The Academy Awards isn’t just Hollywood’s biggest night — it’s the grand finale of an entire season of cinematic celebration and debate. Every March, the industry’s biggest stars descend upon the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles for a night of awards, snubs, way-too-long speeches, fashion, humor, music, and more. This year marked the 97th ceremony, and for me, it was more than just a show. It culminated months of predictions, feverish precursor stalking, and heated debates over who will bring home the gold. As always, this year’s ceremony had its mix of highlights, lowlights, and surprises.
The show opened not with the traditional monologue but with Wicked stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande singing a mashup of songs from The Wizard of Oz, The Wiz, and, of course, Wicked. The best part was their rendition of “Defying Gravity”. Still, I felt the performance overstayed its welcome a bit — by the time the opening notes of “Defying Gravity” began, I was itching for the host to take the stage and for the awards to start being handed out. It was also just one of many performances throughout the night. Later in the show, there were musical tributes to Quincy Jones as well as … James Bond? I wasn’t sure about the latter’s relevance, considering there’s no new Bond film on the horizon, but at least the songs were entertaining!
The announcement that Conan O’Brien would host this year’s ceremony absolutely thrilled me. I adore Conan and knew his sharp, self-aware humor would be perfect for the monologue. I’m pleased to say I was right! His monologue was hilarious, and a few moments completely cracked me up — notably, his dig at Emilia Perez star Karla Sofia Gascon’s racist tweets and the resurfacing reference to Dune’s sandworm.
The monologue is a crucial tone-setter for the ceremony — a bad host can derail the night before it even starts — but O’Brien kicked things off strong and kept the momentum going. I hope they bring him back next year (and finally give Jimmy Kimmel a much-needed break).
Now, onto the elephant in the room — my predictions from the week before the ceremony. Let’s just say this year was not my best work in calling winners. Best Animated Feature went to Flow instead of The Wild Robot, as I predicted — though, in my defense, I did say I wouldn’t be surprised if Flow ended up bringing home the gold.
I rode the Demi Moore train until the wheels fell off, and in the end, it was Mikey Madison whose name was called for Best Actress for her work in Anora. While that prediction didn’t pan out, I correctly called Anora’s Best Picture and Original Screenplay wins, though I didn’t anticipate its surprise victories in Best Director and Best Editing. With Sean Baker having written, edited, directed, and produced Anora, he became the first person in Academy Award history to win four statuettes for the same film in a single night. (Walt Disney also won four in one night but for different films.)
The other winners weren’t too surprising. Zoe Saldana and Kieran Culkin capped off their season-long sweeps in the supporting categories for their work in Emilia Perez and A Real Pain, respectively. Adrien Brody took home Best Actor for The Brutalist, as expected, and officially set the record for the longest Oscar speech of all time — clocking in at 5 minutes and 40 seconds. I’d recap what he said, but I remember virtually none of it; the ratio of speech length to memorable content was shockingly low.
The biggest race of the night was Madison vs. Moore. Still, with Anora turning into an absolute juggernaut, racking up awards left and right, it became apparent early on that Madison had the Oscar locked.
This year’s ceremony had a strong lineup of category presenters. Last year’s acting award recipients returned to pass the torch to their successors. I loved Cillian Murphy and Emma Stone’s introduction of acting clips for their nominees. However, Da’Vine Joy Randolph and Robert Downey Jr. opted to read descriptions of their nominees’ performances instead of presenting clips — a baffling and frustrating decision. Why must we deviate from the perfection of showing clips of the nominated performances? Hearing actors describe other performances is eye-roll-inducing. I hope the Academy will return to clips and clips only next year.
I loved the choice of having Quentin Tarantino present the Best Director Oscar to Sean Baker, especially since Baker used his acceptance speech to thank Tarantino for casting Mikey Madison in Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood — a role that ultimately led to her starring in Anora. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan had a When Harry Met Sally reunion when presenting the Oscar for Best Picture, which overjoyed me as a superfan of the film. Seeing them together was the perfect touch of nostalgia to close out the night (especially with them presenting to my personal 2024 favorite, Anora.)
Other highlights included the Palestinian-Israeli film No Other Land taking home the Oscar for Best Documentary. No Other Land follows a Palestinian activist documenting his home and land being destroyed, who then befriends a Jewish Israeli journalist. Despite taking home the Academy Award and appearing at various film festivals like the Toronto International Film Festival & Vancouver International Film Festival, it still has not found a U.S. distributor, which is frustrating yet unsurprising considering its subject matter. I was also pleasantly surprised by The Substance taking home the Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling — could this be the beginning of the Academy starting to appreciate horror films?
And just like that, another Oscars season is in the books! As any Oscar superfan knows, it’s impossible to make it through a night without questionable wins, cringe-inducing acceptance speeches, and funky fashion choices. But, all in all, I was pleased with how the Academy Awards shook out. I couldn’t be more excited to start tracking for next year’s ceremony … and with a new Avatar movie and a Bruce Springsteen biopic on the horizon, it’s shaping up to be another exciting and unpredictable year.