Oscars 2025: Anora dominates with five awards, including Best Picture

LOS ANGELES - The genre-hopping Anora, a nonchalant take on sex work filled with shouted profanities, won Best Picture and four other Oscars at the 97th Academy Awards on March 2. It was a non-traditional choice that reflected an academy in transition – younger, edgier and not terribly concerned about ticket sales.

American film-maker Sean Baker, the force behind Anora, which cost US$6 million (S$8 million) to make, won Oscars for directing as well as his original screenplay and editing. Mikey Madison, 25, won Best Actress for playing the film’s title role, a victory that few awards handicappers saw coming. Hollywood veteran Demi Moore had been expected to win for her body-twisting performance in The Substance.

“I want to thank the sex worker community,” Baker said when accepting the screenwriting award. “My deepest respect. I share this with you.” Later, the 54-year-old dedicated his directing Oscar to his mother.

Anora, which was distributed by Neon, set a record for the lowest North American ticket sales in Best Picture history (outside of a pandemic). Baker’s film has collected only US$15.7 million in the United States and Canada since arriving in cinemas in October 2024, according to Comscore, which compiles ticketing data.

The previous record-holder was The Hurt Locker (2008), which had US$17 million in North American sales, or about US$26 million after adjusting for inflation, when it won Hollywood’s top prize in 2010.

Another indie movie, The Brutalist, which cost US$10 million to make and has taken in US$15.8 million, received three Oscars.

Adrien Brody won Best Actor for his performance as a Holocaust survivor in the film, which was also honoured for its cinematography and score. It was the 51-year-old’s second Oscar, having won in 2003 for playing a Holocaust survivor in The Pianist.

“I pray for a happier and healthier and more inclusive world,” Brody said in his acceptance speech, as he pushed past an attempt by the orchestra to play him offstage. “If the past can teach us anything, it’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.”

The strong showings for Anora and The Brutalist reflect the efforts the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has made over the past decade to diversify its voting ranks, in part by sharply expanding overseas membership.

More esoteric films have been celebrated as a result. At least nine of the artistes who received Oscars on March 2 were from countries other than the US.

Wicked won two Oscars (production design and costume design), as did the Netflix musical Emilia Perez (song and supporting actress). Dune: Part Two also collected a pair (sound and visual effects).

Conclave was a winner for adapted screenplay. Kieran Culkin won Best Supporting Actor for his performance in A Real Pain, about mismatched cousins on a trip to Poland. Flow, an independent Latvian movie about a courageous cat, beat The Wild Robot and Inside Out 2 to win the Oscar for Best Animated Film.

Here is what else to know about the show:

– Supporting performances: Zoe Saldana won the supporting actress Oscar for her performance in Emilia Perez, while Culkin was honoured for his supporting performance in A Real Pain. Both had faced grumbles of category fraud – that they really should have ran as leads.

– Documentary winners: No Other Land, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, won Best Documentary. “We call on the world to take some action to stop the unjustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people,” Basel Andra, one of the film’s directors, said from the stage, introducing a strong dose of politics into a ceremony that had mostly avoided the topic. The Only Girl In The Orchestra won Best Documentary Short.

– The host: Conan O’Brien, hosting the show for the first time, approached the event with a light touch: Little roasting and politics.

– Tribute to Los Angeles: The slow-moving ceremony, which stretched to nearly four hours, began with a tribute to Hollywood’s home city of Los Angeles, parts of which were recently ravaged by wildfires, and American singer-actress Ariana Grande singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow. That keep-the-faith Wizard Of Oz standard gave way to a rousing rendition of Defying Gravity from Wicked, with Grande joined by her co-star Cynthia Erivo.

– Diminishing support: How to lose an Oscar in 10 days? The most-nominated film, Emilia Perez, could tell you. It was viewed as the favourite for Best Picture when it received 13 nominations, but voter support vanished amid a series of quick-breaking controversies, including the discovery of a series of derogatory comments Spanish actress Karla Sofía Gascon, the movie’s star, posted online years ago.

– Trouble with Hulu: After promoting and promoting (and promoting) the fact that the Oscars had finally joined the modern world – that the ceremony would be streamed for the first time – Hulu bungled its big moment. Tens of thousands of users reported malfunctions with the Disney-owned Hulu early in the telecast, according to the site Downdetector. It was not a great night for Disney all around. A Complete Unknown, from Disney’s Searchlight division, went into the ceremony with eight nominations and left with nothing. NYTIMES