2025 Academy Awards: ‘Anora’ is the top winner

March 2, 2025

by Carla Hay

With five prizes, including Best Picture, Neon’s comedy/drama “Anora” was the top winner for the 97th annual Academy Awards, which took place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on March 2, 2025. ABC had the U.S. telecast of the show, which was hosted by Conan O’Brien and livestreamed on Hulu. The nominations and awards are voted for by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

“Anora” (about an American sex worker who marries a wealthy Russian heir) won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing for producer/director/writer/editor Sean Baker. With these victories, Baker became the first person in Academy Awards history to win four Oscars for the same movie and for these four categories in the same year. (In 1954, Walt Disney was the first person to win four Oscars in the same year, when he won for “The Living Desert,” “Bear Country,” “The Alaskan Eskimo” and “Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom.”) Mikey Madison, who plays the movie’s title character, won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

A24’s drama “The Brutalist” (about a Hungarian immigrant architect) won three Oscars: Best Actor (for Adrien Brody), Best Cinematography and Best Original Score. Netflix’s “Emilia Pérez” (a Spanish-language musical about a transgender woman who becomes a former drug-trafficking crime boss) had the most Oscar nominations (13) going into the ceremony, and ultimately ended up winning two Oscars: Best Actress in a Supporting Role (for Zoe Saldaña) and Best Original Song (for “El Mal”).

Other winners included Kieran Culkin of Searchlight Pictures’ comedy/drama “A Real Pain” (Best Actor in a Supporting Role); Focus Features’ drama “Conclave” (Best Adapted Screenplay); Sideshow/Janus Films’ “Flow” (Best Animated Feature Film); and Sony Pictures Classics’ drama “I’m Still Here” (Best International Feature Film), the first movie from Brazil to win in this category. “Flow,” which was also nominated for Best International Feature Film, is the first movie from Latvia to win an Oscar.

Instead of performances of the Best Original Song nominations, there were other musical performances. “Wicked” co-stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande did a medley of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “Here” and “Defying Gravity.” There was a tribute to James Bond movies, with performances of James Bond movie theme songs: Blackpink singer Lisa performed “Live and Let Die”; Doja Cat performed “Diamonds Are Forever”; and Raye performed “Skyfall.” In a tribute to Quincy Jones (who died in November 2024), Queen Latifah performed “Ease on Down the Road” from “The Wiz” musical because Jones was a music supervisor and songwriter for the 1978 movie version of “The Wiz.”

Presenters at the show included Joe Alwyn, Halle Berry, Sterling K. Brown, Billy Crystal, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Ana de Armas, Dave Bautista, Lily-Rose Depp, Robert Downey Jr., Elle Fanning, Morgan Freeman, Gal Gadot, Andrew Garfield, Whoopi Goldberg, Selena Gomez, Goldie Hawn, Samuel L. Jackson, Mick Jagger, Scarlett Johansson, John Lithgow, Cillian Murphy, Connie Nielsen, Amy Poehler, Margaret Qualley, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Alba Rohrwacher, Meg Ryan, Saldaña, June Squibb, Ben Stiller, Emma Stone, Quentin Tarantino, Oprah Winfrey, Bowen Yang and Rachel Zegler.

Here is the complete list of nominations and winners for the 2025 Academy Awards:

*=winner

Best Picture

“Anora”*
“The Brutalist”
“A Complete Unknown”
“Conclave”
“Dune: Part Two”
“Emilia Pérez”
“I’m Still Here”
“Nickel Boys”
“The Substance”
“Wicked”

Best Director

Sean Baker (“Anora”)*
Brady Corbet (“The Brutalist”)
James Mangold (“A Complete Unknown”)
Jacques Audiard (“Emilia Pérez”)
Coralie Fargeat (“The Substance”

Best Actor in a Leading Role

Adrien Brody (“The Brutalist”)*
Timothée Chalamet (“A Complete Unknown”)
Colman Domingo (“Sing Sing”)
Ralph Fiennes (“Conclave”)
Sebastian Stan (“The Apprentice”)

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Cynthia Erivo (“Wicked”)
Karla Sofía Gascón (“Emilia Pérez”)
Mikey Madison (“Anora”)*
Demi Moore (“The Substance”)
Fernanda Torres (“I’m Still Here”)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role

