HOLLYWOOD — “Anora” was the big winner at Sunday night’s 97th Academy Awards, capturing five Oscars from among its six nominations, including best picture, best actress and best director.
The Brooklyn-set comedy-drama about the beleaguered marriage of a sex worker and the son of a Russian oligarch garnered the best actress award for star Mikey Madison and director honors for Sean Baker. “Anora” also delivered Oscars to Baker for original screenplay and film editing.
Meanwhile, “The Brutalist” won three Oscars, including one for Adrien Brody for best actor. The film also took trophies for cinematography and original score.
The award for best supporting actor went to Kieran Culkin for “A Real Pain,” while Zoe Saldaña took the Oscar for best supporting actress for “Emília Pérez” — capping a streak in which those two basically ran the table in award shows.
Conan O’Brien made his debut as Oscar host at the ceremonies at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
“Emília Pérez” went into the evening with a leading 13 nominations and won two trophies — Saldaña’s best supporting actress award, plus best original song, “El Mal.”
“Wicked,” which, like “The Brutalist,” entered the night with 10 nominations, joined “Dune: Part 2” as the only other multiple winner Sunday.
The “Wizard of Oz”-themed musical “Wicked” captured Oscars for costume design and production design, while “Dune: Part Two” won for sound and visual effects.
“Conclave,” the papal thriller that entered the evening with eight nominations, took one Oscar — for adapted screenplay. “A Complete Unknown,” the Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet, also took eight nominations into the night — but was shut out Sunday.
The best picture win for “Anora” was hardly a surprise, as the film had won last month’s Producers Guild Award, traditionally a strong indicator of which movie will win the best picture Oscar.
Since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expanded the best picture category from five to 10 nominees in 2010, only four films have won the best picture Oscar without first winning the PGA Award. “Anora” had also won the best picture awards at this year’s Critics Choice and Film Independent Spirit awards.
“I want to thank the academy for recognizing a truly independent film,” Baker, also a producer of “Anora,” said in accepting the glamour trophy of the night for his $6 million production.
“This film was made on the blood, sweat and tears of incredible indie artists, and long live independent film, yeah!”
Overall, it was a good night for low-budget films, with “The Brutalist” being shot for a mere (by Hollywood standards) $15.8 million.
In accepting his director’s award, Baker — who gave four acceptance speeches on the night — made a case for movie theaters in this age of streaming.
“We’re all here tonight and watching this broadcast because we love movies,” he said. “Where did we fall in love with the movies? At the movie theater. Watching a film in the theater with an audience is an experience. We can laugh together, cry together, scream in fright together, perhaps sit in devastated silence together, and in a time in which the world can feel very divided, this is more important than ever.
“It’s a communal experience you simply don’t get at home,” he added. “And right now the theater-going experience is under threat. Movie theaters, especially independently owned theaters, are struggling, and it’s up to us to support them. During the pandemic, we lost nearly 1,000 screens in the U.S., and we continue to lose them regularly. If we don’t reverse this trend, we’ll be losing a vital part of our culture.”
The 25-year-old Madison, in her acceptance speech, called winning the best actress award “very surreal,” and added, “I grew up in Los Angeles, but Hollywood always felt so far away from me, so to be here standing in this room today is really incredible.”
“I also just want to again recognize and honor the sex worker community,” she said. “I will, yes, I will continue to support and be an ally. All of the incredible people, the women, that I’ve had the privilege of meeting from that community has been one of the highlights of this incredible, of this entire incredible experience.
“I also just want to recognize the thoughtful, intelligent, beautiful, breathtaking work of my fellow nominees,” she added. “I’m honored to be recognized alongside all of you. This is a dream come true. I’m probably gonna wake up tomorrow.”
Madison’s win denied a storybook Hollywood ending to Demi Moore’s career comeback run through the Hollywood awards season, as Moore had recorded best actress victories at the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards and Critics Choice Awards.
