On Sunday night, Conan O’Brien hosted the 98th Academy Awards — Hollywood’s biggest night. It was time to celebrate the great movie year that 2025 had turned out to be, and, though there were many great, deserving films, much of the online discussion surrounding the event was about building it up as a battle between Ryan Coogler’s Sinners and Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. Fortunately, one film didn’t steamroll the other, as they together accounted for 10 wins of the night’s 24 categories, and both films picked up a handful of wins. It ended up as a celebration of Warner Bros.’ slate, as One Battle After Another, Sinners, and also Zach Cregger’s Weapons took home 11 awards, including in 7 of the 8 above-the-line categories. When the show came to a close, it was One Battle After Another that won Best Picture, but thankfully, both PTA and Coogler went home as winners.
The Good
- Coogler & PTA: One of my favorite things about the Oscars is getting to see these great master filmmakers get their moment in the spotlight, and I am so glad we got to see both Paul Thomas Anderson and Ryan Coogler win Oscars. They made great films, and, thankfully, one film didn’t steamroll the other as One Battle After Another and Sinners got 6 and 4 wins, respectively. And to add to that, these are two films that almost feel in conversation with each other. It’d be a fantastic double feature.
- Winners that’ll stand the test of time: One of my favorite speech moments came right before closing time, when, during his Best Picture acceptance speech, Paul Thomas Anderson referenced a previous ceremony to highlight how, even though One Battle After Another was the only one to win the big prize, Sinners and the other nominated films are likely to stand the test of time. He said: “I just want to say that in 1975 the Oscar nominees for Best Picture were Dog Day Afternoon, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Jaws, Nashville, and Barry Lyndon. There is no best among them. There’s just what the mood might be that day.” It was well said.
- Warner Bros. ‘winning’ big is a big deal: Seeing Warner Bros. win big right now feels like a big deal, given the fact that the Paramount acquisition of WBD threatens to forever change the future slate of Warner Bros., a historic film studio. If this is the last big night for the studio in this model, then it was a great one, where several of their big risks were celebrated.
- The coronation of MBJ: Just like at the SAG Awards, Michael B. Jordan won Best Actor, despite not being a frontrunner for most of Oscars season. Even though Jordan is still very young, he has already had a long career, and you could tell there was a lot of love for him in the theater. As someone who has been a fan of his for a long time, I am so happy for him. It was such a wonderful Oscars moment for such a major talent, who had turned in such terrific dual performance work in Sinners. He’s a movie star, and now he’s also an Academy Award winner. It sounds just right.
- Making history: This ceremony was always going to make history, as it would be the debut of the Best Casting category. But, like I predicted, we also got to see the first-ever female winner of the Best Cinematography category. Autumn Durald Arkapaw is a great winner, and I really loved her speech.
- Conan kicked it off well: As a big fan of Conan O’Brien, I was excited to see how he would follow up his strong debut performance as a host last year. Well, while his second outing wasn’t quite as fresh or smooth, I liked what I saw. The Aunt Gladys -inspired cold open, where Consn ran through multiple nominated films until he was on stage to The Beastie Boys’ “Sabotage” was so good, and his monologue was good fun, even if not every joke landed. He poked fun at the nominees but respected the work; he wasn’t afraid to point fingers, and he leaned into his own comedy style.
- Political remarks: While there weren’t a lot of political statements, the comments that did come were very effective. The winners of Best Documentary, for Mr. Nobody Against Putin, made very direct comments about our current moment in time, Javier Bardem spoke out against all wars and said, “Free Palestine,” and Conan O’Brien did a good job of adding in little political jabs that never derailed the show.
- “I LIED TO YOU” rocked: The Oscars are always looking for the next “I’m Just Ken” moment, and I think they got one. During the live performance of the song “I LIED TO YOU,” whoever put it together tried to recreate the instantly iconic scene from Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, where the song channeled music throughout history. It was a glorious performance that gave me full-body chills. Big fan. It was electric.
- A different way to do ‘In Memoriam’: The In Memoriam video package always brings me to tears, and this year’s was no different in its effect on me. However, it was a very different In Memoriam section. Billy Crystal led a beautiful tribute to Rob and Michelle Reiner’s memory, Rachel McAdams led a moving tribute to Diane Keaton, and, in another moving moment, Barbra Streisand spoke and sang in Robert Redford’s memory.
