Oscars 2025: the biggest winners and losers
The Academy Awards are over for another year, and as one of the most unpredictable and hardest-to-call awards seasons in recent memory, the Oscars threw up several shocks and surprises, leaving certain films and filmmakers laden with trophies while others walked away empty-handed.
Unlike many previous years, there were few runaway favourites heading into the show. Of course, Zoe Saldana’s ‘Best Supporting Actress’ win for Emilia Perez could have been predicted a mile off after she hoovered up every trophy under the sun, and the same can be said for A Real Pain‘s Kieran Culkin.
However, the prizes for ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’, and ‘Best Actress’ had been shared between multiple names across the industry’s most prestigious awards show, ensuring that the 97th edition of the Oscars still had plenty left to play for in the biggest categories.
Unfortunately, the very nature of the awards means there will be winners and losers, with some creatives faring significantly better than others in that respect.
Oscars 2025 winners and losers:
Winner: Mikey Madison, Sean Baker, and Anora
This year’s Oscars race was so tight in so many categories that it was hard to imagine anyone mounting anything resembling a clean sweep, but Sean Baker and Anora clearly had other ideas.
As well as Mikey Madison winning ‘Best Actress’ for her standout performance as the title character, Baker went on a tear by scooping ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’, ‘Best Film Editing’, and ‘Best Original Screenplay’, winning all four of the trophies he was nominated for.
That left Yura Borisov as the odd one out, with the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ nominee as the only person shortlisted for their work on Anora, who didn’t get a chance to give an acceptance speech. All things considered, it was still a phenomenal return for the acclaimed independent film.
Winner: Adrien Brody
When Adrien Brody became the youngest-ever winner of the ‘Best Actor’ Oscar for his performance in The Pianist, many were predicting the then-29-year-old would go on to establish himself as one of his generation’s foremost talents.
Needless to say, things haven’t quite worked out that way for Brody, although a second wind could well be on the way after he won his second Oscar, maintaining his 100% track record of success. It’s hard to say he doesn’t deserve it either, having spent two decades in the mainstream wilderness.
Will Brody see history repeat itself when he takes to the stage in 2047 to collect his third Oscar for his third nomination? He’ll be hoping not, and it seems very unlikely he’ll allow the same fate to befall him twice, especially when he fought so hard to get back on the podium.
Winner: Record breakers and history makers
Records are made to be broken at the Oscars, and there was a few of them to topple this year. Most notably, Sean Baker made history as the first person to win four Academy Awards in one night.
Adrien Brody became the first person to win ‘Best Actor’ on their first two nominations, ‘Best International Feature’ winner I’m Still Here is the first Brazilian film to win an Oscar of any kind, Zoe Saldana became the first actor of Dominican descent to win an Oscar, Paul Tazewell became the first Black man to win ‘Best Costume Design’, and ‘Best Animated Feature’ victor Flow became Latvia’s first Oscar-winning film.
That’s a lot of first-time accomplishments, ensuring that the record-breakers and history-makers had a night to remember at the 97th Oscars.
Loser: Timothée Chalamet
Timothée Chalamet was always seen as something of a dark horse candidate to win ‘Best Actor’ when the trophy always felt like it had Brody’s name written all over it, but he’d been building plenty of momentum after causing a minor upset at the Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Even though he’s a two-time nominee and has been in seven ‘Best Picture’-nominated films before even turning 30, Chalamet laid his cards on the table during his SAG acceptance speech when he said he wanted to become one of the all-time greats.
Unfortunately, he’ll have to continue biding his time after being overlooked for ‘Best Actor’, even if it feels like he’s destined to win the big one eventually. For now, though, he’ll have to wait.
Loser: Demi Moore
Hollywood loves few things more than a comeback story, and Demi Moore blazing a trail through awards season was the sort of tale that, more often than not, ends up with the performer in question reaching the pinnacle and winning the Oscar.
However, even though she was viewed as the early frontrunner for ‘Best Actress’, The Substance star cooled off significantly, to the point it may have been more of a surprise had her name been read out at the expense of Mikey Madison or even Fernanda Torres.
Moore’s resurgence is far from over, but failing to win ‘Best Actress’ has got to sting when she’d spent so long as the favourite, only to come up empty-handed when she got caught up in the Anora-shaped tornado that blitzed through the Oscars.
Loser: Emilia Pérez
Netflix’s musical drama Emilia Pérez may have won Oscars for ‘Best Supporting Actress’ and ‘Best Original Song’, but that’s a pretty poor return for a film that made history as the most-nominated non-English movie in the near-century history of the Oscars.
Emilia Perez was in the running for ‘Best Picture’, ‘Best Director’, ‘Best Actress’, and ‘Best International Feature’ among others, only to come up short every time. In terms of percentages, the crime saga boasted a success rate of just over 15%, which isn’t great.
Did the controversy surrounding star Karla Sofía Gascón play a part? Maybe, maybe not, but after generating so much buzz and creating so many headlines through its history-making raft of nominations, Jacques Audiard’s latest was expected to fare a lot better than it did.
