Los Angeles, California – The 97th Academy Awards ceremony has concluded, with “Anora” emerging as the big winner, taking home six Oscars, including best picture, direction, lead actress, original screenplay and editing. The romantic drama was nominated in a total of six categories, missing out only in the supporting male actor category.
Sean Baker, the director of “Anora”, won four Oscars, the most by any individual this year. The film’s success was a surprise to many, as it was not a clear frontrunner in the awards season.
In the best actor category, Adrien Brody took home the award for his role in “Der Brutalist”, defeating Timothée Chalamet, who had been a dark horse candidate after his surprise win at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Mikey Madison won the best actress award for her role in “Anora”, beating out Demi Moore for “The Substance”. The supporting actor and actress awards went to Zoe Saldana for “Emilia Pérez” and Kieran Culkin for “A Real Pain”, respectively, as expected.
The best animated film award went to “Flow”, while “Für immer hier” from Brazil won the foreign language film Oscar. “Der Brutalist” won the award for best original score, with German composer Volker Bertelmann missing out, having won the same award last year for “Im Westen nichts Neues”.
“A Complete Unknown” had a disappointing night, going home empty-handed despite eight nominations.
The documentary film “No Other Land” won the award in its category, a film made by an Israeli-Palestinian collective that had its world premiere at the Berlinale in February 2024 and had already won the Berlinale documentary film prize. The film’s director, Yuval Abraham, used the platform to criticize the suppression of the Palestinian people and the foreign policy of US President Donald Trump.
The ceremony itself was uneventful, with no major upsets or controversies, although there were some pre-awards season controversies surrounding the film “Emilia Pérez”, which was nominated 13 times but had its Oscar hopes largely dashed after social media posts from the film’s lead actress, Karla Sofía Gascón, surfaced, which many deemed discriminatory.
The TV ratings for the ceremony will be closely watched, as the best picture nominees “Wicked” and “Dune: Part Two” are the only real blockbusters in this year’s ceremony and in years when films with higher box office numbers are nominated, there is often a small bump in viewership for the Oscars.