It won’t go down as the most exciting Oscars on record — there was no slap or envelope mix-up after all — but for this year’s Academy Awards, ending an unexpectedly cacophonous awards season with a smooth, calamity-free ceremony clocking in at under four hours was arguably the best of all possible outcomes.
The big winner of the evening, Anora, scooped up five of its six nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress for Mikey Madison (sorry, Demi!). The Brutalist also flexed several wins, including one for actor-slash-gum-thrower Adrien Brody, while several more overtly political films, like Palestinian-Israeli documentary No Man’s Land and the anti-authoritarian Brazilian film I’m Still Here, picked up some trophies.
Overall, the vibe was markedly upbeat — a series of solid comedy bits outshone politics, with amusing appearances from Adam Sandler, Bowen Yang, Ben Stiller, Amy Poehler, and June Squibb. Inside the Dolby Theatre, the atmosphere was chill, the music was decent, most of the speeches were short (no thanks to Brody), and best of all? We weren’t stuck watching until well after midnight. Can we do it like this every year?
Still, as always, not everyone came through the night unscathed, and some attendees went home happier than others. Check out our winners and losers below!
Winner: Conan O’Brien kept things weird
From his slightly too-gross entrance clawing his way out of Demi Moore’s back to his cheeky song-and-dance routine promising not to let the telecast go on too long, Conan O’Brien took the most thankless gig in show business this year and played it just a little weirder than you’d think he could. We, for one, are thankful.
Over the course of his monologue, O’Brien affably roasted himself for not having had enough work done, Karla Sofía Gascón for her many offensive tweets, and Timothée Chalamet for his baby face. He also got in a truly delightful bit about showing John Lithgow’s disappointed face to anyone who took too long with their acceptance speech, plus another long shaggy-dog one with a belligerently be-hoodied Adam Sandler. (Sandler didn’t bother to put on a tux because he’s too good of a person to care about his clothes, he boasted.)
Making the Oscars funny is a feat in and of itself, but at the end of his monologue, O’Brien one-upped himself with a genuinely heartfelt tribute to what the Oscars mean in the aftermath of the Los Angeles fires. Award shows for wealthy celebrities can feel shallow after so much devastation, he acknowledged — but the Oscars also offer an incredible platform for the below-the-line talent that is not so famous. That the awards also lavished the nominees of the technical categories with the kind of praise they normally save for the actors? Well, that’s the icing on the cake. — Constance Grady
Loser: Karla Sofía Gascón and bad publicists
Early on in awards season, trans actress Karla Sofía Gascón was hailed as a Best Actress frontrunner for her turn as the titular character in splashy musical Emilia Pérez. But things quickly spiraled for the film: Not only did audiences critique the storyline for regressive and inauthentic storytelling, but Gasćon drew negative attention for shading her fellow nominee Fernanda Torres — and then the real mine fields detonated: Twitter users dug up Gascón’s old tweets.
It turns out Gascón had a long history of making racist, Islamaphobic, antisemitic, homophobic, and other offensive comments, arguably culminating in her musing in public that Hitler “simply had his opinion about the Jews.” Though Gascón soon apologized and deleted her Twitter account, the scandal prompted many onlookers to wonder why on earth someone with such views had been cast to begin with, especially in a role that, for all the script’s flaws, was a groundbreaking trans character. At the very least, the question of why no one deleted her tweets before awards season should haunt Hollywood PR staff for years to come.
The Emilia Pérez production distanced itself hard from Gascón and threw itself into supporting its other nominated actress, Zoe Saldaña, who picked up a win for Best Supporting Actress. (Saldaña did not mention Gasćon in her acceptance speech, though she did thank the cast in general). The Academy Awards also seemed eager to distance itself from Gasćon during the ceremony; some preview clips of the film barely referenced her, and despite Emilia Perez being a musical, nominated for Best Picture in a heavily musical Oscars year, the cast was absent from the stage. Ultimately, the film, which originally led the pack with 13 nominations, picked up just 2 wins, and Gasćon went home empty-handed. — Aja Romano
Winner: Non-Emilia Pérez musical numbers
When it was announced that this year’s Oscars ceremony wouldn’t include performances of the Best Original Song nominees, it seemed like both a blessing and curse. This musical showcase has long been a crucial part of the ceremony, punctuating the awards and keeping audiences stimulated. However, this year’s list of nominees included two songs from Emilia Pérez, with songs that have been excessively mocked online. Nevertheless, one number, “El Mal,” took home Best Original Song. That was all the recognition the Academy seemingly wanted to give the film’s music during the ceremony, though, and it was ultimately a good choice.
