Hollywood’s Biggest Night. Filled with glamorous gowns, controversial awards and larger than life performances. From host Conan O’Brien’s successful first time to Adrien Brody’s lengthy, stubborn speech, there were plenty of newsworthy moments at the 97th Annual Academy Awards.
The red carpet was filled with celebrities like Scarlett Johansson, Lily-Rose Depp, Margaret Qualley, Andrew Garfield and of course Robert Downey Jr.
Some of the best dressed guests of the night consisted of Ariana Grande, who wore a gorgeous rose colored gown that captured the essence of her character Galinda in Wicked.
Lead Actress nominee and winner Mikey Madison rocked a strapless pink and black dress that did the opposite of Grande, and contrasted her character Ani in the film Anora. While the character Ani was edgy and reckless, Madison’s dress gave the actress a more mature and classy look.
While the Lead Actor nominee for Sing Sing, Colman Domingo, sported a stylish, bright red Valentino suit with fun red sunglasses.
And Lead Actor nominee Timothée Chalamet brought another bright look to the carpet. The A Complete Unknown star dressed head to toe in an all pastel yellow suit.
Once in the Dolby Theatre, Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo did an absolutely stunning performance of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and then transitioned into “Defying Gravity” from their film Wicked.
Conan O’Brien started the show with his ‘rendition’ of The Substance. By using clips from the film, O’Brien was able to comedically climb out of leading lady Demi Moore’s body and walk onstage to begin his monologue for the Oscars.
In his speech, O’Brien made many funny quips about the nominees, and he even got Adam Sandler in on the gag. Sandler, planted in the audience in a blue sweatshirt and gym shorts, was criticized by O’Brien for his underdressed appearance at the award show in front of his peers. Before his dramatic exit, Sandler invited all the celebs to a basketball scrimmage and then proceeded to walk up to Timothée Chalamet and yell, “CHALAMET!” A call back to Nikki Glaser’s comment about Chalamet’s name and pronunciation at the Golden Globes.
O’Brien also took a jab at the controversy surrounding Emilia Pérez leading actress Karla Sofía Gascón. According to People, Gascón in 2020-2021 allegedly claimed “that the Oscars preferred to spotlight independent and protest films and specifically calling out the Black Lives Matter Movement”. On top of that Gascón made many hateful posts towards other religions, cultures, and people. One being her costar Selena Gomez. Gascón called Gomez “a “rich rat” who will “never stop bothering her ex-boyfriend and his wife,”
Conan’s joke was first about Gascón’s publicist and what their reaction would be when first hearing about the tweets, and then followed up with telling Gascón, (whose to much surprise was present), that if she does choose to tweet about the Oscars then Conan O’Brien’s name is Jimmy Kimmel. Gascón of course followed through.
The awards were given out rather generously for the most part. The film Conclave received one win for its eight nominations. It was favored to win both Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Achievement in Film Editing, but it only took home Best Screenplay.
A Complete Unknown was also nominated for eight Oscars; however, unlike Conclave, the film took home zero awards. The only categories the film was expected to have a chance in was Best Sound and Best Leading Actor. Dune: Part II, another Chalamet film, took home the well deserved Oscar for Best Sound over A Complete Unknown. While Chalamet had a slight chance of securing the Oscar for Best Leading Actor, Adrien Brody of The Brutalist gave the performance of his life and rightfully so earned the Award.
The Brutalist, on top of winning the Oscar for Best Lead Actor, also took home the award for Best Achievement in Cinematography and Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures. While director Brady Corbet had a possibility of winning the Oscar for Best Directing, Sean Baker ended up taking it home for his film Anora.
When Adrien Brody won his Oscar on Sunday night, he talked over the allotted time and then told the orchestra to stop playing the exiting music so he could finish. This was seen two very different ways. Firstly, Brody acted the same way when he won his first Oscar in 2003 for The Pianist, and it can be viewed that there should not be an issued time for a speech. These nominees have worked so hard, and have put so much effort into their choices in the industry that they deserve the time to thank those who have helped get them there. All speeches at an award show should not be cut off so quickly, but the winners should be respectful of people’s times and not talk for ten minutes.
The main problem viewers had with Brody’s speech was unfortunately related to what had happened with a few of the nominees earlier in the night. Brody is an accomplished and well-known actor and when he asked for the music to stop it did; however, when there were multiple people on the stage accepting an award, majority of the winners did not get a chance to talk. These winners were obviously not as famous as Brody and therefore not as authoritative. This unbalance is unfair because both parties put in a lot of time and effort to get where they are now, and both deserve an equal amount of time to thank the people in their life who allowed them to get where they are today.
2024 Academy Award winner, Cillian Murphy, stole the show during Adrien Brody’s acceptance speech. After dodging cameras all night, Murphy suddenly appeared to present the award for Best Leading Actor. After giving it to Brody, Murphy stood off to the side of the stage with the most deadpan, Thomas Shelby, (his character from the hit television series Peaky Blinders), look. This has now turned into an internet joke, with people commenting and narrating whatever could have been going through Murphy’s head while watching Brody deliver his speech.
Anora had a phenomenal night, as director Sean Baker tied Walt Disney’s record for the most Oscars won by a single person in a night. Yet, Disney won in 1954 for four different films while Baker won for the same film. He was awarded for Best Directing, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Picture. This historic mark for Anora possibly could represent a shift in Hollywood’s perspective of filmmakers. This win removes big studio productions and filmmakers from the prime choice for an Oscar, and sets the precedent that independent films are just as important as the ones made by big time filmmakers.
The Substance and Demi Moore had a less than phenomenal night. The Substance did win for Best Hair and Makeup, but Moore lost to Mikey Madison in the Best Leading Actress category. Debates spurred from this claiming that the Academy just proved the very ideals The Substance comments on, where women are only loved and employed in Hollywood when they are young and gorgeous. This can be disputed though because both Moore and Madison gave performances that were extraordinary, and it was a tough decision no matter who you wanted to win.
Madison’s breakthrough performance was very different than when viewers first saw her in Quentin Tarentino’s Once Upon a Time…. in Hollywood. For Anora she did so much training and even did not want an intimacy coordinator on set in order to keep the character authentic. Demi Moore put herself through countless prosthetics and put on a convincing performance that aligns almost too closely with Moore’s own industry experience. This familiarity and prosthetics could have been what led to her loss. Many voters could have seen the use of prosthetics not as enhancing her performance but as a leading cause of why it was so great. The familiarity of Moore’s performance could have also contributed, as it could have been seen as more of a reflection of Moore’s opinions and not as a unique performance.
The controversial film Emilia Pérez took home two of the Academy Awards out of the 13 it was nominated for. Zoe Saldaña won Best Supporting Actress, though many viewers chose to see it as a way for the Academy to thank Saldaña for her time in the industry. Many believed that other roles she’s been in were much better than her role as Rita in Emilia Pérez. Though the only clean sweep actor categories this season were Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain and of course Zoe Saldaña in Emilia Pérez, so members across the board in the entertainment industry must have felt a certain way in regards to the actors.
Though Emilia Pérez was somewhat thought to win Best International Feature Film, the Brazilian film I’m Still Here starring Fernanda Torres took home the award marking it the first ever Brazilian film to win in that category.
The film Wicked, which was nominated ten times, took home two Oscars as well. One for Best Production Design and Best Costume Design. Designer Paul Tazewell who did an undisputed phenomenal job with the costuming in Wicked became the first black man to win an Oscar for costuming.
The 97th Academy Awards were certainly groundbreaking in more ways than one, and one can only be excited to see what the next film and award season may bring.