Oscars 2025 Live Updates: Red Carpet and What to Expect at Awards Ceremony

“I want to thank the sex worker community,” Baker said when accepting the screenwriting award. “My deepest respect. I share this with you.” Later, he dedicated his directing Oscar to his mother.

“Anora,” which was distributed by Neon, set a record for the lowest domestic ticket sales in best picture history (outside of a pandemic). Baker’s film has collected only $15.7 million in the United States and Canada since arriving in theaters in October, according to Comscore, which compiles ticketing data.

The previous record-holder was “The Hurt Locker,” which had $17 million in domestic sales, or about $26 million after adjusting for inflation, when it won Hollywood’s top prize in 2010.

Another indie movie, “The Brutalist,” which cost $10 million to make and has taken in $15.8 million, received three Oscars. Adrien Brody won best actor for his performance as a Holocaust survivor in the film, which was also honored for its cinematography and score. It was Brody’s second Oscar, having won in 2003 for playing a Holocaust survivor in “The Pianist.”

“I pray for a happier and healthier and more inclusive world,” Brody said in his acceptance speech, as he pushed past an attempt by the orchestra to play him offstage. “If the past can teach us anything, it’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.”

The strong showings for “Anora” and “The Brutalist” reflect the efforts the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has made over the past decade to diversify its voting ranks, in part by sharply expanding overseas membership. More esoteric films have been celebrated as a result. At least nine of the artists who received Oscars on Sunday were from countries other than the United States.

“Wicked” won two Oscars (production design and costume design), as did the Netflix musical “Emilia Pérez” (song and supporting actress). “Dune: Part Two” also collected a pair (sound and visual effects).

“Conclave” was a winner for adapted screenplay. Kieran Culkin won best supporting actor for his performance in “A Real Pain,” about mismatched cousins on a trip to Poland. “Flow,” an independent Latvian movie about a courageous cat, beat “The Wild Robot” and “Inside Out 2” to win the Oscar for best animated film.

Here’s what else to know about the show:

• Red carpet: See all of the looks as stars arrived.

• Supporting roles: Zoe Saldaña won the supporting actress Oscar for her performance in “Emilia Pérez,” while Kieran Culkin was honored for his supporting performance in “A Real Pain.” Both had faced grumbles of category fraud — that they really should have run as leads. See the full list of winners.

• Documentary winners: “No Other Land,” about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, won best documentary. “We call on the world to take some action to stop the unjustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people,” Basel Andra, one of the film’s directors, said from the stage, introducing a strong dose of politics into a ceremony that had mostly avoided the topic. “The Only Girl in the Orchestra” won best documentary short.

• The host: Conan O’Brien, hosting the show for the first time, approached the event with a light touch: little roasting and politics. Read about his opening monologue.

• Tribute to Los Angeles: The slow-moving ceremony, which stretched to nearly four hours, began with a tribute to Hollywood’s home city of Los Angeles, parts of which were recently ravaged by wildfires, and Ariana Grande singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” That keep-the-faith “Wizard of Oz” standard gave way to a rousing rendition of “Defying Gravity” from “Wicked,” with Grande joined by her co-star Cynthia Erivo.

• Diminishing support: How to lose an Oscar in 10 days? The most-nominated film, “Emilia Pérez,” could tell you. It was viewed as the favorite for best picture when it received 13 nominations, but voter support vanished amid a series of quick-breaking controversies, including the discovery of a series of derogatory comments the movie’s star, Karla Sofía Gascón, posted online years ago.

• Trouble with Hulu: After promoting and promoting (and promoting) the fact that the Oscars had finally joined the modern world — that the ceremony would be streamed for the first time — Hulu bungled its big moment: Tens of thousands of users reported malfunctions with the Disney-owned Hulu early in the telecast, according to the site Downdetector. It wasn’t a great night for Disney all around. “A Complete Unknown,” from Disney’s Searchlight division, went into the ceremony with eight nominations and left with nothing.

“You know, ‘Anora’ is having a good night,” Mr. O’Brien said, referring to the Oscar-winning film about a sex worker’s short-lived romance with the son of a Russian oligarch. One of the movie’s emotional high points is when its working-class protagonist, played by Mikey Madison, dresses down the powerful family.

“I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian,” Mr. O’Brien said.

The comment was the closest he got to uttering the name of Mr. Trump, whose administration has been dealing with the fallout from his public blowup in the Oval Office with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. The dispute involved Mr. Trump scolding Mr. Zelensky for his harsh words for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Aside from alluding to the country’s “divisive politics,” Mr. O’Brien also kept Washington at arm’s length during his opening monologue, in which he kept the focus on Hollywood.

Daryl Hannah was more direct as she presented the best editing category. “Slava Ukraine,” she said, before moving on to the award at hand.

In accepting the award for best supporting actress, Zoe Saldaña hinted at the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. “I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hardworking hands,” she said.

The most political moment of the telecast, by far, was the award for best documentary feature, which went to “No Other Land,” an exploration of the Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the southern West Bank.

During his acceptance speech, Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist and one of the filmmakers, called “on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.”

Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist who directed the film with Adra, said he believed there was a political solution to the conflict that includes national rights “for both of our people.” “And I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path,” he said.

The Oscars were the latest awards ceremony this year to largely steer clear from politics. Presenters and winners at the Golden Globes avoided the subject, while a few artists alluded to politics onstage during the Grammys.

A reference to the president during the Oscars was perhaps most likely in the best actor category, in which Sebastian Stan was nominated for his portrayal of Mr. Trump in “The Apprentice.” Instead, the award went to Adrien Brody for “The Brutalist.”

Thanks for hanging with us. See you next year.

Same time, same place.

OK. I’m still surprised by Mikey Madison’s win, too. Some of my best friends are thrilled. That performance doesn’t come together for me until that final scene in the car. But there was so much life in it, so I get it.

I still think Fernanda Torres is tremendous, but this cemented something for Madison for sure.

There’s a quality to “Anora” that embodies all kinds of Hollywood classic genres: screwballs and fairy tale romances and also, in the end, the upending of some version of the American Dream. It just works.

Madison’s performance goes into the history books, and deservedly so.

“Anora” established its award-season bona fides last May, when it won the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Still, it did not dominate this season in the manner of the recent best picture winners “Oppenheimer” and “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Although “Anora” earned impressive wins with Hollywood’s producers, directors and writers guilds, it was shut out for top awards at the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the BAFTAs.

In the best picture category, “Anora” defeated “The Brutalist,” which won three Oscars for best actor (Adrien Brody), cinematography and score. Several other movies in the category earned two Oscars: “Dune: Part Two” (visual effects, sound), “Emilia Pérez” (supporting actress, song) and “Wicked” (production design, costume design).

Discounting the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021, “Anora” becomes the lowest-earning film to take home the night’s biggest prize.

It has collected only $15.6 million since arriving in theaters in October, according to Comscore, which compiles ticketing data. Last year’s best picture winner, “Oppenheimer,” sailed past the $300 million mark.

The win was something of an upset; Demi Moore, who has seen a career revival for her dynamic performance as an aging fitness star in “The Substance,” was favored to win her first Oscar for the role.

“Anora” — which went on to win the biggest award of the night: best picture — was directed by Sean Baker and revolves around Madison’s character, known as Ani, as she has a whirlwind romance with a Russian oligarch’s son after meeting him at her strip-club gig.

The role required feats of physicality, both in performing the job of a dancer in a strip club and in fighting back when the oligarch sends his henchmen to force the couple to annul their Las Vegas marriage.

“This is a dream come true — I’m probably going to wake up tomorrow,” Madison said in her acceptance speech, in which she thanked Baker, her family and the movie’s movement consultant, Kennady Schneider, among many others.

Madison also underscored the influence that sex workers had on her performance. To study her character, she read memoirs by sex workers, underlining sections of Andrea Werhun’s “Modern Whore.”

“I also, again, just want to recognize and honor the sex worker community,” Madison said. “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.”

In preparation for the role, Madison also lived in the Brighton Beach neighborhood of Brooklyn — where much of the movie is set — to practice her accent and visit the kind of clubs that are depicted in the film. She also began to learn Russian — though her delivery did not need to be perfect for the movie — and took pole-dancing lessons. The role involved significant nudity and a number of intimate scenes, which Madison said was never daunting to her: “I was always comfortable, and I also think because Ani was too,” she told The Times.

At 25, Madison is among the youngest actresses to have won the award. She is the same age that Grace Kelly was when she won for the 1954 film “The Country Girl” and that Hilary Swank was when she won for the 1999 film “Boys Don’t Cry.”

Madison had her breakout role as a teenager in the series “Better Things” before catching Baker’s eye as a Manson family member in Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood,” and then the 2022 slasher film “Scream.”

Her performance in “Anora” drew rave reviews. In The Times, the film critic Alissa Wilkinson called Madison “mesmerizing,” writing that the role required her “to go for broke, with elements of slapstick, romance, comedy and tragedy, along with dancing in skimpy or nonexistent clothing and throwing a couple of powerful punches.”

Other nominees in the category included Cynthia Erivo, who starred as Elphaba in the movie-musical “Wicked”; Karla Sofía Gascón, the first openly transgender actress to be nominated for an Academy Award, for her role in “Emilia Pérez”; and Fernanda Torres, a standout in “I’m Still Here,” a drama about a family torn apart by a Brazilian military junta.

“I also just want to recognize the thoughtful, intelligent, beautiful, breathtaking work of my fellow nominees,” Madison said in her acceptance speech. “I’m honored to be recognized alongside all of you.”

Baker goes all-in on theatrical distribution in his acceptance speech: “Where did we fall in love with the movies? At the movie theater. Watching a film in a theater with an audience is an experience,” he said, adding, “During the pandemic we lost nearly 1,000 screens in the U.S. and we continue to lose them regularly.” He notes that Neon, the distributor of “Anora,” concentrated on a theatrical release first, and it seems to have paid off.

And he gave that speech in front of the presenter Quentin Tarantino, who bought an art-house movie theater to save it more than a decade ago.

