Oscars 2025: Full list of winners as wild screwball comedy Anora takes five Academy Awards

Mikey Madison beats Demi Moore for best actress prize as Adrien Brody is best actor, and Kieran Culkin and Zoë Saldaña get best supporting actor Oscars

A highlight selection of speeches from the 2025 Oscar winners for Best Director; Best Picture, Best Actress; Best Actor, and Best Documentary.

Donald Clarke

Mon Mar 03 2025 - 05:47 • 7 MIN READ

Sean Baker’s Anora, a wild screwball comedy staged at a hectic pace, won five prizes, including the best-picture Oscar, at the 97th Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday night. “I would like to thank the academy for recognising a truly independent film,” Baker, a New Jersey original, said from the stage. “This film was made on the blood, sweat and tears of incredible indie artists and ... long live independent film!”

It was an extraordinary night for his movie. Mikey Madison, who plays a young sex worker spinning about after-hours New York, beat the narrow favourite, Demi Moore, who was up for The Substance, to the prize for best actress. The two actors had been in a duel throughout awards season, and the veteran Moore did a good job of looking pleased for her younger rival. “I just want to again recognise and honour the sex-worker community,” Madison said. “I will continue to support and be an ally of all these incredible people. The women that I’ve had the privilege of meeting from that community have been one of the highlights of this entire incredible experience.”

Baker himself, taking editing, original screenplay, directing and (as producer) best film, equalled the record, set by Walt Disney in 1954, for most wins by an individual in one evening. But Disney won those Oscars for different projects. Nobody has previously won so many for the same film on the same evening. Nick Emerson from Lisburn, nominated for Conclave, lost out to Baker in editing. “I truly appreciate the recognition for this, because, God, if you saw that footage!” Baker, charmingly self-deprecating, said with a laugh. “I saved this film in the edit. That director should never work again.”

Oscars 2025: Sean Baker with his awards for best picture, best directing, best film editing and best original Screenplay, for Anora. Photograph: Caroline Brehman/EPA-EFE

Anora had been on observers’ radars since winning the Palme d’Or at Cannes last May, but, in an awards season of many twists, it has been in and out of the favourite slot ever since. It is only the third film, after Marty, from 1955, and Parasite, from 2019, to win the Palme and the Oscar for best picture.

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Cillian Murphy, winner of best actor in 2024 for Oppenheimer, was there to present this year’s prize to Adrien Brody for his performance as a troubled architect in The Brutalist, Brady Corbet’s bewitching postwar American epic. Brody, who won the same prize for The Pianist in 2003, looked to acknowledge the ups and downs of an actor’s life in a long speech. (He was played off twice.) “I pray for a healthier and a happier and a more inclusive world,” he said from the podium. “And I believe if the past can teach us anything, it’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.”

Much of a particularly fraught awards season had been taken up with debate about offensive tweets sent over the past few years by Karla Sofía Gascón, star of the brash musical Emilia Pérez. That story, revealed at the end of January, sent Gascón to the margins and caused many to wonder if she would turn up at the Oscars. She was there and received a polite (forgiving?) round of applause when Conan O’Brien mentioned her in his opening monologue. “Little fact for you. Anora uses the F-word 479 times,” he said. “That’s three more than the record sent by Karla Sofía Gascón’s publicist. ‘You did what!’” Finding Gascon in the crowd, he remarked, referencing last year’s host, “If you’re going to tweet about the Oscars, remember, my name is Jimmy Kimmel.”

Zoë Saldaña, who plays a lawyer lured to the mob in Emilia Pérez, weathered the storm comfortably to win best supporting actress. “My grandmother came to this country in 1961,” she said. “I am the proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hardworking hands, and I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award and I know I will not be the last.”

If Emilia Pérez, which topped the table with 13 nominations, did lose ground as a result of the scandal it was probably in the race for best international feature. The peculiar film once seemed unbeatable in that category, but, by the time the ceremony came around, it was close second favourite to Walter Salles’s political saga I’m Still Here. Salles’s film did indeed earn Brazil its first win in this category. “I thank you first in the name of Brazilian cinema,” he said. Telling the story of Eunice Paiva, left alone after her husband was “disappeared” during the country’s military dictatorship, the film has been a huge hit with Ireland’s Brazilian community.

The organisers wisely opened with one of the evening’s dead certs. Kieran Culkin, nominated for A Real Pain, continued his run of witty speeches with a cracking anecdote about his wife promising, fancifully it seems, that she’d give him a fourth child if he won an Oscar. “Ye of little faith!” Culkin crowed.

Oscars 2025: Adrien Brody, Mikey Madison, Zoë Saldaña and Kieran Culkin with their awards after the ceremony. Photograph: Caroline Brehman/EPA-EFE

There was a surprise in best animated feature with Gints Zilbalodis’s Flow, a gorgeous low-budget Latvian film, which passed out Pixar’s Inside Out 2 and Universal’s The Wild Robot to the prize. That perhaps speaks to the opening up of the academy to more “overseas” voters in recent years. O’Brien told us this was the first time Latvia had won an Oscar. “Estonia, the ball’s in your court!”

One of the most popular wins of the evening was that in best documentary for the Palestinian film No Other Land. The film-makers, accepting for a work detailing the forced displacement of Palestinians by Israeli military, delivered balanced and articulate speeches. Basel Adra, codirector, said, “No Other Land reflects the harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades and still resist as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.” His words were greeted with enthusiastic applause.

The ceremony was otherwise surprisingly light on politics. O’Brien did, however, get in one apparent dig about Donald Trump. “Anora is having a good night,” he said. “Two wins already. I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian.” Anora makes excellent use of the Russian-speaking areas of Brooklyn.

The 97th ceremony was a lively, well-managed affair. The show began with Ariana Grande singing a soaring version of Over the Rainbow before being joined by Cynthia Erivo, her costar in Wicked, for a medley of songs from that musical. The announcement of O’Brien as host had been well received, and for the most part he delivered on those high expectations. For once we had someone who seemed genuinely interested in the films. “The Brutalist also received 10 nominations,” he said of that famously long film. “I love The Brutalist. I really did. I didn’t want it to end. And luckily it didn’t.” He closed the opening monologue with a tribute to Los Angeles, recently ravaged by wildfires, and to undercelebrated workers in the industry. Fire-service workers later appeared to accept applause.

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There was a fascinatingly timed James Bond tribute. Not quite two weeks after Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson ceded control of the franchise to Amazon MGM, Halle Berry was here to introduce a predictably cheesy sequence featuring glamorous women dancing with men in dinner jackets. “I had the great pleasure of working with Barbara and Michael on Die Another Day,” Berry said. “And, let me tell you, they don’t just produce Bond movies: they were the heart and soul of this franchise for decades.” Make of that what you will, Amazon.