The 10 biggest moments of the 2025 Oscars ...Middle East

Anora was the film of the night, Adrien Brody can’t put a sock in it, A Complete Unknown went home empty-handed, Brady Corbet never got a chance to speak, I never need to hear a song from any show in the Wizard of Oz franchise ever again and the world can finally forget Emilia Pérez ever happened! Here are the biggest moments from the Oscars 2025…

Anora cleaned up

In the final stretch of awards season this year, Sean Baker’s bold tragicomedy about a Brooklyn stripper who marries the son of an oligarch edged out The Brutalist to become the film to beat. But no-one could: Anora won five awards, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing, leaving Brady Corbet’s postwar epic in the dust by comparison (it still won three, but the auteur never got to collect an award). I thought The Brutalist and its vast, dazzling scope was a pretty incredible cinematic achievement but I was thrilled to see Anora win across the board, especially because Sean Baker is so committed to telling real, human stories, shining a light on marginalised communities, and championing independent cinema.

Mikey Madison beat Demi Moore

A star is born! Twenty-five-year-old Madison was a marvel as the titular Anora and it is always so exciting to see someone so young triumph – especially when she is as dignified and elegant as this. Madison steered clear of the hysterics and instead gave a calm and poised speech, recognising, as she did in her Bafta acceptance speech, the sex worker community she represents in this film: “I will continue to support and be an ally”. There will be many who say Moore was robbed, and many who are already saying that the award going to Madison is the plot of The Substance playing out. But Madison deserves this, plus it may be the first time an Oscar has been awarded with a Take That song playing in the background.

Adrien Brody won Best Actor – again

Look, Adrien Brody deserved to win Best Actor for The Brutalist, but his acceptance speech was about as long as the film, he refused to get off stage even when the music had started playing, and even after acknowledging that he’d been up there before and it was “not my first rodeo” (he won in 2003 for The Piano).

As he kept going, it felt like he might be building up to saying something political or important. He mentioned The Brutalist’s theme of antisemitism but he danced around saying anything substantial, instead reminding the audience “not to let hate go unchecked”. Either he’s been in Hollywood too long and believes his own hype, or he changed his mind at the last minute. I suppose, at least, he didn’t snog Halle Berry this time.

Long live independent film!

Sean Baker’s acceptance speech for Best Original Screenplay focused on the sex workers who have shared their life experiences with him for his films. His speech for Best Director was an impassioned plea for people to return to the cinema. He warned how dangerously they are under threat, reminded the audience of the communal experience you can’t get at home, begged parents to take their children, and begged film-makers to keep making films for the big screen.

It was moving to hear – especially on a night when it’s all too easy to cosy up to Netflix and Amazon. And delivered with enthusiasm and excitement, rather than grave sobriety, it made his love of the cinema feel infectious and just about gave you hope that people might listen to him. But don’t expect Anora on streaming any time soon.

The Emilia Pérez ordeal is over

This film has dominated awards season but nobody will be talking about it now its tainted campaign is finally over. Predictably, Zoe Saldaña won Best Supporting Actress – the first American of Dominican origin “and I know I will not be the last”. I think she’s better than this film and this role but it’s nice to see her win – although I was rooting for Ariana Grande’s hilarious Glinda in Wicked to run away with it (she did at least perform with Cynthia Erivo on the night). This musical’s second award somehow was for Best Original Song for the abominable “El Mal”, whose writers began singing it and excruciatingly had to be escorted off stage.

Conan O’Brien’s big debut

Conan O’Brien made quite an entrance for his Oscars debut: specifically, from Demi Moore’s surgically bisected back in a bloody parody of The Substance that was only a fraction more ridiculous than the film itself (I enjoyed both).

O’Brien is such a heavyweight of American late-night comedy that I was surprised it was his first time, and he did look a bit nervous in his opening monologue, which had a couple of good gags. On The Brutalist: “I loved it, I didn’t want it to end, and luckily it didn’t”; on Wicked: “for everyone who watched The Wizard of Oz and wondered where the minor characters went to college” and a brutal dig at Karla Sofía Gascón’s publicist before the camera then cut to… Karla Sofía Gascón.

There were a few misfires (a pointless “ironic” musical riff on time wasting, which immediately wore thin) but he grew bolder as the “97th Long Form Content Awards” went on, eventually landing one joke that brought the house down as Anora picked up momentum: “I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian.”

The world’s most pointless Bond tribute

No, the new Bond was not announced. No, a new film is not in the works. No, in fact, there has not been a Bond film in four years. Still, it’s been sold to Amazon at last so why not waste a massive chunk of the Oscars on a medley of Bond themes that opened inexplicably with a close up of Margaret Qualley biting her finger seductively and mincing at the camera before getting lifted up by a load of men in dinner jackets?

Musicians Lisa and Doja Cat gave forgettable renditions and our own Raye just about salvaged it with her performance of “Skyfall” (a British soul singer covering Adele? Original) but truly there is no glamour in watching people you’ve never heard of force their way through an overplayed Bond theme, proof of which you will find at any holiday park or working men’s club most nights of the week.

Kieran Culkin will be out of action for a while

We all knew that Kieran Culkin was going to get the award for Best Supporting Actor, even if he is – let’s be honest – playing himself-slash-Roman Roy in Jesse Eisenberg’s excellent A Real Pain. Everybody loves him! Everybody loves to see him win! Everybody loves that he was up against his Succession brother Jeremy Strong, a method actor who takes everything unbelievably seriously, and beat him – again! In Culkin’s acceptance speech he reminded his wife, and all of Hollywood, that she had promised him a third child if he won an Emmy (which he did, last year) and a fourth child if he won an Oscar… “So let’s get crackin’ on those kids!”. I will never understand the motivations of men.

No Other Land won Best Documentary

This documentary, made by a collective of Israeli and Palestinian film-makers in resistance to the conflict, is about displaced people in the occupied West Bank. The acceptance speeches made for the most powerful moment of the night, as one of the film’s four directors Basel Adra called upon the world “to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people”.

Yuval Abraham, one of the film’s Israeli directors, said, “We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control. There is a different path, a political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people. And I have to say as I am here, the foreign policy of this country is helping to block this path.”

This win is important and I hope it will lead more people to this documentary, but it was clear that many in the audience did not know how they “should” react, given last year Jonathan Glazer’s call for the end to the conflict in Gaza was met with ridiculous outrage and an open letter signed by major figures across Hollywood calling for him to retract it. I sincerely hope they do better this time and heed the message of film and speeches both.

Costumes made history

Because they are by nature less recognisable than the acting or directing categories, the craft awards don’t get the attention they deserve. Tonight the award for Costume Design was preceded by the stars of each film introducing the nominee, and when Paul Tazewell was announced as the winner for Wicked, he got the first standing ovation of the night (I would have liked to see Linda Muir win it for Nosferatu, but there probably wasn’t anyone better dressed in any film than Michelle Yeoh in Wicked in the last year so it’s more than deserving). The crowd hollered and whooped as he – previously nominated for his work on Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story – said that he was the first black man ever to win the award.

The Oscars infamously have a bad track record for diversity across all categories, and it’s been easy for them to focus on camera-facing talent when redressing that. But there needs to be better representation in all areas of film so this win felt especially encouraging and moving – as he said: “This means everything.”

Full list of Oscar winners

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