Every year, I get very excited for the Oscars. As a huge lover of cinema, I cherish getting the chance to celebrate all the best movies of the past year. Last year was the first year of my life where I saw every film nominated for Best Picture, and this year I did the same. Today, I’m going to discuss some highlights from the 97th Academy Awards that took place this past weekend.
As I was watching the ceremony, I found myself predicting the winner for pretty much every category, so let me start with discussing some of the ones I wasn’t able to crack.
For Best Actor, I was torn between Timothée Chalamet and Adrien Brody (although I would have been perfectly fine with any of the five nominees winning, as I thought they were all amazing performances). Adrien Brody truly is exceptional in “The Brutalist,” but I definitely got caught up in the “A Complete Unknown” hype cycle. I thought Chalamet was great, and I was loving the narrative of him becoming the youngest Best Actor winner (a title held currently by Adrien Brody, funnily enough). It always felt like this category was a two horse race between the two of them, and ultimately Brody came out on top. I’d also like to give a shoutout to Best Actor nominee Colman Domingo for his performance in “Sing Sing,” which I adored and think hasn’t been praised nearly enough.
For Best Actress, I was rooting for Mikey Madison for “Anora” but was unsure she would win. Her main competitors in this category were Demi Moore and Fernanda Torres. Demi Moore was fantastic in “The Substance,” and had a compelling narrative this awards season, with many calling her work in the film the best of her career. Fernanda Torres, also, was absolutely incredible in “I’m Still Here,” and it felt to me like that film had been picking up steam with Academy voters. However, in the end the award went to Mikey Madison. I could not be happier about this; not only did Madison have what is probably my favorite performance of 2024, but “Anora” was hands-down my favorite film of the year as well.
Speaking of “Anora,” it was the night’s biggest story: the film was nominated for six Academy Awards and ended up winning five of them. Filmmaker Sean Baker made Oscars history with his wins; with the film winning Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Director and Best Picture, Baker is the first person to win four Academy Awards in the same night for the same film. Pretty incredible. His multiple speeches were also very heartfelt, with his Best Director speech discussing how we should preserve movie theaters particularly moving me. I am so happy for this film; it was easily the funniest movie I saw last year, while also being one of the most emotionally affecting movies of the year simultaneously.
The other big winner of the night was “The Brutalist,” winning Best Actor, Best Original Score and Best Cinematography. As I stated, I wasn’t 100% sure whether Brody would win Best Actor or not, however I absolutely knew the film would win Best Original Score (Daniel Blumberg’s composing in this movie is just so insanely good). I also was a little hesitant to predict the Best Cinematography win. I think how Lol Crawley shot “The Brutalist” was absolutely breathtaking and was my favorite in the category, but I was also deeply enamored with Greig Fraser and Jarin Blaschke’s cinematography in “Dune: Part II” and “Nosferatu,” respectively.
A couple other categories I want to mention are Best Supporting Actor and Best Makeup and Hairstyling. Everyone knew Kieran Culkin had the Oscar in the bag; while all five performances in Best Supporting Actor are phenomenal, Culkin has won big at seemingly every award show for the past few months. His performance in “A Real Pain” was so delightful and had so much depth. His acceptance speech was also very “him,” and I very much enjoyed it. I also wanted to briefly give praise to Pierre-Olivier Persin, Stéphanie Guillon and Marilyne Scarselli for winning Best Makeup and Hairstyling for their work in “The Substance.” It is definitely not lost on me that this is a body horror movie and it won an Academy Award. I just think that is so cool.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Conan O’Brien. I have been a lifelong fan of his, and I was giddy with excitement when it was first announced that he would be hosting the ceremony. I was certain he would be a tremendous host, and he did not disappoint. His monologue was fabulous, and every bit he had throughout the broadcast was hilarious.
Overall, I thought the 97th Academy Awards was very good. There aren’t really any categories where I feel strongly that a different film should have won. It was a wonderful celebration of the art form that is cinema. If you haven’t seen a lot of the nominated films, or any of them for that matter, I encourage you to expand your horizons and check some of them out.