“Anora,” a Cinderella story that foregrounds hot topics like class, immigration and global capitalism through the story of a stripper who initially accepts money for sex, is in many ways typical of Baker’s oeuvre. Like several of his past movies, including “Tangerine” (2015) and “The Florida Project” (2017), it blends comedy and drama, depicts sex workers sympathetically and makes copious use of nonprofessional actors.

But “Anora” signaled Baker’s mainstream recognition. Nearly a year ago, the film won the Palme d’Or, the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival; more recently, it picked up top prizes from the directors and producers guilds. On Sunday, the movie’s star, Mikey Madison, received the Oscar for lead actress.

Baker beat out the directors Jacques Audiard, for “Emilia Pérez”; Brady Corbet, for “The Brutalist”; Coralie Fargeat, for “The Substance”; and James Mangold, for “A Complete Unknown.”

Sean Baker wins another Oscar, for directing “Anora.” I’m honestly a little amazed this movie made it all the way, but it’s looking good.

Brady Corbet quickly rose to his feet and clapped heartily for Sean Baker, his putative rival. A show of good sportsmanship.

Adrien Brody seemingly references the dip his career took in between his first Oscar, for “The Pianist,” which made him the youngest best actor winner, at 29, and this one. “Acting is a very fragile profession. It looks very glamorous, and in certain moments it is. But,” he continued, with perspective, he realized, it can all go away.

The orchestra started playing Brody off, but he stopped them, saying he had been there before.

“No matter where you are in your career, no matter what you’ve accomplished, it can all go away,” he continued. “I think what makes this night most special is the awareness of that and the gratitude that I have to still do the work that I love.”

“The Brutalist” charts László’s arrival in America after World War II, where he meets a wealthy industrialist (Guy Pearce) who enlists him to build a massive institute in Pennsylvania. Throughout the film’s awards run, Brody has spoken about his connection to the role through his mother, the photographer Sylvia Plachy, who was born in Hungary and lost relatives in the concentration camps.

“I’m here once again to represent the lingering traumas and the repercussions of war and systematic oppression and of antisemitism and racism and othering,” Brody said in a speech that saw the orchestra start to play music in an attempt to get him to conclude before he appealed to let him keep talking.

“And I believe that I pray for a healthier and a happier and a more inclusive world,” he continued. “And I believe if the past can teach us anything, it’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.”

But Brody’s campaign also weathered some controversy when it emerged that the film used artificial intelligence to improve the dialogue spoken in Hungarian. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Brody said: “Obviously, his postproduction process only touched some lines spoken in Hungarian. Nothing of the dialect was altered.”

Despite the social media hubbub, Brody was the favorite to win the Oscar. He also won the Golden Globe, the BAFTA and the Critics Choice Award.

“This goes to a woman who, after a loss suffered during an authoritarian regime, decided not to bend and to resist,” Salles said while accepting the award. “This prize goes to her. Her name is Eunice Paiva. And it goes to the two extraordinary women who gave life to her: Fernanda Torres, and Fernanda Montenegro.”

The film’s lead actress, Torres, won the Golden Globe for best actress in a drama in a surprise victory in January and was also nominated for the best actress Oscar, but lost to Mikey Madison of “Anora.” Torres was the second Brazilian actress to receive a nod for that prize: The first was her mother, Montenegro, a grande dame of Brazilian film who plays an older version of her daughter’s character in “I’m Still Here.” She was nominated in 1999 for “Central Station,” also directed by Salles.

“I’m Still Here” won in a category that included France’s entry, the Spanish-language musical “Emilia Pérez,” which was once an Oscars front-runner; the Danish social drama “The Girl With the Needle”; the wordless Latvian animated film “Flow”; and “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” a film shot in secret in Iran and submitted by Germany.

“I’m Still Here” is also nominated for best picture, making it the first Brazilian-produced film to compete for the top prize at the Oscars.

Freeman appeared with Hackman in the 1992 western “Unforgiven,” which won Hackman his second Oscar, and the 2000 thriller “Under Suspicion.”

“Like everyone who ever shared a scene with him, I learned he was a generous performer and a man whose gifts elevated everyone’s work,” Freeman said.

Calling Hackman a “dear friend,” Freeman noted that the actor often said that he did not think about his legacy but hoped that people would remember him “as someone who tried to do good work.”

“So I think I speak for us all when I say, Gene, you’ll be remembered for that, and for so much more,” Freeman said.

The producers of the telecast had only a few days to decide how they would honor one of the giants of acting. On Wednesday, law enforcement found Mr. Hackman’s body in the mud room of his home outside Santa Fe, next to his cane and sunglasses. Ms. Arakawa’s body was discovered in a bathroom, near an open prescription bottle and pills scattered on the countertop.

An examination of Mr. Hackman’s pacemaker indicated that the actor had died on Feb. 17, the Santa Fe County sheriff said. A detective wrote in an affidavit that Ms. Arakawa’s body had shown signs of decomposition and that Mr. Hackman showed signs of death “similar and consistent” with his wife.

It could take weeks or longer for investigators to piece together a timeline as they interview the couple’s contacts and wait for toxicology results and autopsy reports.