Oscars 2025 ~ What Just Happened?

By Aliki Bitsakakis, Persephone Media

12 min read, Saturday March 15th, 2025

Nominees for the 97th Oscars® were celebrated at a dinner held at the Academy Museum, Tuesday, February 25, 2025. Richard Harbaugh/The Academy

Not only was this year quite weak in comparison to last year, but a lot of solid filmmaking was overlooked or overshadowed by social politics. And that’s always frustrating, even though these are just little gold statues.

On the one hand, I do believe it’s important for the industry to reward the most deserving films and filmmakers, because for a lot of people, this is their introduction to what are considered “good films.” If you aren’t attune with the industry,  awards season should be the way in. I don’t think we should let the Academy get away with getting it wrong over and over again.

On the other hand, I recently watched Apocalypse Now. Do you know how many Oscars it won? Two: cinematography and sound. Not Best Picture, Director, no acting awards, nothing else. So, yes, we should all be outraged that Emilia Perez amassed 13 nominations, and I highly disagree with Anora’s 5 wins. But at the end of the day, time will tell us what films are truly great. 

Anora: The Big Winner, For Some Reason

This year, it felt like various controversies not only overshadowed the merit of the films in question, but it distracted audiences so much that many films got no recognition at all. 

I feel like it’s slightly due to all the chaos that Anora slipped through and landed on top. Or, the Academy felt for whatever political reason, they needed to award the film about sex work (even though it was a terrible representation of the industry, I’ll explain). Or, Sean Baker is much better at campaigning than he let on. (News has now come out about an $18 million marketing budget. Regardless of where that money went, boasting about a measly $6 million budget is suddenly very misleading).

I really appreciate Sean Baker for all he’s doing for indie filmmaking with his passionate speeches, and I am very happy that an indie film has garnered this kind of attention. Hopefully this sparks some change in the industry, and lowers the cost of filmmaking so more risks can be taken. Despite these positives, I don’t think Anora was deserving of all this praise. 

This film was boring. When a movie feels too long, it’s because it isn’t engaging. Even though The Brutalist had a much longer run time, I was engaged the whole time, so I didn’t mind. But with Anora, nothing was happening. The first half of the movie was Mikey Madison acting out every male fantasy – man tricks a stripper to fall in love with him, cue an hour of said stripper (who is now a prostitute, which, unacknowledged by anyone who has worked on this film, are actually different things) with no clothes on (yet there was no male nudity) performing sexual favors while the man just sits there and plays video games. 

As if this movie hadn’t already lost my attention, we then spend way too long following Anora and the henchmen around as they look for Vanya. They didn’t think to go back to her club first? Really? Also, speaking of the henchmen, Toros was the most annoying character on screen this whole year, he ruined the movie and overshadowed Madison’s performance. Also, Oscar nomination for the bald guy who didn’t speak the whole film? What in the world is going on? 

Anora winning Best Editing and Best Original Screenplay feels suspicious to me. Editing, even though half an hour in the middle of the film should have been cut? Screenplay, even though there barely seemed to be scripted dialogue? And the message seemed to be that sex workers have feelings too? Wow. Groundbreaking. 

I always harp on the representation of women in film, but for good reason. What we see in the media seeps into our everyday lives and has the power to influence what we think and how we behave. This film just felt like a blatant excuse to exploit a woman and equate her worth to her body and physical appearance (and Baker writing this role for Madison is pretty creepy, and the lack of an intimacy coordinator is a huge problem, I don’t care if Madison claimed she was alright with it, intimacy coordinators are there to protect actors in vulnerable scenes). Disguised as a favor to the sex work community, this film did an injustice to sex workers and women everywhere. 

This film reinforced multiple harmful misconceptions that people have of this industry. Now, there are a lot of smart people online talking about this aspect of the film, how it’s just a male fantasy come to life, so I encourage you to seek out that content for a more in-depth view. To sum it up, many people assume sex workers need saving. Anora was not set up as a character who had a bad home life, who needed money or refuge of any sort. And at work, she made money and she had friends. So, building this character to jump at the first sketchy guy who wants to marry her, pushes the narrative that regardless of individual experience, people in this line of work are inherently weak and down on their luck and have no agency of their own and need someone else – a man, a rich man – to help them. Anora did not seem like the naive type, nor did she ever seem to really be in love with Vanya (I’m sorry but this guy was such a loser) or get so torn up about her situation in the end. Because, she was not left for dead; she simply returned to her life from the beginning of the film, which, again, had nothing wrong with it, from her initial perspective.

Harmful misconceptions about sex work, boring and uninteresting dialogue and action, a supporting cast that took up too much screentime and volume, and male fantasy galore come together to make a lacklustre Oscar winner. 

The Brutalist and Emilia Perez: Controversy Prevails

I’m going to say this very plainly: the only reason The Brutalist did not win is because people do not understand what the use of AI actually means. 