Yura Borisov (“Anora”)
Kieran Culkin (“A Real Pain”)*
Edward Norton (“A Complete Unknown”)
Guy Pearce (“The Brutalist”)
Jeremy Strong (“The Apprentice”)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Monica Barbaro (“A Complete Unknown”)
Ariana Grande (“Wicked”)
Felicity Jones (“The Brutalist”)
Isabella Rossellini (“Conclave”)
Zoe Saldaña (“Emilia Pérez”)*

Best Adapted Screenplay

“A Complete Unknown,” screenplay by James Mangold and Jay Cocks
“Conclave,” screenplay by Peter Straughan*
“Emilia Pérez,” screenplay by Jacques Audiard, in collaboration with Thomas Bidegain, Léa Mysius and Nicolas Livecchi
“Nickel Boys,” screenplay by RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes
“Sing Sing,” screenplay by Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar; story by Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin and John “Divine G” Whitfield

Best Original Screenplay

“Anora,” written by Sean Baker*
“The Brutalist,” written by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold
“A Real Pain,” written by Jesse Eisenberg
“September 5,” written by Moritz Binder and Tim Fehlbaum; co-written by Alex David
“The Substance,” written by Coralie Fargeat

Best Cinematography

“The Brutalist”*
“Dune: Part Two”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Maria”
“Nosferatu”

Best Film Editing

“Anora,” Sean Baker*
“The Brutalist,” David Jancso
“Conclave,” Nick Emerson
“Emilia Pérez,” Juliette Welfling
“Wicked,” Myron Kerstein

Best Sound

“A Complete Unknown”
“Dune: Part Two”*
“Emilia Pérez”
“Wicked”
“The Wild Robot”

Best Original Score

“The Brutalist,” Daniel Blumberg*
“Conclave,” Volker Bertelmann
“Emilia Pérez,” Clément Ducol and Camille
“Wicked,” John Powell and Stephen Schwartz
“The Wild Robot,” Kris Bowers

Best Original Song

“El Mal” from “Emilia Pérez” (Music by Clément Ducol and Camille; lyrics by Clément Ducol, Camille and Jacques Audiard)*
“The Journey” from “The Six Triple Eight” (Music and lyrics by Diane Warren)
“Like a Bird” from “Sing Sing” (Music and lyrics by Abraham Alexander and Adrian Quesada)
“Mi Camino” from “Emilia Pérez” (Music and lyric by Camille and Clément Ducol)
“Never Too Late” from “Elton John: Never Too Late” (Music and lyrics by Elton John, Brandi Carlile, Andrew Watt and Bernie Taupin)

Best Animated Feature Film

“Flow”*
“Inside Out 2”
“Memoir of a Snail”
“Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”
“The Wild Robot”

Best International Feature Film

“I’m Still Here” (Brazil)*
“The Girl With the Needle” (Denmark)
“Emilia Pérez” (France)
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (Germany)
“Flow” (Latvia)

Best Documentary Feature

“Black Box Diaries”
“No Other Land”*
“Porcelain War”
“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat”
“Sugarcane”

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

“A Different Man”
“Emilia Pérez”
“Nosferatu”
“The Substance”*
“Wicked”

Best Costume Design

“A Complete Unknown,” Arianne Phillips
“Conclave,” Lisy Christl
“Gladiator II,” Janty Yates and Dave Crossman
“Nosferatu,” Linda Muir
“Wicked,” Paul Tazewell*

Best Production Design

“The Brutalist”
“Conclave”
“Dune: Part Two”
“Nosferatu”
“Wicked”*

Best Visual Effects

“Alien: Romulus”
“Better Man”
“Dune: Part Two”*
“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes”
“Wicked”

Best Documentary Short Subject

“Death by Numbers”
“I Am Ready, Warden”
“Incident”
“Instruments of a Beating Heart”
“The Only Girl in the Orchestra”*

Best Animated Short Film

“Beautiful Men”
“In the Shadow of the Cypress”*
“Magic Candies”
“Wander to Wonder”
“Yuck!”

Best Live-Action Short Film

“A Lien”
“Anuja”
“I’m Not a Robot”*
“The Last Ranger”
“The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent”