While many people look forward to seeing the red-carpet glam and highly anticipated wins of the Oscars each year, the 2025 installment took viewers for a wild ride leaving them mostly disgruntled.
As an enthusiastic Ariana Grande fan, I was ecstatic to watch her and “Wicked” co-star Cynthia Erivo’s opening of the show. The actresses were nominated for best supporting actress and best actress, respectively. They performed a medley of “Wizard of Oz” themed tunes including “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “Home” from “The Wiz” musical, then joined together for a duet of the iconic “Wicked” song “Defying Gravity.”
To no one’s surprise, they performed these vocal-heavy numbers effortlessly, captivating the audience and receiving a standing ovation.
It’s rare to see two such powerful voices dominate a stage at an award show that isn’t dedicated to music, but it was absolutely necessary after the duo displayed their talent on the big screen in November 2024.
Despite the massive press tours and beautiful performances by the “Wicked” cast, the film fell short in eight of the 10 categories it was nominated for, including best supporting actress and best actress. If Erivo had won best actress, she would have become a prestigious EGOT winner — someone who received an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony award — making her only the 22nd person in history to do so and youngest ever.
After a media frenzy of strong opinions against “Emilia Perez” winning many awards during the film’s campaign, the Oscar for best supporting actress went to Zoe Saldaña.
“I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hard-working hands,” she said in her acceptance speech. “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, would’ve been so delighted.”
The actress also won at other award shows since the film’s release, including best supporting actress at the Golden Globes, the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards.
Many fans opposed Saldaña’s win, claiming the movie in its entirety was sub-par compared to other great films, like “Wicked” and “I’m Still Here” that were nominated in many categories throughout the night. The film has 5.4/10 stars on iMDb and won 119 awards out of 237 total nominations.
But is “Emilia Perez” truly a bad movie? It’s so hard to tell when viewers are influenced by much more than the film itself. With all the personal bias and commentary online, sometimes people go with the flow and agree that it’s a bad film without even viewing, or go into watching the film with a preconceived notion based on others’ opinions.
As for films that dominated the night, “Anora” won big, taking home five Oscars out of the six categories it was nominated in, only losing best supporting actor. The film won the following: best picture, best actress for Mikey Madison, best editing, best original screenplay and best director for Sean Baker.
When Madison’s name was announced for best actress, the room seemed to audibly gasp as she beat out frontrunner Demi Moore for her part as Elisabeth Sparkle in “The Substance.” At the SAG Awards just a week prior, Moore took home best female actor in a leading role — a precursor to the Oscars.
“This is very surreal,” Madison said. “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.”
Speaking of surprises, Timothée Chalamet didn’t win best actor for his role as singer Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown.” Although he didn’t have the outcome he hoped for, he seemed to be enjoying his time at the show, sharing plenty of PDA with media personality and girlfriend Kylie Jenner.
Instead, Adrien Brody won best actor for the low-budget favorite “The Brutalist” — his second win in this category 22 years after his first for “The Pianist.”
There is a lot of controversy surrounding Brody’s win after his acceptance speech went viral on social media. When he got on stage to accept his award, he spoke for nearly six minutes, when speeches are supposed to be 45 seconds long. When his allotted time was up and the orchestra rightfully began playing over him, he sternly told them to “turn the music off” — quite obnoxious and entitled if you ask me.
While nothing out of the ordinary occurred at this year’s award segment, like Will Smith slapping Chris Rock on stage or “La La Land” being mistakenly announced as best picture winner, the night was full of iconic moments, a star-studded red carpet and certainly, mixed opinions.
Honestly, after watching the SAG Awards, the snubs weren’t as shocking as I thought they were going to be. I was hoping “Wicked” would finally be recognized for its tremendous impact, but then again, the Academy has a lengthy history of overlooking films that don’t fit its traditional mold.