I will also say this plainly: Brady Corbet has been punished even though his work as a director and writer (and Mona Fastvold’s work as a writer) was not altered in the slightest, while Adrien Brody was awarded for his performance that was altered. Therefore, people do not know what they are upset about, and this is why the Academy cannot let public opinion sway the outcome.

The Brutalist used AI in their post production. They used AI to improve the sound, specifically, the Hungarian accents of Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones. Brady Corbet explained that the only moments that were changed was the offscreen dialogue, in the voiced letters that husband and wife wrote to each other. 

AI, in filmmaking and in any industry, is a tool. We need to stop personifying it. It is simply the next technological advancement that yes, is extremely powerful and is advancing at a rapid pace, but it is still just another piece of technology. There are also many technical elements that go into making a film. Speak to any editor, and they will tell you that AI is becoming more frequently used in post production, just as things like photoshop, special effects, CGI, and other softwares intended to clean up dodgy sound, or put the finishing touches on the visuals. That is what The Brutalist did – they used the newest editing software to complete their film.

There absolutely needs to be a line drawn, as AI needs to stay away from scriptwriting and any other purely creative – purely, human – elements of the industry. But when it comes to technical elements, if technology is being used ethically, then I see no problem. Brady Corbet described it in an interesting way, saying he was watching an old film with his daughter, where characters were speaking Norwegian. His daughter, who speaks Norwegian, laughed, and said they were speaking gibberish. Brady Corbet decided to use AI in order to display an authentic representation of a language and a culture, so Hungarians were not taken out of the film. It’s about representation.

Also, technology helps reduce the cost of filmmaking. Which, if you have been paying attention the past few years, has become a lot! The Brutalist only cost $10 million. Editor Dávid Jancsó, explained that they didn’t have the budget for a lengthy post production, so technology was used in this way to reduce costs and make the film the best it could be. 

Ben Affleck actually called this back in November, as reported by Variety. He explained that AI is not going to replace writers, directors, or actors; at best, AI is a craftsman; feed it every episode of Succession and it’ll spit out a wonky script back. But could it write Succession from scratch? Or do anything without intense assistance? Human creativity will never be replaced. Because humans know how other humans think and feel, and through empathy, we can create art that strikes at human emotion.

Affleck said that AI must be used as a tool and in doing so, you can lower the costs of filmmaking: “What AI is going to do is dis-intermediate the more laborious, less creative, and more costly aspects of filmmaking that will allow costs to be brought down, that will lower the barrier to entry, that will allow more voices to be heard, that will make it easier for the people want to make ‘Good Will Huntings’ to go out and make it.”

So, in the case of The Brutalist, AI was used for ethical reasons, it was used in a purely technical (not creative) sense, and it was used to bring down the cost of this film. But, once the word “AI,” was mentioned, everyone freaked out, and that is why The Brutalist lost. 

I loved this film. It was built off an emotional core surrounding the trauma felt by immigrants, and how that trauma is expressed in physical forms of art as a way of processing grief. It was a beautiful story about how nothing matters in life other than the people you love. And it was engaging, dramatic, and visually stunning. Sidenote, this deserved Best Original Screenplay because I, along with all the friends I saw this film with and I’m pretty sure everyone in the theatre, thought László Tóth was a real guy. He wasn’t! He didn’t invent brutalism! He’s a fictional character! This film somehow convinced me that I was watching a historical biopic, that’s how real these characters and this story felt to me. I have never experienced something like that.

Finally, Brady Corbet shot this film using VistaVision, a widescreen format achieved by feeding the film negatives into the camera horizontally instead of vertically. The image is doubled in size, resulting in more detailed visuals. Cinematographer Lol Crawley explained that VistaVision was used to accurately capture the expansive architecture at the heart of the film, without distortion. Also, this format was developed post-war, which is when the story is set. So it only makes sense to honour the filmmaking and artistic integrity of the time. Corbet and Crawley resurrected a nearly extinct way of shooting, because they felt it necessary to their mission on this film. This is all to say, The Brutalist under Brady Corbet’s astounding, honest direction, should have been praised way more. 

Next controversy: Emilia Perez. I watched this movie so you don’t have to. I feel like this film has taken up 99% of all attention this awards season, which is a serious problem, and it’s absolutely the Academy’s fault. It shouldn’t have been nominated for anything, let alone 13 awards. The sheer terribleness of this film contrasted with its amount of accolades shows that once again, awards are not about quality. Rather, Netflix is doing everything in their power to win Best Picture. And it loses every single year.

Emilia Perez was just this year’s Netflix pick. On top of this film being horribly offensive to Mexican people, horribly regressive about all issues faced by the trans community, featuring not a single song that sounded like it was actually written by a musician – their lead actress was revealed to be a horrible person through the years on twitter. Every publicist’s worst nightmare.

