Oscars 2025 Reflection: Thoughts Almost A Week Later - Awards Outlook
Photo from CNN
Awards analysis is provided by Sean from @MathTeacherMovies.
The Oscars have come and gone, and what might be one of the most unpredictable awards seasons ended on a fairly positive note. There were some surprises in the awards and a couple of slip ups in the ceremony itself, but all in all it was a great night for Hollywood. Some thoughts…
The night began with a lovely tribute of Los Angeles in honor of the fires; they did a tremendous job throughout the show from showing a love of movies and LA to a very important call of why the awards shows are as important as they are.
The Wicked opening was a great way to start the ceremony, epitomizing the classic Hollywood elements with what made Wicked great. The opening then introduced a wonderful set up on the stage between the Orchestra up in the middle and the choir in the balcony; it was an original and proper set up.
Conan O’Brien met and potentially exceeded his expectation of hosting duties by absolutely nailing the opening skit, then hitting the opening monologue with a classic joke structure that felt like home and then eventually doing visual bits that always pay off.
Through that monologue, Conan addressed the Karla Sofía Gascón controversy in a way that did not tense up the room, but also did not let her off the hook.
The supporting presenters were tasked to say something about each performance which has been done before and never comes off great. Also, no clips were shown (which needs to be corrected), but this led to two expected wins, one from Kieran Culkin who gave a speech that was uncharacteristically genuine and humbled while still hitting his natural humor. The other was Zoe Saldana who gave a beautiful, emotional speech while just giving a dash of being politically charged.
There were some lovely presenting pairs that all worked well,l but one of the best was Andrew Garfield with Goldie Hawn which was heartfelt and beautiful, honoring a legend. June Squibb and Scarlett Johnansson also absolutely nailed their comedic bit and their delivery later in the show.
Flow winning Best Animated Film was the first big surprise of the night; while it was clearly expected to be the runner-up, it beating out the three time nominated Dreamworks film was a huge surprise and shows the direction this category is heading toward.
Costume Design was next where they utilized the five presenters in an interesting “fashion” giving a great amount of attention to the behind-the camera-talent along with a great bit from Bowen Yang; while all of it was a time-suck, it was worth it. They also did this from Cinematography which was again a great moment of the night that continued to honor behind-the-camera talent.
Getting Nick Offerman to do the announcements was obviously a brilliant choice with a quick and fun bit with Conan to introduce him. Conan not only nailed the opening monologue but also properly peppered himself with some of the dumbest little jokes that were absolutely perfect.
Amy Pohler hit the dry delivery perfectly, introducing the two screenplay awards with Conclave being an absolute lock and Anora being the most likely to win, but then this began to indicate the domination of Anora.
The Substance won Makeup and that was it, which was expected when the film was released, and while the Demi Moore snub was unfortunate, it was still a wonderful film and properly honored.
The James Bond tribute might have been easily one of the low points of the show. There seemed to be no reason to have it and the timing was specifically strange considering the property’s sale to Amazon. It was also just poorly constructed with deviations that did not make sense.
The Film Editing win for Anora definitely predicted that this was going to be a good night for the film, and while there was precedent for other films to scoop up Picture and Director, this award all but made it clear that Anora and Sean Baker were about to have a great night.
Ben Stiller is always a must of the Oscars, bringing about a silly bit that also educates about a particular category and seeing him come back to talk about Production Design was a welcome bit that will hopefully be reinstated.
No Other Land was able to transcend the controversy by winning and providing a heartfelt and passionate speech while also making history for being the first film without distribution.
Dune: Part Two grabbed the Visual Effects and Sound awards, which showed that it's still a solid film in the technical categories and not forgotten there.
The Brutalist won Cinematography expectedly and it is then remarked by my wife that the love is being spread out among the technicals, which is a much better than one film dominating throughout the night. The Brutalist also won Best Original Score later in the night.
International Feature Film went to I’m Still Here which was expected after the Emila Pérez collapse, but still was a massive upset. What a lovely moment for Walter Salles, who was genuinely humbled.
The tribute to Quincy Jones is of course entirely earned, but definitely did seem to come at a weird time with it showing up way after the In Memoriam section. The energy in the room was not matching the performance and that moment in the show.
While the supporting categories did not show clips of the performances, the lead actors did receive clips instead of presenter descriptions for the obvious reason of not focusing too much on Karla, which was the correct call.
Best Actor went to Adrien Brody for the second time and he was quite humbled by the moment, which was nice…but then he once again cut the music like he did during his first win and didn’t say much of note after, so it definitely wasn't worth it.
Quention Tarantino introducing the Best Director award was amazing as a passing of the torch to another cult film maker like Sean Baker, even though Tarantino has technically never won Best Director. Baker was wonderfully overwhelmed by the moment but still gave a proper tribute to seeing films in the theater, which is ironic considering what Hulu was about to do.
And Best Actress went to…and Hulu cut out. This was such a shame as more time should have been allotted in case it ran over…which (spoiler!) it did. You would think a major streaming service would have had a better contingency plan because this was flat out frustrating.
Mikey Madison did win, which was much deserved and transcended the awards narrative for Demi Moore who would have also been deserving. Of all the winners, Madison seemed the most surprised and overcome with emotion and it was a truly endearing moment to see.
After this there was absolutely no denying Anora’s Best Picture win which was the next award announced. It is groundbreaking in so many ways with the domination of independent cinema and given that the path it took for this film to get to this moment was arduous and will always be memorable.
It was a fun night all in all, with the occasional dip in pacing but a very happy ending for a quite deserving movie. In terms of picks I received 16/23 which is not my best but the unpredictability makes it all the more fun.