American actors Adrien Brody and Mikey Madison were among the big winners at the Oscars on a night which saw Anora leading the pack with five wins.
Madison, 25, beat Hollywood stalwart Demi Moore to take home the best actress gong for her role in the comedy Anora, in which she plays a stripper who falls for the son of a Russian oligarch.
The film also won best picture, film editing, original screenplay and best director for Sean Baker, who used his speech to make a plea for the return of theatregoers to cinemas following the pandemic.
Baker has become the first person to win four Oscars for a single film at one ceremony. Previously Walt Disney won the same amount in one night but for different films.
Madison, who was the youngest in the best actress category this year, said the win was “very surreal” and she also paid tribute to the sex worker community saying she would “continue to support (them) and be an ally”.
Brody, 51, now a double-Oscar winner, took home the leading actor gong for The Brutalist, a film about a Jewish-Hungarian architect who flees the horrors of the Second World War for a better life in the US.
On stage, Brody said he felt “so fortunate” adding: “Acting is a very fragile profession. It looks very glamorous and (at) certain moments it is, but the one thing that I’ve gained, having the privilege to come back here, is to have some perspective.”
As music played him off stage mid-speech, he added: “I’m here once again to represent the lingering traumas and the repercussions of war and systematic oppression and of antisemitism and racism and of othering and I pray for a healthier and a happier and a more inclusive world.”
American actress Zoe Saldana declared she is a “proud child of immigrant parents” during a tearful acceptance speech after winning the best supporting actress Oscar.
Saldana, 46, was named the winner in the category over stars including actor and singer Ariana Grande, British star Felicity Jones, Monica Barbaro and Italian stalwart Isabella Rossellini.
She won the Oscar, her first, for her role in Netflix’s Spanish-language film Emilia Perez, in which she plays a lawyer called Rita who helps a Mexican drug lord change gender.
The film, which had led the Oscar nominations with 13, did not emerge as a leader on the night, with only two wins, after one of its stars, Karla Sofia Gascon, made headlines over historic social media posts.
Oscars 2025 in brief
- Sean Baker took home the best director gong for Anora - which also won best picture.
- Adrien Brody won best actor for his portrayal of László Toth in The Brutalist.
- The Brutalist took the best score award thanks to the work of British composer Daniel Blumberg.
- Mikey Madison won best actress for her role in Anora.
- Dune: Part Two took the best visual effects award and best sound.
- Wicked won best costume design & best production design.
- Kieran Culkin won the best supporting actor for his role in A Real Pain.
Kieran Culkin, 42, won the best supporting actor Oscar early on in the evening, beating Edward Norton, Guy Pearce and his Succession co-star Jeremy Strong in the category, as the 97th awards show got under way in Los Angeles.
He scooped the gong for A Real Pain, the Jesse Eisenberg-directed film about two cousins who go to their grandmother’s home country of Poland to trace their roots.
Culkin also joked during his speech that his wife, Jazz Charton, had promised him a fourth child if he won an Oscar.
It was a bad night for the British in the main acting categories, but members of the UK film industry were honoured in several behind-the-scenes roles.
British composer Daniel Blumberg won original score and Lol Crawley, who grew up in Wales, won the cinematography Oscar, both for The Brutalist.
Other Britons included special effects artist Paul Lambert, who was part of the best visual effects winning team behind science fiction film Dune: Part Two, which stars Timothee Chalamet, and designing pair Nathan Crowley and Lee Sandales for best production design for musical Wicked.
British writer Peter Straughan won the adapted screenplay gong for papal drama Conclave.
The night’s host, US comedian Conan O’Brien, referenced the controversy surrounding Emilia Perez during his opening monologue, and later in the evening he appeared to make reference to criticism of US President Donald Trump’s views on Russian President Vladimir Putin amid the war with Ukraine.
Kill Bill star Daryl Hannah referenced the war in Ukraine, saying “Slava Ukraini”, the country’s salute, as she presented the film editing award, which was won by Anora.
Actress and singer Grande opened the show singing The Wizard Of Oz song Somewhere Over The Rainbow, and was later joined by her co-star Erivo for a duet of Defying Gravity from Wicked.
Another musical tribute saw singers Raye, Blackpink member Lisa and US rapper and singer Doja Cat perform a James Bond tribute.
The performance honoured James Bond producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, who were announced as winners of the Academy’s Irving G Thalberg Memorial Award in 2024 and given Oscar statuettes at the Governors Awards.
Last month, Amazon MGM Studios announced they would take creative control over the 007 character with a new venture that will see them co-own the franchise rights with Wilson and Broccoli.
Oscar winner Morgan Freeman introduced the In Memoriam segment and paid tribute to actor Gene Hackman, who was last month found dead along with his wife, Betsy Arakawa and their dog, at their home in New Mexico.
Multiple nominees including Chalamet-starring A Complete Unknown, prison-set Sing Sing, The Apprentice, about Trump’s early years as a real estate developer, Nickel Boys, based on the novel from Colson Whitehead, and vampire film Nosferatu went home empty-handed on the night.
