Oscars 2025 | Sean Baker’s Anora the big success story

Anora picks up five Oscars, in a surprisingly mixed Oscars 2025. Here’s the run down of what won and what didn’t.

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Well, the Oscars has happened again, and perhaps now we can all get back to normal for a while.

This year’s statuette season was interesting enough given that there was no clear frontrunner like last year, when Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer dominated the awards race from start to finish. Still, set against the backdrop of the the hugely destructive Californian wildfires, it still all seemed a little superfluous at times. Meanwhile, The Brutalist director Brady Corbet provided an insight into the state of the non-blockbuster film business when he revealed that not being paid for being on a months-long awards trail meant he was living hand to mouth.

Still, fancy garments were donned and some statuettes were duly dished out and the 2025 Oscars.

For those of you who followed the awards race closely, there were twists. Sean Baker’s Anora was the night’s biggest winner with five awards, including a win for Mikey Madison in the title role.

After the noise about the use of AI in The Brutalist and the technology augmenting Adrien Brody’s vocal performance (specifically, his pronunciation of some Hungarian words), the actor still won regardless, while the supporting categories went to Zoe Saldaña and Kieran Culkin respectively, as expected, for Emilia Perēz and A Real Pain.

Arguably the biggest surprise was in the Best Actress category, where Demi Moore – the expected winner for a long time – was pipped by Mikey Madison. But heck: two superb performances, and hard to grumble at either taking home gold.

Here are the winners at the 2025 Oscars:

Best picture

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

Best actress

• WINNER: Mikey Madison – Anora
• Cynthia Erivo – Wicked
• Karla Sofía Gascón – Emilia Pérez
• Demi Moore – The Substance
• Fernanda Torres – I’m Still Here

Best actor

• WINNER: Adrien Brody – The Brutalist
• Timothée Chalamet – A Complete Unknown
• Colman Domingo – Sing Sing
• Ralph Fiennes – Conclave
• Sebastian Stan – The Apprentice

Best supporting actress

• WINNER: Zoe Saldaña – Emilia Pérez
• Monica Barbaro – A Complete Unknown
• Ariana Grande – Wicked
• Felicity Jones – The Brutalist
• Isabella Rossellini – Conclave

Best supporting actor

• WINNER: Kieran Culkin – A Real Pain
• Yura Borisov – Anora
• Edward Norton – A Complete Unknown
• Guy Pearce – The Brutalist
• Jeremy Strong – The Apprentice

Best director

• WINNER: Sean Baker – Anora
• Jacques Audiard – Emilia Pérez
• Brady Corbet – The Brutalist
• Coralie Fargeat – The Substance
• James Mangold – A Complete Unknown

Best international feature

• WINNER: I’m Still Here – Brazil
• The Girl with the Needle – Denmark
• Emilia Pérez – France
• The Seed of the Sacred Fig – Germany
• Flow – Latvia

Best animated feature

• WINNER: Flow
• Inside Out 2
• Memoir of a Snail
• Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
• The Wild Robot

Best original screenplay

• WINNER: Anora – Sean Baker
• The Brutalist – Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold
• A Real Pain – Jesse Eisenberg
• September 5 – Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum, Alex David
• The Substance – Coralie Fargeat

Best adapted screenplay

• WINNER: Conclave – Peter Straughan
• A Complete Unknown – Jay Cocks and James Mangold
• Emilia Pérez – Jacques Audiard
• Nickel Boys – RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes
• Sing Sing – Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar

Best original song

• WINNER: El Mal – Emilia Pérez
• Never Too Late – Elton John: Never Too Late
• Mi Camino – Emilia Pérez
• Like A Bird – Sing Sing
• The Journey – The Six Triple Eight

Best original score

• WINNER: The Brutalist
• Conclave
• Emilia Pérez
• Wicked
• The Wild Robot

Best documentary feature

• WINNER: No Other Land
• Black Box Diaries
• Porcelain War
• Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
• Sugarcane

Best costume design

• WINNER: Wicked
• Nosferatu
• A Complete Unknown
• Conclave
• Gladiator II

Best make-up and hairstyling

• WINNER: The Substance
• A Different Man
• Emilia Pérez
• Nosferatu
• Wicked

Best production design

• WINNER: Wicked
• The Brutalist
• Dune: Part Two
• Nosferatu
• Conclave

Best sound

• WINNER: Dune: Part Two
• A Complete Unknown
• Emilia Pérez
• Wicked
• The Wild Robot

Best film editing

• WINNER: Anora
• The Brutalist
• Conclave
• Emilia Pérez
• Wicked

Best cinematography

• WINNER: The Brutalist
• Dune: Part Two
• Emilia Pérez
• Maria
• Nosferatu

Best visual effects

• WINNER: Dune: Part Two
• Alien: Romulus
• Better Man
• Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
• Wicked

Best live action short

• WINNER: I’m Not a Robot
• Anuja
• The Last Ranger
• A Lien
• The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent

Best animated short

• WINNER: In the Shadow of the Cypress
• Beautiful Men
• Magic Candies
• Wander to Wonder
• Yuck!

Best documentary short

• WINNER: The Only Girl in the Orchestra
• Death by Numbers
• I Am Ready, Warden
• Incident
• Instruments of a Beating Heart

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