Oscars 2025: Live as it happened

There’s been Envelopegate, Slapgate, Jamesbloodyfrancogate, #MeToo Oscars, and #OscarSoWhite. Will the 2025 Academy Awards – the 97th – be entirely glitch-free and controversy-free? Doubtful – and how dull would that be?

What is guaranteed is that there’ll be surprises galore in the most open and unpredictable Oscars night in recent memory. Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Actor… all very much up for grabs. Will Conclave continue its late dash for glory? Will the controversy-stricken Emilia Pérez sink without trace, despite those record-breaking 13 nominations? Will Cynthia Erivo complete an EGOT triumph for the ages? 

Stay tuned and we’ll report the wins as the envelopes are unsealed.

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And finally, the big one... Best Picture goes to Anora!

Presented by Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan – hot damn, it’s Harry and Sally! – the big award of the night goes to Anora. What a night for Sean Baker’s indie gem. 

Mikey Madison wins Best Actress for Anora

Maybe not a major surprise but still a surprise, Mikey Madison triumphs over hot favourite Demi Moore to win Best Actress. Anora’s fourth win of the night.

Sean Baker wins Best Director for Anora

Sean Baker accepts the award with a proper cri de coeur for the future of cinemas. ‘Right now the theatregoing experience is under threat, especially independent cinemas and it’s up to us to support them,’ he says. ‘This is my battle cry. Filmmakers, keep making films for the big screen.’ Amen to that.

Best Actor goes to Adrien Brody for The Brutalist

Into the final stretch! Next award is for Best Actor and it goes to... Adrien Brody! It’s his second Oscar following his 2003 win for The Pianist.

Daniel Blumberg just won Best Score for The Brutalist

International Film is won by Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here 

It’s Brazil’s first Oscar win, at the fifth time of trying.

Lol Crawley wins Best Cinematography for The Brutalist

In memoriam section says farewell to Gene Hackman, David Lynch and other greats

Morgan Freeman pays tribute to the late, great Gene Hackman. ‘Gene always said, I don’t think about legacy; I just hope people remember as someone who tried to do good work. You’ll be remembered for that, and so much more. Rest in peace, my friend.’

Also remembered are Maggie Smith, cinematography great Dick Pope, Bob Newhart, Roger Corman, M Emmet Walsh, Robert Towne, Donald Sutherland, Teri Garr, James Earl Jones, David Lynch, Shelley Duvall, Joan Plowright, and The Kings’s Speech co-writer David Seidler. You can only imagine the movie they’re making. 

Live Action Short goes to I’m Not a Robot

Dune: Part Two wins a pair of technical awards: Best Sound and Best Visual Effects

Best Documentary is won by No Other Land

‘We call on the world to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people,’ says No Other Land co-director Basel Adra in an impassioned speech calling for a major change in US foreign policy. Read our four-star review of the film here.

Best Documentary Short goes to The Only Girl in the Orchestra

Best Original Song is ‘El Mal’ from Emilia Pérez

Mick Jagger is announcing this one. ‘The producers really wanted Bob Dylan to do it,’ says the Stones frontman. ’He said the best songs this year were all in A Complete Unknown.’ The winner is ‘El Mal’, performed by Zoe Saldaña in Emilia Pérez.

Production Design goes to Wicked

Best Supporting Actress goes to Zoe Saldaña for Emilia Pérez

‘I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hard-working hands, and I am the first American of Dominican origin to win an Oscar,’ says Saldaña in a teary, passionate acceptance speech. 

Best Editing goes to Anora

After a slightly random 007 medley that had Doja Cat bashing out a soaring Shirley Bassey tribute with ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ and Raye unleashing ‘Skyfall’, Daryl Hannah announces that Anora has won for Achievement in Film Editing. Will it be Anora’s night? 

Make-up and Hairstyling is won by The Substance

Introducing the hair and make-up award is Scarlett Johansson and June Squibb (‘or as I call then: Scarjo and JuSqu’, says Conan). And, in a gory, gross-out triumph for body horror, the winner is The Substance.

Best Adapted Screenplay goes to Peter Straughan and Conclave

This year’s Best Original Screenplay winner is... Anora

Sean Baker wins for Anora and, in a likely Academy Awards first, dedicates the win to the sex worker community.

Best Costume Design goes to Wicked

An ensemble of actors from the nominated films, including Lily Rose-Depp, John Lithgow, Elle Fanning, Connie Nielsen and Bowen Yang, paid tribute to their respective costume designers, before giving the statuette to Paul Tazewell for Wicked. ‘I’m the first Black man to receive a costume design [Oscar],’ he says to a standing ovation.

Best Animation winner is... Flow!

Goldie Hawn and Andrew Garfield announce the winner: Flow, the wondrous animal survival epic from Latvian auteur Gints Zilbalodis. Best Animated Short goes to Iranian animation In the Shadow of the Cypress.

Best Supporting Actor goes to Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain

He swore – because of course he did – but Kieran Culkin got emotional in a speech with a bonus revelation that his wife has promised him a fourth child if won an Oscar. Oops.

Conan O’Brien gets the show underway in style

‘Please welcome four-time Oscar viewer… Conan O’Brien’. With that, this year’s host arrived with a bag full of zingers and a pretty perfectly-judged intro. Not revolutionary, not incendiary, but consistently enjoyable and high-energy in that skittishly self-effacing and all-round charming way of his. Sincere, too. 

There were some zingers aimed, in no particular order at Netflix (‘Netflix leads all studios with a total of 18 – yes, 18 – price increases’), Wicked (‘It’s the perfect movie for anyone who finished watching the Wizard of Oz and thought: sure, but where did all the minor characters go to college?’), The Brutalist (‘I didn’t want it to finish… and it didn’t’). The controversy around Emilia Pérez’s Karla Sofía Gascón, in attendance at the ceremony, was handled fairly gracefully (‘Karla, if you are going to tweet about the Oscars remember: my name is Jimmy Kimmel.’)