Entering the night, Moore had been a co-favorite (with Madison) to capture an Oscar for her starring role in the body horror drama/comedy “The Substance” — playing a fading actress who discovers a black-market drug that restores youth … with all manner of unexpected side-effects.
Brody captured his second career Oscar, following his best actor win in “The Pianist” in 2002 at age 29, which made him the youngest Academy Award winner in that category. Sunday, the now 51-year-old made mention during his acceptance speech of how acting is “a very fragile profession.”
“It looks very glamorous, and in certain moments, it is,” Brody said, “but the one thing that I’ve gained from having the privilege to come back here is to have some perspective. And no matter where you are in your career or what you’ve accomplished, it can all go away, and I think what makes this night most special is the awareness of that.”
“The Brutalist” centers on a Holocaust survivor chasing the American dream in post-war U.S., and Brody said the role enabled him to “represent the lingering traumas and the repercussions of war and systematic oppression, and of anti-Semitism and racism, and of othering.”
“I pray for a healthier and a happier and a more inclusive world,” he said, “and I believe if the past can teach us anything, it’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.”
Brody had also won best actor honors at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice and British BAFTA Awards. His Oscar on Sunday denied Chalamet’s upset bid in the best actor category, following Chalamet’s surprise win at the SAG Awards last week for his role in “A Complete Unknown.” The SAGs — voted on by actors — are usually a solid indicator of who wins in the acting categories on Oscar night, with actors making up the bulk of Oscar voters.
Culkin’s win in the best supporting actor category — his first career Oscar — capped his sweep of Hollywood’s awards season after he also captured honors at the Golden Globes, SAG Awards, Critics Choice Awards and Film Independent Spirit Awards, and the BAFTAs.
He said he felt an immediate connection with co-star Jesse Eisenberg’s script, which follows a pair of cousins touring Poland and exploring Jewish heritage in honor of their grandmother.
“The script was incredibly tight that I didn’t want to rehearse it or talk about it or anything,” Culkin said. “It just felt like it was the first time I ever read something and went, I fully understand this guy. I don’t even want to read it again. I want to show up on the day and go, ‘What scene are we doing?”’
Saldaña — playing a lawyer in the gender-bending, Spanish-language, French-produced crime musical “Emilia Pérez” behind best actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón — said in her acceptance speech that she was “floored by this honor.” However, it had been expected, as she had also run up wins at the Golden Globes, SAG Awards, Critics Choice Awards and BAFTAs.
In accepting her statuette Sunday, she noted she was the first American actor of Dominican origin to win an Oscar.
“My grandmother came to this country in 1961,” Saldaña said. “I am a proud child of immigrant parents. With dreams and dignity and hardworking hands, I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award, and I know I will not be the last. I hope.
“The fact that I’m getting an award for a role where I got to sing and speak in Spanish, my grandmother, if she were here, she would be so delighted. This is for my grandmother, Argentina Cisse.”
“Emilia Pérez,” with its 13 nominations, went into the evening as the most-nominated non-English-language film in Academy Awards history, topping 2000’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and 2018’s “Roma,” which each got 10 nods. Included in “Pérez’s” nomination haul was a nod for international feature film, but it lost out Sunday to “I’m Still Here,” from Brazil.
“Pérez” — which tells the story of a drug cartel leader played by Gascón who hires a lawyer to help fake her death so she can transition to a woman — also garnered Gascón a nomination for best actress, making her the first openly transgender woman nominated for an Academy Award.
But her loss Sunday had been widely expected following a post-nomination scandal in which old social-media posts surfaced in which she denigrated Islam and George Floyd, among other objectionable comments. Gascón has since apologized for the now-deleted posts, but the scandal was widely believed to have torpedoed her chances for award-season recognition.
In addition, Netflix, the film’s distributor, distanced itself from Gascón for the film’s Oscar campaign, and the star was notably absent from other recent awards ceremonies. She attended Sunday’s Oscars, but was shown on television only briefly during O’Brien’s opening monologue.
