The 97th Academy Awards are spreading the love around, dishing out awards to “Anora,” “Conclave,” “Wicked” and “The Substance,” in an Oscar ceremony that steered toward a nailbiter ending.
Eight of the 10 movies nominated for best picture came away with at least one award at the Dolby Theatre on Sunday. That included the beleaguered Netflix contender “Emilia Pérez,” which, despite a backlash to old offensive tweets by star Karla Sofía Gascón, won best supporting actress for Zoe Saldaña.
“I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hard-working hands,” said Saldaña. “I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award, and I know I will not be the last.”
The two films seen as the most likely to win best picture, “Anora” and “Conclave,” each took an award for screenplay. “Conclave” scribe Peter Straughan won best adapted screenplay for his adaptation of Robert Harris’ novel. “Anora” filmmaker Sean Baker won best original screenplay — an award he soon followed with best editing, too.
“I want to thank the sex worker community,” said Baker, echoing comments he made when “Anora” won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. “They have shared their stories. They have shared life experiences with me over the years. My deepest respect. Thank you. I share this with you.”
An expected win and an upset
The night’s first award, presented by Robert Downey Jr., went to Kieran Culkin for best supporting actor. Culkin has cruised through the season, picking up award after award, for his performance alongside Jesse Eisenberg in “A Real Pain.”
“I have no idea how I got here,” said Culkin, “I’ve just been acting my whole life.”
Culkin spent most of his speech recalling an earlier, hypothetical promise from his wife Jazz Charton, that they could have a fourth child if he won an Oscar. Culkin used the opportunity to take Charton — “love of my life, ye of little faith” — up on the offer.
The biggest upset early on came in the best animated feature category. “Flow,” the wordless Latvian film upset DreamWorks Animations’ “The Wild Robot.” The win for “Flow,” an ecological parable about a cat in a flooded world, was the first Oscar ever for a Latvian film.
“Thank you to my cats and dogs,” director Gints Zilbalodis accepting the award.
‘Wicked’ wins two
“Wicked” stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo kicked off the ceremony with a tribute to Los Angeles following the wildfires that devastated the Southern California metropolis earlier this year. Grande sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and Erivo performed Diana Ross’ “Home” before the “Wicked” stars joined together for “Defying Gravity” from their blockbuster big-screen musical.
Later, “Wicked,” the biggest box-office hit among the best-picture nominees, won awards for production design and costume design.
“I’m the first Black man to receive the costume design award,” said costume designer Paul Tazewell, who couldn’t finish that sentence before the crowd began to rise in a standing ovation. “I’m so proud of this.”
Best makeup and hairstyling went to “The Substance” for its gory creations of beauty and body horror. “Dune: Part Two” won for both visual effects and sound, and its sandworm — arguably the star of the night — figured into multiple gags throughout the evening.
Brady Corbet’s sprawling postwar epic “The Brutalist,” shot in VistaVision, won for its cinematography, by Lol Crawley, and its score, by Daniel Blumberg.
Politics go unmentioned, at first
Though the Oscars featured the first time an actor was nominated for portraying a sitting U.S. president (Sebastian Stan as a young Donald Trump in “The Apprentice”), politics went largely unmentioned in the first half of the ceremony.
Host Conan O’Brien avoided the topic completely in his opening monologue. The first exception was nearly two hours in, when presenter Daryl Hannah announced simply: “Slava Ukraini” (“Glory to Ukraine!”)
“No Other Land,” a documentary about Israeli occupation of the West Bank made by a collation of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, won best documentary. After failing to find a U.S. distributor, the filmmakers opted to self-distribute “No Other Land.” It grossed more than any other documentary nominee.
“There is a different path, a political solution, without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both our people,” said Yuval Abraham, an Israeili, speaking beside co-director Basel Adra, a Palestinian. “And I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path. Why? Can’t you see that we are intertwined, that my people can’t be truly safe if Basel’s people aren’t truly free?
Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here,” a portrait of resistance under the Brazilian military dictatorship, won best international film. At one point, that award seemed a lock for “Emilia Pérez,” the lead nominee with 13 nods and backed by a robust campaign by Netflix.
But while “Emilia Pérez” collapsed, “I’m Still Here” rode a wave of passionate support in Brazil and political timeliness elsewhere.
O’Brien scores in opening
O’Brien, introduced as “four-time Oscar viewer,” opened the ceremony with genial ribbing of the nominees and the former talk-show host’s trademark self-deprecation.
“‘A Complete Unknown.’ ‘A Real Pain.’ ‘Nosferatu.’ These are just some of the names I was called on the red carpet,” said O’Brien.
O’Brien, hosting for the first time, avoided any political commentary in his opening remarks, but the monologue was a smash hit. O’Brien lent on the disappointed face of John Lithgow, a full-throated “Chalamet!” from Adam Sandler and a gag of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos being delivered to the red carpet in a cardboard box.
O’Brien’s most sincere comments were reserved for Los Angeles, itself, in speaking about the enduring “magic and grandeur” of film in wake of the wildfires. O’Brien, whose house in the Pacific Palisades was spared by the fires, then segued into a musical routine, singing: “I won’t waste time.”
An unpredictable Oscar year
This year’s Oscars, among the most unpredictable in years, unspooled after a turbulent year for the film industry. Ticket sales were down 3% from the previous year and more significantly from pre-pandemic times. The strikes of 2023 played havoc with release schedules in 2024. Many studios pulled back on production, leaving many out of work. The fires, in January, only added to the pain.
Last year’s telecast, propelled by the twin blockbusters of “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie,” led the Oscars to a four-year viewership high, with 19.5 million viewers. This year, with smaller independent films favored in the most prominent awards, the academy will be tested to draw as large of an audience.
