Oscars 2025: A night of surprises, victories, and technical hiccups

The 97th Academy Awards, held on March 2, 2025, was filled with unexpected wins, emotional speeches, and memorable moments that left the entertainment world buzzing. Hosted by late-night veteran Conan O'Brien, the ceremony blended humour, history, and heartfelt celebration, cementing its place as one of the more unpredictable Oscars in recent years.

The Big winners
Sean Baker's Anora was the biggest winner of the night, winning five Oscars, including the highly coveted Best Picture. The raw, emotionally charged movie won the hearts of both the public and the critics, and Baker himself won the Best Director award. Mikey Madison, the film's breakout star, won the Best Actress award, making her the youngest actress to win the award since Brie Larson in 2016 for Room.

Adrien Brody made a significant resurgence in his career in the Best Actor category due to his role in The Brutalist. His captivating performance earned him his second Oscar, more than twenty years after his first for The Pianist in 2003. Brody's acceptance speech was among the evening's highlights as he jokingly resisted the orchestra's relentless efforts to wrap up his speech.

The Emilia Pérez backlash
Although Emilia Pérez managed to land several nominations, including Saldaña's win, the film was roundly criticized by critics and audiences alike. Many questioned how a film described as uneven, superficial, and stylistically overwrought to the point of distraction managed to gain such high-profile recognition. Some critics had gone on record saying Emilia Pérez was one of the worst nominees in years, and its inclusion in major categories had some questioning whether the Academy had put industry politics ahead of artistic merit.

Saldaña herself delivered a gracious acceptance speech, but it could not quite dispel the cloud hanging over the film. Social media was ablaze with arguments over whether Emilia Pérez's nominations mirrored the Academy's taste or indicated the ever-widening chasm between Hollywood insiders and the masses of moviegoers.

Historic firsts
The 2025 Oscars were landmarked when Paul Tazewell made history as the first Black man to receive the Best Costume Design award for his opulent work on Wicked. In his acceptance speech, he emphasized the need for visibility and the strength of storytelling through fashion.

Comedy meets chaos
Conan O'Brien kept the mood light throughout, using his signature dry humour to poke fun at Hollywood's quirks and the Oscars' history of controversies. His jokes about streaming mishaps, fashion risks, and industry egos gave the night a self-aware edge, a welcome contrast to the more solemn and overly polished ceremonies of years past.

Technical difficulties
As with every Oscars evening, not all of the headlines were positive. The "In Memoriam" segment was under fire for leaving out some industry heavyweights, such as actor Tony Todd. The omission caused a stir online, with fans and actors speaking out, hoping for a more complete and inclusive memorial in the future.

And the tone of the evening achieved a strange balance between goofiness and seriousness. Conan O'Brien's hosting was constructed on the back of self-referential jokes and good-natured industry roasting, a welcome change of pace from the stodgily serious ceremonies of recent years.

In the end, the 2025 Oscars showed us the new face of contemporary cinema where small indie films like Anora can beat out big-budget blockbusters, where fashion trends get as much media coverage as award victories, and where technical failures serve to remind us that not even Hollywood is safe from the anarchy of live streaming.

With a night that was as much full of surprises, emotional peaks, and moments that will enter Oscar lore as it was of expected wins and performances, the 97th Academy Awards showed why the Oscars still matter, both as a celebration of craftsmanship and a snapshot of an industry in transition.

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