On Sunday, March 2, emerging from the back of Demi Moore, television host and comedian Conan O’Brien kicked off the 97th Academy Awards. Following months of relentless campaigning, a tsunami of incriminating scandals and scathing online hit pieces, Hollywood’s most chaotic awards season in recent memory ends with a surprisingly smooth-sailing night of celebration.
Sean Baker’s “Anora” (2024) was the night’s biggest winner, claiming five Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. This makes Baker, long overlooked for his gritty sensibilities and brash storytelling of the American underclass, the first person to win four Oscars for one film at the Academy Awards. Mikey Madison, the driving force behind “Anora,” overcame some fierce competition — including Moore in “The Substance” (2024) and Fernanda Torres in “I’m Still Here” (2024) — to become the first Generation Z actor to win an Academy Award.
Additionally, the sweep resumes a paradoxical, decade-long trend of the Oscars going “indie” — sitting alongside a list of award-winning low-budget pictures like “Moonlight” (2016) and “Nomadland” (2020) — as the future of independent cinema grows theatrically uncertain. “Long live independent film,” Baker said to rave applause. “And for all of us, when we can please watch movies in a theater, let’s keep the great tradition of the moviegoing experience alive and well.”
Trailing behind, Brady Corbet’s monolithic American epic, “The Brutalist” (2024), tallied three Oscars for Best Actor, Best Cinematography and Best Original Score.
Adrien Brody’s win for Best Actor — which came after a months-long tug-of-war against Timothée Chalamet and his performance as Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown” (2024) — ended on a sour note, with his acceptance speech receiving a muted reception for its rambly, vague and somewhat self-aggrandizing nature. As Brody waved off the Academy’s wrap-up music, he said, “I’m wrapping up … It’s not my first rodeo, but I will be brief.” The speech totaled a record-breaking five minutes and 36 seconds.
Looking beyond the above-the-line dominance from “Anora,” the Oscars recognized an otherwise diverse range of films. The overwhelming spectacle of “Dune: Part Two” (2024) took home Best Sound and Best Visual Effects; “Wicked” (2024) won Best Costume Design and Best Production Design for its callbacks to technicolor-era Hollywood; the pulpy extravagance of “Conclave” (2024) clinched Best Adapted Screenplay; the gross-out, nightmare-inducing quality of “The Substance” (2024) claimed Best Makeup and Hairstyling and finally, “Flow” (2024), a relatively low-budget Latvian, French and Belgian non-dialogue co-production about a cat finding refuge, had its David-and-Goliath tale by beating out “Inside Out 2” (2024) and “The Wild Robot” (2024) for Best Animated Feature.
Arguably the most audacious win of the night, especially given the cowardly backlash to Jonathan Glazer’s speech at last year’s Academy Awards, came from Best Documentary. As Palestinian Basel Adra and Israeli Yuval Abraham, two of the four co-directors of “No Other Land” (2024) — a film that heart-wrenchingly visualizes the forced displacement of Palestinians over four years — stood on stage, united in their discernment and palpable urgency, some tension lingered in the air. Considering that the documentary has yet to obtain a United States distributor, to say America isn’t “ready” to grapple with such subject matter is an immense understatement.
While the audience reception was warm, their selective hesitancy and the telecast’s severe lack of reaction cutaways were equally apparent. “About two months ago, I became a father, and my hope [for] my daughter is that she will not have to live the same life I am living now, always fearing violence, home demolitions, forced displacement that my community, Masafer Yatta, is facing every day,” Adra said. Abraham reinforced this sentiment, saying, “When I look at Basel, I see my brother. But we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law, and Basel is under military laws that destroy lives that he cannot control.”
Unquestionably, the biggest loser of the night was Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez” (2024), which, after leading its contemporaries with 13 nominations, only picked up two Oscars for Best Supporting Actress for Zoe Saldaña’s performance and Best Original Song for “El Mal.” This momentous downfall came after months of controversy surrounding the film’s tonal mish-mash of musical and melodrama, its poorly-researched depiction of Mexico and its dubious representation of the transgender community. Consequently, while the film was originally a lock to win categories like Best International Feature Film, it wound up playing second fiddle to Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here.”
Additionally, in the months and weeks leading up to the ceremony, Audiard made an offensive statement in an interview that “Spanish is a language of emerging countries, of modest countries, of poor people and migrants.” To make things worse, the off-screen persona of the film’s lead actor, Karla Sofía Gascón, likely killed the movie’s Oscar chances as users on social media resurfaced dozens of her racist tweets, signifying a broader trend of social media users finding new ways to bad-mouth films on pace for awards season recognitions. All things considered, anyone semi-aware of the movie’s online reputation can’t help but find much of the inclusivity and empathy “Emilia Pérez” supposedly preaches to ring false.
With some hindsight, perhaps the Academy’s last-second change of heart on “Emilia Pérez” is a sign that finally — after years of waning relevance along with an infamous succession of disreputable Best Picture winners — this ceremony is, ultimately, a night to spotlight the singular, communal power of movies.