The ceremony took place days following the death of Gene Hackman. The 95-year-old two-time Oscar winner and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found dead Wednesday at their New Mexico home. Morgan Freeman, his co-star in “Unforgiven” and “Under Suspicion,” honored him.
“This week, our community lost a giant,” said Freeman, “and I lost a dear friend.”
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For full coverage of this year’s Oscars, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/academy-awards
The 97th Academy Awards are spreading the love around, dishing out awards to “Anora,” “Conclave,” “Wicked” and “The Substance,” in an Oscar ceremony that steered toward a nailbiter ending.
LOS ANGELES – The 97th Academy Awards already have an upset win. “Flow,” the wordless Latvian film won best animated film, a surprise victory over DreamWorks Animations’ “The Wild Robot.”
The win for “Flow,” an ecological parable about a cat in a flooded world, was the first Oscar ever for a Latvian film.
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“Thank you to my cats and dogs,” director Gints Zilbalodis accepting the award.
“Wicked” stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo kicked off the ceremony with a tribute to Los Angeles following the wildfires that devastated the Southern California metropolis earlier this year. Grande sang “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” Erivo performed Diana Ross’ “Home” and the “Wicked” stars joined together for “Defying Gravity” from their blockbuster big-screen musical.
Later, “Wicked,” the biggest box-office hit among the best picture nominees, won the award for best costume design, by Paul Tazewell.
“I’m the first Black man to receive the costume design award,” said Tazewell, who couldn’t finish that sentence before the crowd began to rise in a standing ovation. “I’m so proud of this.”
Host Conan O’Brien, introduced as “four-time Oscar viewer,” opened the ceremony with genial ribbing of the nominees and the former talk-show host’s trademark self-deprecation.
“‘A Complete Unknown.’ ‘A Real Pain.’ ‘Nosferatu.’ These are just some of the names I was called on the red carpet,” said O’Brien.
O’Brien, hosting for the first time, avoided any political commentary in his opening remarks, but the monologue was a smash hit. O’Brien lent on the disappointed face of John Lithgow, a full-throated “Chalamet!” from Adam Sandler and a gag of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos being delivered to the red carpet in a cardboard box.
O’Brien’s most sincere comments were reserved for Los Angeles, itself, in speaking about the enduring “magic and grandeur” of film in wake of the wildfires. O’Brien, whose house in the Pacific Palisades was spared by the fires, then segued into a musical routine, singing: “I won’t waste time.”
The night’s first award, presented by Robert Downey Jr., went to Kieran Culkin for best supporting actor. Culkin has cruised through the season, picking up award after award, for his performance alongside Jesse Eisenberg in “A Real Pain.”
“I have no idea how I got here,” said Culkin, “I’ve just been acting my whole life.”
Culkin spent most of his speech recalling an earlier, hypothetical promise from his wife Jazz Charton, that they could have a fourth child if he won an Oscar. Culkin used the opportunity to take Charton — “love of my life, ye of little faith” — up on the offer.
After a topsy-turvy Oscar season in which frontrunners were constantly shuffled, old tweets hobbled a top contender and space was held for “Wicked,” Sunday’s Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles brought to a close one of the most unpredictable Oscar races in recent memory.
Splashes of color decorated the red carpet — Timothée Chalamet in yellow, Ariana Grande in pink, Colman Domingo in red — as stars streamed into the Dolby Theatre. Some attendees sported pins for Ukraine. Guy Pearce, nominated for his performance in “The Brutalist,” wore a “Free Palestine” pin on his lapel.
The lead nominee is Netflix’s “Emilia Pérez,” with 13 nominations, but that film has seen its chances crater following uproar over years-old offensive tweets by its star, Karla Sofía Gascón, the first openly trans actor nominated for best actress.
The favorite is Sean Baker’s “Anora,” about a sex worker who weds the son of a Russian oligarch. The Neon release, the Cannes Palme d’Or winner, won with the producers, directors and writers guild. The only movie with the same resume to not win best picture is “Brokeback Mountain.”
Its closest competition is “Conclave,” the papal thriller starring Ralph Fiennes. It won at the BAFTAs and the SAG Awards, wins that came just as Pope Francis was hospitalized for double pneumonia. Oscar voting concluded before the pope fell ill.
Also in the mix are “The Brutalist,” nominated for 10 awards, and the musical hit “Wicked,” also with 10 nominations. Several of the early craft Oscars could be shared between “Wicked” and “Dune: Part Two.”
For the first time, an actor is nominated for playing the sitting U.S. president. Sebastian Stan is nominated for best actor for his performance as a young Donald Trump in “The Apprentice,” as is his co-star, Jeremy Strong, for playing Roy Cohn. Trump has called those involved with the film “human scum.”
The political tenor of this year’s ceremony could be volatile, with the Oscars coming weeks into the second Trump administration and falling two days after the president’s dramatic rupture with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.
This year’s Oscars are unspooling after a turbulent year for the film industry. Ticket sales were down 3% from the previous year and more significantly from pre-pandemic times. The strikes of 2023 played havoc with release schedules in 2024. Many studios pulled back on production, leaving many out of work. The fires, in January, only added to the pain.
Last year’s telecast, propelled by the twin blockbusters of “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie,” led the Oscars to a four-year viewership high, with 19.5 million viewers. This year, with smaller independent films favored in the most prominent awards, the academy will be tested to draw as large of an audience.
The ceremony will be taking place days following the death of Gene Hackman. The 95-year-old two-time Oscar winner and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found dead Wednesday at their New Mexico home. Morgan Freeman is to honor him during the ceremony.
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For full coverage of this year’s Oscars, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/academy-awards
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