The 2025 Academy Awards happened on Sunday and they weren’t as abysmal as I feared they would be.
Going into this year’s awards I was quite frightened by the nominees and what the Academy would vote for. And while my fears weren’t unfounded, the Oscars managed to go above my very low expectations.
So, let’s talk about this year’s awards. The major winners include:
- Best Picture – “Anora”
- Best Animated Feature – “Flow”
- Best International Feature – “I’m Still Here” from Brazil
- Best Documentary Feature – “No Other Land”
- Best Original Screenplay – “Anora”
- Best Adapted Screenplay – “Conclave”
- Best Film Editing – “Anora”
- Best Director – Sean Baker for “Anora”
- Best Actress – Mikey Madison for “Anora”
- Best Actor – Adrien Brody for “The Brutalist”
- Best Supporting Actress – Zoe Saldaña for “Emilia Pérez”
- Best Supporting Actor – Kieran Culkin for “A Real Pain”
Who was snubbed?
While I was pretty happy with this year’s Oscars, some movies deserved a lot more love.
“Nosferatu” should’ve been given so much more. It was weird and creepy, and it not winning Best Cinematography hurt my heart. It was honestly my pick for Best Adapted Screenplay despite the fact that it wasn’t nominated (I’m delusional, but it happens to the best of us).
However, “Nosferatu” should’ve beaten “Wicked” for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design.
One of my favorite movies of last year was “Saturday Night,” which was suspiciously missing from this year’s nominations. I wanted to riot. I wanted to send an angry letter to the academy. I wanted to fight for this movie but, alas, while it should’ve won best screenplay, it received nothing.
And where was the recognition for “Longlegs?” Riddle me that, Academy board. No nod to Nicolas Cage. Not a single reference to Maika Monroe. Osgood Perkins was not to be seen, and that’s an outrage. A true travesty was committed by the Oscars in the year of our Lord 2025.
Best speeches
Sean Baker and Mikey Madison both thanked the “sex worker community” in their acceptance speeches for Best Original Screenplay and Best Leading Actress respectively.
I love listening to an acceptance speech that feels genuine, and Madison’s felt so personal and real that it made me even more glad she won.
During his speech accepting the award for Best Director, Baker rallied listeners to support local theaters and the “movie-going experience.” In addition, he called on distributors to prioritize theatrical releases for films and for parents to introduce their children to the theater at a young age.
I love going to a theater with my friends and getting the opportunity to experience a movie with other people.
Adrien Brody broke the record for the longest acceptance speech when he won Best Actor, speaking for five minutes and 40 seconds. When the wrap-up music started playing, he said, “Turn the music off. I’ve done this before.”
This was a perfect line. I cannot articulate how cool it was to watch someone tell the Academy Awards that it can wait for them to be done.
But the best speech of all was the beautiful and flawless Kieran Culkin when he won Best Supporting Actor for his role in “A Real Pain.”
At the beginning of his speech, Culkin was promptly censored because he said a specific expletive that is not allowed on ABC.
Culkin then told the story about when he won a Grammy in 2024 for his role on “Succession” and asked his wife Jazz Charton to have a third kid. Culkin said he only asked because she had promised him they could have a third kid if he won a Grammy.
After the Grammys, Culkin told Charton that he really wanted a fourth kid.
“She turned to me,” Culkin said. “She said, ‘I will give you four when you win an Oscar.’”
Culkin ended his speech with, “I just have this to say to you, Jazz – love of my life, ye of little faith – no pressure. I love you. I’m really sorry I did this again, and let’s get cracking on those kids. What do you say?”
If you watch any speech from the 2025 Oscars, watch Culkin’s. He’s funny and charismatic, and his speech brings a level of authenticity that award shows can lack.
“A Real Pain” was one of many independent movies that did better at this year’s awards than anticipated.
The indie sweep
“Flow” taking home Best Animated Feature and “Anora” winning Best Picture were highlights of the night for me.
The indie animated feature was the underdog story of the night, being pitted against big-budget nominees “Inside Out 2” and “The Wild Robot” while still coming out on top.
“Flow” is the first Latvian film to be nominated for an Oscar. It’s an Eastern European animated movie with no dialogue about a cat and it won. I think that’s awesome.
I want movies to become more international. America has had such a monopoly on highly acclaimed films since the early 1900s and I don’t think it’s good for the ecosystem of cinema.
Filmmaking should be possible for all people, and I think this is a good step in that direction.
But Sean Baker’s “Anora” was the biggest winner of the night, and deservedly so.
“Anora” is an indie film to its core. The film was shot on location in New York and Las Vegas on a $6 million budget, making it the second lowest-budget movie nominated for Best Picture. Except for Madison, there were no big names attached.
When considering what could’ve won Best Picture, I was anxious about the nominees. The fear of an “Emilia Pérez” victory caused deep anguish in my heart and soul. So, when “Anora” won, though it wasn’t my pick, I was glad it took home the gold.
The racist French elephant in the room (Emilia Pérez)
Why was this movie nominated for anything? It is a disaster of a film.
It fails in every possible creative avenue and only succeeds in not looking like the on-fire garbage can it is.
“Emilia Pérez” netted a whopping 13 nominations, making it tied for the second most nominated film in Oscar history. It won two awards, two more than it deserved, and got the most lukewarm and tepid applause all night.
The Oscars exceeded my expectations, but the looming presence of “Emilia Pérez” made the night harder to enjoy.
I don’t just hate “Emilia Pérez” because of its problems as a film, though there are plenty of those; I hate it because of what it represents. It represents how out of touch the Oscars can be. How oblivious and blind it can be to what makes a movie great.
A movie that has a political or social message isn’t a problem. It becomes an issue when the movie doesn’t have anything besides its message. It doesn’t have artful filmmaking or impressive performances to back up the ideas it’s presenting.
“Emilia Pérez” relies solely on its message, one which it doesn’t even communicate correctly.
For a movie about a Mexican transgender woman, “Emilia Pérez” isn’t a very good representation for Hispanic or transgender people. Its presentation of gender-affirming care is disingenuous and its filmmaker clearly views Spanish-speaking countries in an unflattering light.
As a film, “Emilia Pérez” doesn’t succeed in any way. The music is atrociously bad, which is a bad sign given it’s a musical. The acting is passable at best but the performances are constantly weighed down by the impressively bad script.
The cinematography is far and away the best aspect of the film, but it’s still nowhere near good enough to earn an Oscar nomination.
The only redeemable thing I got from watching the movie was making fun of it with my friend.
Director Jacques Audiard called Spanish the “language of modest countries, of developing countries, of the poor and migrants.” That didn’t go over well with people on the internet, and it isn’t something that someone who made a Spanish-language musical should be saying.
The actress who played the titular Emilia Pérez, Karla Sofía Gascón, also fell under fire for tweets that range from mildly problematic to outright racist. She expressed her disdain for Islam and various forms of Christianity, even suggesting that they should be banned.
The movie’s problematic background shows in its substance. There’s nothing redeeming or compelling about “Emilia Pérez.” It didn’t deserve a single Oscar nomination, much less 13.
Despite this, the Academy managed to uphold its reputation. They did right by the filmmakers and the viewers, which is all I can really ask of them. I was pessimistic going into the awards, but, thankfully, it did me proud.
