRKCh4gt0
— Conan O’Brien (@ConanOBrien) March 3, 2025
Perhaps the most poignant moment of the night was when Oscar winner Joy Devine Randolph gave heartwarming tributes to each nominee for Best Supporting Actress– before announcing winner Zoe Saldana. Saldana’s speech honored her immigrant parents and grandmother whom she said would have been proud that she got to sing and speak in Spanish in “Emilia Pérez.” She also made mention that she was the first winner of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award but doubted she would be the last.
In a humorous skit that saw Ben Stiller being lowered into the stage, he presented the award for Best Production Design to the team behind “Wicked.” Mick Jagger took the stage to a standing ovation to present Best Original Song to ‘El Mal’ from “Emilia Pérez”. Other notable presenters during the show included Goldie Hawn and Andrew Garfield, Scarlet Johansson and June Squibb, Gal Galdot & Rachel Zegler, Mark Hamill, Cilian Murphy, Emma stone, Penelope Cruz and more.
In the documentary category, “The Only Girl in the Orchestra” won for Best Documentary Short with a nod to their all female team, and “No Other Land” won for Best Documentary Feature Film highlighting that the path forward for Israel and Palestine was to stop injustice and ethnic cleansing and to find common ground.
There were also some memorable tributes throughout the evening including honoring the Los Angeles firefighters who fought the Palisades and Eaton fires. Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah also took the stage to honor the life and legacy of Quincy Jones. The ‘In Memorandum’ tribute opened with Morgan Freeman describing the career of his costar Gene Hackman.
Adrien Brody took home his second Best Actor Oscar for The Brutalist (having previously won for The Pianist) and used his speech as an opportunity to speak out against anti-semitism.
Legendary Director Quentin Tarantino presented the Oscar for Best Director to Sean Baker for “Anora.” Baker acknowledged that had it not been for Tarantino’s casting of Mikey Madison in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” there may not have been “Anora”. Baker then used this speech to share the importance of supporting watching films as a community and returning to movie theaters.
In the biggest upset of the night, Mikey Madison took home Best Actress for her well-deserved performance in “Anora”–the award Demi Moore has cleaned up all awards season for her role in “The Substance.”
The final award of the night was introduced by Meg Ryan and longtime Oscar host Billy Crystal in a “When Harry Met Sally” reunion. Crystal reminisced about having hosted the Oscars for the first time almost 35 years ago. Then with a nod to the pair’s infamous film he said, “When you have a chance to be an Oscar winner for the rest of your life, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible,” before announcing “Anora” as the evening’s big winner for Best Picture.
To see the full list of winners, visit Oscars.org.