Wicked stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande opened the show, with a celebration of the cinematic legacy of The Wizard of Oz and a tribute to Los Angeles following the catastrophic wildfires this past January. Grande performed “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz, while Cynthia Erivo sang “Home” from The Wiz, ending with her show-stopping “Defying Gravity” riff. Then there was a delightfully random James Bond tribute (perhaps a eulogy, given its recent Amazon acquisition?) featuring pop stars Lisa, Doja Cat, and Raye with a slightly shaky but amusing medley of “Skyfall,” “Diamonds Are Forever,” and “Live and Let Die.” Lastly, Queen Latifah offered a spirited tribute to Quincy Jones, performing “Ease on Down the Road” from his production The Wiz.
The Oscars seem to have taken notes from the Grammys, putting as many divas as they could onstage. In a ceremony defined by lackluster nominees, it was a welcome distraction. — Kyndall Cunningham
Winner: Starting at 7 pm Eastern
For the second year in a row, Hollywood’s Biggest Night™ was actually late afternoon — the ceremony started at 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern. And you know what? Good! For Academy Award watchers on the East Coast, the show going over means getting to bed closer to midnight. It’s a school night — not everyone can stay up that late.
Starting an hour earlier also makes the viewing experience more pleasurable. The time cushion makes everything feel a little less stressful (especially when the acceptance speeches go long) because there’s essentially an extra hour. Host Conan O’Brien even had an entire musical number/a promise that he “won’t waste time.”
Praise ABC and the powers that be, Sunday’s show ended before 11! — Alex Abad-Santos
Loser: Actors talking about their private business in public
Blame it on the vibe shift, blame it on the Los Angeles fires shaking up Hollywood, blame it on who knows what, but there was, frankly, a lot of people’s private business happening in front of the cameras on Hollywood’s biggest night. Kieran Culkin, accepting his Best Supporting Actor Oscar, told a long and admittedly funny story about his wife whose punchline was that she only agreed to have a third and a fourth child if he won an Emmy and an Oscar, respectively — because she didn’t think he ever would. Meanwhile, Andrew Garfield tried to make an unimpressed Goldie Hawn cry by telling her impromptu that she was his recently deceased mother’s favorite actor while they were supposed to be presenting the awards in the two animated categories.
None of this is necessarily bad, but it is traditionally the sort of thing you take care of when you are not being broadcast live across the world. Hollywood decided to tear down the boundaries tonight. — Constance Grady
The winner for Best Documentary Feature — the result of a collaboration between Israeli and Palestinian activists — was something of an upset, if only because its lack of a US distributor hurt it at some Oscar-predicting awards, including both the Producers and Directors Guild Awards. The film’s creators are also its subjects: Basel Adra, a displaced Palestinian activist, navigates the destruction of Gaza, while his friend and creative partner Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist, lives in relative security and stability.
While the Oscars largely skirted political speech (no one referenced President Donald Trump by name), these directors succeeded in making an unusually direct address. In an uncompromising speech, Adra said, “We call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.” Abraham, echoed this sentiment, saying, “We see each other, the destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end, the Israeli hostages, brutally taken in the crime of Oct. 7, which must be freed,” before pointing directly to US foreign policy as blocking the path to peace. — Meredith Haggerty
Loser: The revamped “Fab Five” presentation
One of the most beloved recurring features at the Oscars is what’s known as the “Fab Five” format in the acting categories. The gist: five previous winners of each category — Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress — are brought on stage to present and praise the nominees and announce the winner. It’s a touching way to honor the history and importance of the award.
The Fab Five was supposed to be used again this year but, likely due to the impossibly thorny optics of introducing Best Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón and the controversy surrounding her Islamophobic and anti-Black tweets, the format was nixed. Instead, the Oscars consolidated. Three of last year’s winners — Robert Downey Jr., Da’vine Joy Randolph, Cillian Murphy — said something about each of the nominees in their respective categories. Meanwhile, Emma Stone, who presented Best Actress, more or less just introduced the category and didn’t say anything specific about the actresses nominated, who besides Gascón included Demi Moore, Fernanda Torres, Cynthia Erivo, and winner Mikey Madison.
The result felt a little less personal and a bit more awkward. Downey Jr.’s casual glibness wasn’t a really good fit for giving other actors their moment in the sun, and there was no way for Stone to elegantly avoid the elephant in the room. Just one more way the Gascón blowup impacted the vibe at this year’s show. — Alex Abad-Santos
