Oscars 2025 Snubs And Surprises: ‘Anora’ Wins Big

The 97th Academy Academy Awards have been a tight and controversial race. The nominations were released in January, and there were already a couple of notable snubs and surprises.

In the Best Actress category, Nicole Kidman was not nominated for her role in Babygirl even though she won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival (which often leads to a nomination.) Some were also surprised that Angelina Jolie was not nominated for her titular role in Maria. However, the film was nominated for Best Cinematography and didn’t win. In the Best Actor category, some were surprised to see that Daniel Craig was not nominated for Queer and Paul Mescal was not nominated for Gladiator II. Queer was not nominated in any category, but Gladiator II was nominated for Best Costumes (however, it also didn’t win.)

While Wicked was nominated for 10 Oscars, notably Best Director was not among them for Jon Chu. Other big movies were also left off the Best Director category, including Dune: Part 2’s Denis Villeneuve and Conclave’s Edward Berger.

One of the biggest surprises surrounded director Luca Guadagnino. His film Challengers received no nominations. Maybe most surprisingly, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ Golden Globe-winning Challengers score was not nominated. Guadagnino’s second film of the year, Queer, was also not nominated.

In the lead-up to the Oscar, backlash recolored the race. Emelia Perez was a clear favorite, snagging 13 nominations. However, several controversies surrounding the film hurt its chances in several key races. Similarly, The Brutalist’s use of AI led to controversy for one of this year’s top contenders.

However, the ceremony brought more snubs and surprises. The first came with Best Animated Feature going to Flow. The Wild Robot was favored, but Flow won the Oscar, which earned it the first Academy Award for a Latvian film.

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While No Other Land was a top contender for Documentary Feature, it notably won without a US distributor. The film ran on a limited theatrical release for one week to qualify for the awards.

Nosferatu was a bit of a snub of the night. The film was nominated for four Oscars in cinematography, costume design, makeup, hair styling, and production design. However, it did not take home any awards. Similarly, A Complete Unknown was nominated for eight awards but took home none.

It wasn’t surprising that Adrien Brody won for Best Actor for The Brutalist. However, the length of his speech was a bit of a surprise. After taking gum out of his mouth and tossing it to his wife, Brody delivered a speech that was played off twice. The first time the music started playing over his speech, he asked for it to be turned off, saying, “Turn the music off. I have done this before. Thank you. It’s not my first rodeo.” It worked initially, but he was played off a second time later in the speech after delivering the message, “I believe if the past can teach us anything, it’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.”

An upset came late in the night. Many assumed that Demi Moore would take home Best Actress for The Substance. However, Mikey Madison took the award home for her role in Anora. Anora had a great night, taking home five Oscars for Director, Editor, Original Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Picture. Sean Baker took four, making him one of only two people to win four Oscars in one night (the other being Walt Disney in 1953.)