A modern-day take on the Cinderella story, Anora, has dominated the Oscars, winning in five of the six categories in which it was nominated – including Best Picture, Best Director for Sean Baker and Best Actress for Mikey Madison – who upended Demi Moore’s awards run at the last minute. Baker also won for his original screenplay and for editing the film. He used the success of his low-budget independent feature to appeal for more people to go to the cinema, rather than watch films on the TV alone at home. And both he and Madison praised members of the sex worker community.
Among the other frontrunners in the run-up to the ceremony, The Brutalist – which went into the night with 10 nominations – came away with three awards, as Adrien Brody secured his second Best Actor Oscar – twenty two years after becoming the youngest winner of the award for The Pianist. “I believe if the past can teach us anything,” he concluded in his acceptance speech, “It’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.” The Brutalist’s British cinematographer and composer also won Oscars.
Emilia Pérez – the Spanish language musical about a Mexican drug cartel leader who becomes a woman – led the pack with 13 nominations but left with only 2 Oscars, after racist tweets emerged from the trans-actress Karla Sofia Gascon. Her co-star Zoë Saldaña continued the success she’s been having throughout awards season in the best supporting actress category – and the film also took home the award for best original song.
The Best Supporting Actor Oscar also went to a star who’s taken every major award going since the Golden Globes, Kieran Culkin, for A Real Pain.
The papal thriller Conclave secured just one award – for his British writer Peter Straughan – who thanks Robert Harris, the author of the novel from which he adapted his screenplay.
The science fiction sequel, Dune: Part Two was recognised for its sound and visual effects, while the musical Wicked also won two of the technical awards – for production design and costumes – while the Oscar for make-up and hair styling went to The Substance.
While many of the Oscars went to the winners of other awards over the past few weeks, the most open races were for among the highest profile categories – lead actor and lead actress – whose winners are usually clear from the start of Awards Season. But with actors making up the largest voting group at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Screen Actors Guild Awards are often an accurate guide to who might walk away with the Oscars, but this year, SAG went a different way on both counts; Adrien Brody had won almost every award going until Timothée Chalamet secured the support of his fellow actors for his portrayal of Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown – and SAG helped Demi continue her run of success, but she fell at the final hurdle, ending her dreams of a Brendon-Fraser-style comeback. SAG had also gone for Conclave for its best cast award – its equivalent of Best Picture.
The ceremony – fronted by the TV chat-show host Conan O’Brien – included segments paying tribute to the James Bond franchise and the music producer Quincy Jones. There was also a “thank you” to the Los Angeles firefighters who’d tried to protect the city from savage wildfires, only weeks ago, and ahead of the traditional In Memoriam section, during which the Academy remembers film figures who have died during the previous year, the actor Morgan Freeman paid a personal tribute to Gene Hackman – whose body was found at his home in New Mexico last week.
There was surprisingly little politics shoe-horned into the three and a half hour ceremony, but referring to Anora – in which a stripper falls in love with the son of a Russian Oligarch – O’Brien joked “I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian,” nodding to President Trump’s treatment of his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office last week. And the winners of the best documentary feature prize – No Other Land – called for an end to what they described as the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and said US Foreign Policy was helping to block the path to Palestinian freedom.
And here is the full list of winners at the 2025 Oscars:
BEST PICTURE: Anora
DIRECTOR: Sean Baker – Anora
ACTOR: Adrien Brody – The Brutalist
ACTRESS: Mikey Madison – Anora
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Kieran Culkin – A Real Pain
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Zoë Saldaña – Emilia Pérez
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Anora (Sean Baker)
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Conclave (Peter Straughan)
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Brutalist
FILM EDITING: Anora (Sean Baker)
PRODUCTION DESIGN: Wicked
COSTUME DESIGN: Wicked
SOUND: Dune: Part Two
VISUAL EFFECTS: Dune: Part Two
SCORE: The Brutalist
ORIGINAL SONG: El Mal – Emilia Pérez
MAKE-UP AND HAIR STYLING: The Substance
INTERNATIONAL FILM: I’m Still Here (Brazil)
ANIMATED FEATURE: Flow
ANIMATED SHORT FILM: In the Shadow of the Cypress
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: No Other Land
DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM: The Only Girl in the Orchestra
LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM: I Am Not A Robot