- Horror celebration: It was a great night for horror. Not only did Weapons’ Aunt Gladys, Amy Madigan, win Best Supporting Actress, but Frankenstein and Sinners took home a combined 7 awards. What a night!
- A TIE: We got a historic seventh-ever tie at the Oscars, and it happened in the Best Live-Action Short category. A tie is a wonderful thing at the Oscars. It means TWO films can win Oscars for one category rather than just the one. And, frankly, it meant my two favorite films in the Best Live-Action Short category (The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva) both won. Great to see. Also, I thought presenter Kumail Nanjiani handled the moment very well.
- Big night for Scandinavia: It also ended up being a pretty good night for Scandinavian Oscar fans, as, in one way or another, both Sweden, Norway, and Denmark ‘won’ something. Sweden’s Ludwig Göransson continued his incredible hot streak by winning his third Oscar for Best Score. Meanwhile, Danish-Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value won Norway its first-ever Best International Feature award. On a smaller, more technical note, Dane Helle Faber was one of the Oscar-winning producers of the excellent Best Documentary winner Mr. Nobody Against Putin. It was all very exciting, and I am especially happy for Norway. Heja Norge!!
- Frankenstein hattrick: While OBAA and Sinners ‘duked it out’ elsewhere, Frankenstein quietly went on a much-predicted hattrick of below-the-line wins. They were all worthy wins, and I was happy to see them up on stage.
The Bad
- The stiffness of “Golden”: Although I like the song a lot and enjoyed seeing it performed, the KPop Demon Hunters hit was performed in a way that felt rushed and stiff, especially when compared to the Sinners performance.
- Presenter bits largely underwhelmed: There are so many iconic presenter bits throughout the years, and I love seeing Hollywood’s biggest stars joke on stage, but it just didn’t work this year. Although the pairing of stars made sense, what they said wasn’t particularly funny or interesting. I was particularly surprised by how flat the banter between Robert Downey, Jr. and Chris Evans was. I love these guys, but their material wasn’t good. Some bits did work just fine, like the Bridesmaids cast reading humorous fictional comments from Stellan Skarsgård, Benicio del Toro, and Leonardo DiCaprio, but the bit went on for way too long.
- Sean Penn a no-show: Look, Sean Penn turned in one of the best performances of the decade in One Battle After Another. He’s a great winner in the Best Supporting Actor category. But not only did he not show up at several precursor awards, but he also skipped the Oscars. He’s obviously not the first great actor to skip the ceremony, but that doesn’t change the fact that him winning without being there is quite anticlimactic.
- Team sports mentality: Arguably, the worst thing about awards season is when thinkpieces are released that turn innocent, perfectly good movies into awards season villains. It’s natural to see these awards in a competitive light, as most of the time, there can only be one winner in each category. But I hate seeing critically acclaimed, extremely popular films torn to shreds online solely to lift up another film in their place. It’s possible to love more than one movie. Remember that.
- Overlong awards season: Okay, so this is also not really about the ceremony itself, but the length of awards season was just too much. You ended up being tired of all of the hot takes, the bad-faith takes, and the overthinking of Oscar pools. Can we move up the Oscars ceremonies to February again? That’d be nice. It went on so long that we all started obsessing over a comment made by Chalamet about ballet and opera that — despite being a hot take he’s been scolded for online — felt, to me, like it was being blown out of proportion.
The Ugly
- Wonky telecast: Although, as I’ve mentioned, it had its high points, there were too many moments when you could see the seams during the telecast. E.g.: That one moment when Conan didn’t know if they were live or not.
- Playing Off Winners: It was particularly awful whenever they played off the winners during their acceptance speeches. Look, this isn’t new. The Oscars have always been bad at this. But it was particularly infuriating when (1) they cut to Conan standing awkwardly beside them, not knowing whether to move on or not, or (2) when, during the acceptance speeches for Original Song, one of the winners’ speeches was drowned out by music, while they removed his microphone. I ended up tweeting my frustration in all caps: “LET PEOPLE GIVE THEIR ACCEPTANCE SPEECHES. THEY JUST WON AN OSCAR. THEY CAN’T ALL BE WORLD FAMOUS. LET THEM HAVE THEIR FUCKING MOMENT.”
– Article written by Jeffrey Rex Bertelsen.
I'm Jeffrey Rex 