During that monologue, O’Brien addressed the Gascón issue head-on, joking that the “F-word” was used 479 times in “Anora” — and “that’s three more than the record set by Karla Sofía Gascon’s publicist.”
Then, addressing Gascón in the audience, he added, “Karla, if you plan to tweet about this … my name is `Jimmy Kimmel.”’
Oscar history was also made Sunday when industry veteran Paul Tazewell, 60, became the first Black man to win the Academy Award for costume design (for “Wicked”) — earning him an extended ovation on the Dolby Theater stage.
In addition, in a nod to the L.A.-area firefighters who battled the recent wildfires, a group of dress-uniform-clad firefighters took the stage at one point, with O’Brien allowing them to do Oscar-style zingers — and warning the audience, “Everyone in the audience HAS to laugh, these are heroes!”
The firefighters got a standing ovation before delivering a few moments of needed levity. Capt. Erik Scott of the Los Angeles Fire Department, reading from a teleprompter, cracked, “All of our hearts go out to those who have lost their homes — including the producers of `Joker 2.”’
Another firefighter joked about Chalamet’s performance as the twangy-voiced Dylan, saying that his singing “was so good, he almost lost the part.”
Actor Morgan Freeman paid tribute to the late Gene Hackman during his introduction to the ceremonies’ In Memoriam segment, saying, “This (past) week our community lost a giant, and I lost a dear friend, Gene Hackman. He received two Oscars, and more importantly he won the hearts of film lovers all over the world.”
“Gene always said, `I don’t think about legacy. I just hope people remember me as someone who tried to do good work,”’ Freeman added. “So I think I speak for us all when I say, Gene, you will be remembered for that and for so much more. Rest in peace, my friend.”
Later, Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg jointly paid tribute to the late composer and seven-time Oscar nominee Quincy Jones, with Goldberg saying, “When we’re talking about Black excellence, we’re talking about Quincy,” and calling him “a true American legend.” Added Winfrey: “Quincy was love, lived out loud in human form. And he poured that love into others.”
Sunday’s ceremonies also featured the usual galaxy of A-List presenters, including Halle Berry, Samuel L. Jackson, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Robert Downey Jr., Elle Fanning, Selena Gomez, Goldie Hawn, Scarlett Johansson, John Lithgow and Cillian Murphy.
Mick Jagger even made a surprise appearance as a presenter, doling out the award for best original song.
Also presenting at the ceremonies — which stretched just under four hours — were Saldaña, Gal Gadot, Dave Bautista, Andrew Garfield, Margaret Qualley, Alba Rohrwacher, Rachel Zegler, Joe Alwyn, Sterling K. Brown, Ana de Armas, Lily-Rose Depp, Connie Nielsen, Amy Poehler, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, June Squibb, Ben Stiller, Emma Stone, Oprah Winfrey and Bowen Yang.
Harrison Ford had been scheduled to be a presenter, but he withdrew on Saturday, reportedly after a diagnosis of shingles.
Here is a complete list of Sunday’s winners.
Best Picture: “Anora”
Best Actor: Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist”
Best Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”
Best Actress: Mikey Madison, “Anora”
Best Supporting Actress: Zoe Saldaña, “Emilia Pérez”
Best Director: Sean Baker, “Anora”
Best Animated Feature Film: “Flow”
Best Animated Short Film: “In the Shadow of the Cypress”
Cinematography: Lol Crawley, “The Brutalist”
Costume Design: Paul Tazewell, “Wicked”
Documentary Feature Film: “No Other Land”
Documentary Short Film: “The Only Girl in the Orchestra”
Film Editing: Sean Baker, “Anora”
International Feature Film: “I’m Still Here” (Brazil)
Makeup and Hairstyling: “The Substance”
Original Score: “The Brutalist,” Daniel Blumberg
Original Song: “El Mal” from “Emilia Pérez”
Production Design: “Wicked”
Live Action Short Film: “I’m Not a Robot”
Sound: “Dune: Part Two”
Visual Effects: “Dune: Part Two”
Adapted Screenplay: “Conclave”
