Palme d’or at Cannes, Anora dominates the 97th Academy Awards. This modern fairy tale, directed by Sean Baker, wins no less than five trophies. The Brutalist emerges as the other star of the evening with his title role winning the award for best actor. Favorite of the Césars, Emilia Pérez of French director Jacques Audiard suffers from the controversy surrounding her star actress.
On Sunday, March 2, 2025, Sean Baker made Oscar history. His independent film Anora, the story of a stripper saved from the underworld by the son of a Russian oligarch, won five awards, including the top prize.
While the sensation of the moment, The Brutalist, was the other big winner of the evening, Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard was a disappointment, confirming the curse that seems to dog French productions, the last time a French film won the best film award being in 1993 with Indochine by Régis Wargnier.
Despite a few allusions to the war in Ukraine – notably through the speech of Adrien Brody, crowned best actor – this 97th Oscar ceremony also made an impression due to its low level of politicization, a major first if we think back to previous editions. To the point, as France Télévision pointed out, that the image of President Donald Trump was not directly tarnished at any point during the evening.
Crowned in Cannes… and Los Angeles
Could it be the pink dress with a bow and black bustier from 1956 by Dior, worn by his favorite actress, or the subject of social elevation and the class defector at the heart of the American myth?
Palme d’or winner at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, the feature film Anora has once again made a name for itself.
Rarely enough to be emphasized, Sean Baker’s film, like the Korean film Parasites in 2019, has been honored on both sides of the Atlantic.
This tragicomedy combining the myth of Pygmalion, the mafia and Russian oligarchs won five statuettes. In addition to the holy grail of Best Picture, the feature film won trophies for Best Actress, Best Director, Best Editing and Best Original Screenplay.
The presenter, Conan O’Brien, also made one of the rare political comments of the evening: “It’s a very good evening for Anora. This is great news! Two wins already. I guess Americans are glad that someone is finally standing up to a very powerful Russian.”
Being at once director, screenwriter and editor of his own film, Sean Baker becomes with four nominations, the first person to be awarded in four categories for the same film, according to Variety magazine.
At the age of 25, Mikey Madison won the award for best actress, paying tribute to sex workers in her speech.
Adrian Brody, imperial
A film acclaimed by critics, The Brutalist, by Brady Corbet, did not leave the ceremony empty-handed.
Focusing on deconstructing the American dream, the film narrates the difficult journey of reconstruction and integration of a Hungarian architect, a survivor of the death camps, who left to start a new life on the other side of the Atlantic in the aftermath of the Second World War.
The film won the awards for best film music and best cinematography.
But it is the Best Actor award won by Adrian Brody, twenty-two years after his success in Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, another film with the Holocaust as its backdrop, that will be remembered.
The American actor appeared in a Giorgio Armani tailored suit with a midnight blue tuxedo with notched lapels, a single button, satin trim, a white shirt and a bow tie.
At 51 years of age and for his second Oscar nomination, Adrien Brody won the statuette for Best Actor against Timothée Chalamet (The Perfect Stranger), Ralph Fiennes (The Conjuring), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing) and the larger-than-life Donald Trump played by Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice).
No stranger to the occasion, the actor did not fail to exceed the time allotted to the winners by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for his speech and to engage in politics in his own way.
“I am here once again to represent the ongoing trauma, the repercussions of war, systematic oppression, anti-Semitism and racism.”
In an allusion that echoes both Donald Trump’s policy – without quoting him – and the war in Ukraine, he said he was praying “for a healthier, happier and more inclusive world”. He added, “And if the past can teach us anything, it is to remember not to let hatred express itself unchecked.”
A warning, which is reminiscent of Cillian Murphy’s speech at the previous Oscars ceremony for the film Oppenheimer, a dark biopic about the designer of the atomic bomb.
The Irish actor, winner of the Best Actor award in 2024, concluded his speech with “We made a film about the man who created the atomic bomb, and for better or for worse, we all live in Oppenheimer’s world. So I would like to dedicate this award to peacemakers all over the world”.
These words echo the release in theaters on February 19 of the film La Fabrique du Mensonge by Joachim Lang. A work as fascinating as it is terrifying about the establishment of Nazi propaganda by Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler. A period of great violence that calls for vigilance after the recent greeting, strongly reminiscent of that of that era by Elon Musk and the brutal escapade between Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House last Friday.
French disappointment
On the French side, Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez had everything it needed to shine on the night and score Saint Laurent’s first hit: 13 Oscar nominations (a record for a non-Anglo-Saxon film), rave reviews from both the press and the profession, including four awards at the last Golden Globes, and a topical subject.
Not to mention Zoé Saldaña and Selena Gomez, the film’s star actresses, all in Old Hollywood elegance and glamour with a Saint Laurent purple dress enhanced by long semi-opaque gloves and a sparkling nude-colored Ralph Lauren dress, respectively.
However, things did not go as planned. While this film about the gender transition of a Mexican drug lord managed to win two awards (Best Original Song with El Mal and Best Supporting Actress for Zoé Saldaña), it was above all ruined by the controversy in which it has been embroiled for the past few months.
The Academy seems not to have forgotten the transphobic tweets of its leading actress, Karla Sofia Gascon, to the point of missing the category that suited it like a glove, that of Best International Film.