What probably happened: Emilia Perez was nominated 13 times because of heavy campaigning from Netflix. Emilia Perez then lost most of their categories because public opinion was so hateful towards this movie, it successfully swayed voters. One fact remains: at no point during this process, in the nominations or voting, is the Academy focused on the quality of the films they are praising (and the very allowance of campaigning for votes proves quality does not matter). That’s not to say good films don’t make it in. As I’ve already mentioned, there are films this awards season I liked. And last year, I loved most of the nominated films. But this Emilia Perez phenomenon reveals an ugly truth, and it has now become difficult to even praise the good stuff without wondering what had to happen behind the scenes for us to get this specific outcome.

The destruction that Emilia Perez induced was not just in the muddling of voting morality, but this film was so riddled with controversies, that’s all that people could talk about. And it unfortunately drew attention away from a lot of good films this year, which I will now highlight.

Biggest snub: Nosferatu

I. Loved. This. Movie. And its failure to garner more critical acclaim just shows that the Academy still does not see horror movies as art. The Substance was nominated, which is a step in the right direction (I didn’t like that movie but it was horror), but historically, very few horror movies are honoured at this level. 

Nosferatu was nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling (lost to The Substance), Best Cinematography (lost to The Brutalist), Best Production Design (lost to Wicked), and Best Costume Design (lost to Wicked). 

It should have also been nominated for: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Lead Actress, Best Lead Actor, Best Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay. And I do think it could have won a lot of those categories. But, especially: Best Lead Actress for Lily Rose-Depp.

Listen, Mikey Madison was good, her performance was the one part of Anora that I got. However, you need to watch Nosferatu, and keep in mind that there is nothing added to Depp’s performance in post production. Everything that you see on screen, she can do right in front of your face. Throughout the film, I felt this intense empathy towards Ellen Hutter, as her experience became a mirror for any sort of haunting trauma that one cannot shake, and the unkind ways those memories continue to manifest. It was incredibly emotional and powerful and I just can’t stop thinking about it. 

Nominated Snubs

Conclave – Best Picture and Best Editing

As a lifelong Survivor fan, this movie had me by the shoulders. I felt like Jeff Probst watching one drawn-out tribal council, where all the contestants are whispering to each other, someone pulls out an immunity idol, and all hell breaks loose.

Conclave was a vessel for intense conversations about religious institutions, and whether they still have a place in our modern society. I was excited for Conclave to shock everyone and win Best Picture. At the very least, this is a movie that was edited well.

Guy Pearce – Best Supporting Actor, The Brutalist

I thought Kieran Culkin was good in A Real Pain, but he basically played himself and in the grand scheme of the film, he just didn’t have much to work with. I really do believe that the Oscar he was just handed was for our collective recent memory of his brilliance in Succession.

Guy Pearce on the other hand, I have seen him in so many movies and I always forget who I’m looking at. He dissolves into his roles, and his supporting performance in The Brutalist is no exception. 

Denis Villeneueve – Best Director, Dune: Part Two

Not nominating Denis Villeneueve for Best Director when he somehow put together Dune: Part Two, and continues to be a leading director in the industry with an amazing eye and the filmography to back it up? Everyone should be embarrassed about this one.

Snubs Not Even Invited to the Oscars

Challengers – Best Score

Greatest workout soundtrack of all time. It’s nice to know that you can give real composers a direction like, “can you just make really sick tennis tracks?” and they’ll absolutely kill it. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross being snubbed calls for a national day of mourning. 

Saturday Night – Best Director and Best Score

I loved everything about this movie. The energy, the playing out in real time, all of the acting. Jason Reitman simply knew where to put the camera, he kept track of this chaotic story, and he captured the energy of that first night of one of the most iconic shows of all time. And Jon Batiste live recorded the score on set while they were shooting, reflecting that raw energy and tying the score with the visuals perfectly.

Andrew Garfield – Best Supporting Actor, We Live in Time

Andrew Garfield’s performance as the concerned and supportive husband to Florence Pugh who is grappling with her cancer diagnosis, was small, calculated, calm, and absolutely heartbreaking. It was all in his eyes. And he stole the show.

Will & Harper – Best Documentary

Given the nature of our extremely hostile political climate, it can feel difficult to ask questions and have conversations. And that’s exactly what this film alleviated. Will Ferrell went on a road trip with his best friend, Harper Steele, and was able to ask her any question he could think of, about her lived experience as a trans woman. 

We often fear what is not known to us, which is why a film like this is so important in showing that we are all in this together, and deep down, we are all the same. Also, Ferrell and Steele are both hilarious so you’ll quickly forget that you’re watching a documentary, and you’ll feel as if you’re sitting in the backseat of the car, enjoying the company of two old friends.

Conclusion

So, what did we learn? That there were a lot of good films released in 2024, yet they were almost all overshadowed by some high-school-style nonsense. Thanks, Academy, for continuing to refuse to acknowledge hardworking creatives and instead shoving celebrities and influencers down our throats at every turn!

I guess there’s always next year. In the meantime, don’t rely on the Oscars to tell you what films to watch. They sometimes get it right, and a lot of the time they get it wrong. Do your research, engage with your film community, see things before their stupid press tours ruin it for everyone. There is such good filmmaking to be appreciated, we may just have to work a little harder to find it.