Instead, it was Walter Salles’ Brazilian film I’m Still Here that won the coveted award. The film focuses on the investigation by a mother and her five children to find out the truth about the arrest of the family’s father under the military dictatorship of 1971.
Another bitter surprise, equally French, The Substance, the film, directed by Coralie Fargeat and starring Demi Moore in her vain quest for eternal youth, has to make do with the trophies for best make-up and hairstyles.
The actresses in the film, however, shone with their looks, with Demi Moore in a silver sequined dress by Armani Privé and her younger self in the film, played by Britain’s Margaret Qualley – noticed for her very James Bond Girl entrance – dressed in a black Chanel dress, Karl Lagerfeld period, from 2005.
Canadian Denis Villeneuve also walked away with the technical trophies (best visual effects and best sound mixing) for his science fiction saga Dune: Part Two.
David versus Goliath
The Oscars ceremony, which was not very politicized, nevertheless gave the “independent cinema” a first.
In other words, the Academy chose to recognize low-budget productions not produced by the major Hollywood studios or streaming platforms.
Accordingly, director Sean Baker’s Anora was made on a restricted budget of $6 million, with the rest “made possible by the blood, sweat and tears of incredible independent artists”.
Another unusual feature of this year’s festival is that the Franco-Belgian-Latvian film Flow, the cat who was no longer afraid of water, by Gints Zilbalodis, won the prize for animated film, overcoming the competition, notably, from Disney’s “Inside Out 2”. This work, which tells the story of a cat surviving the extinction of the human species, with a very small budget of 3.5 million euros, has earned over 20 million euros worldwide.
The previous editions of the Oscars crowning blockbusters such as Peter Jackson’s The Return of the King, the final installment of the Lord of the Rings saga (11 Oscars out of 11 nominations in 2004); Mad Max: Fury Road (6 statuettes in 2015) or more recently Oppenheimer and Barbie (7 and 6 Oscars respectively in 2024), now seem a thing of the past.
Thus, while Wicked, an adaptation of the hit Broadway musical centred on certain characters from The Wizard of Oz, and Dune: Part Two saved face with a few trophies, these were essentially minor awards. Intended as the hit capable of dethroning the Barbenheimer record (a contraction of Barbie and Oppenheimer), the film starring pop singer Ariana Grande for the first time in front of the camera had to make do with the best sets and costume designs. With a budget of 145 million dollars, Wicked earned nearly 471 million dollars in the American market and 251 million internationally, making it the 26th most lucrative film in history, just 6 million dollars behind Disney’s Frozen.
Looking at the nominations, we see that Gladiator II by Ridley Scott, Maria by Pablo Larraín and Nosferatu by Robert Eggers have been completely ignored. And what about the absence from the nominations of the phenomenon Challengers, which started the tennis-score fashion trend last year, putting the actress Zendaya in the spotlight.
For the Parisien newspaper, there is no doubt about it: with 14 statuettes, independent cinema has never been so well rewarded in the history of the Oscars.
This turning point could be explained by the quest for authenticity and originality that is driving the era more than ever, far from formulaic stories, endless sequels and an excess of special effects.
Unless it is the fiasco of certain “highly anticipated successes”, such as “Joker” (2024), which has dampened the studios’ enthusiasm for blockbusters. On the strength of the success of the previous installment, director Todd Phillips was granted a budget of 200 million dollars, excluding marketing costs… only to rake in 121 million dollars in revenue internationally.
Full list of winners at the 97th Academy Awards
Best Picture: Anora by Sean Baker
Best Director: Sean Baker (Anora)
Best Actress: Mikey Madison (Anora)
Best Actor: Adrien Brody (The Brutalist)
Best Supporting Actress: Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez)
Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Conclave, written by Peter Straughan
Best Original Screenplay: Anora, written by Sean Baker
Best Animated Film: Flow by Gints Zilbalodis
Best Documentary: No Other Land by Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor and Hamdan Ballal
Best Editing: Anora, edited by Sean Baker
Best International Film: I’m Still Here by Walter Salles (Brazil)
Best Film Music: The Brutalist composed by Daniel Blumberg
Best Original Song: El Mal written by Karla Sofia Gascón and Camille in Emilia Pérez
Best Editing: Anora – written by Sean Baker
Best Sound: Dune: Part Two – Gareth John, Richard King, Ron Bartlett and Doug Hemphill
Best Cinematography: The Brutalist – Lol Cawley
Best Visual Effects: Dune: Part Two
Best Production Design: Wicked – Nathan Crowley and Lee Sandals
Best Costume Design: Wicked – Paul Tazewell
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: The Substance – Pierre-Olivier Persin, Stéphanie Guillon and Marilyne Scarselli
Best Animated Short Film: In the Shadow of the Cypress by Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi
Best Short Fiction Film: I’m Not a Robot by Victoria Warmerdam and Trent
Best Documentary: No Other Land
Best Short Documentary: The Only Girl in the Orchestra by Molly O’Brien and Lisa Remington
Read also > Golden Globes 2025: Emilia Perez wins four awards
Featured photo: Anora © Augusta Quirk/Anora Productions/Le Pacte
