The movie awards season culminated with the 97th Academy Awards that took place March 2.
The Neon movie Anora and filmmaker Sean Baker were the big winners, taking home five trophies, including Best Picture, Director, Original Screenplay, Editing—all for Baker—and Best Actress for Mikey Madison. Baker tied Walt Disney for the most Oscar wins in one evening (Disney won four Oscars in various categories in 1953).
Zoe Saldaña and Kieran Culkin surprised few with their wins for Best Supporting Actress and Actor for Netflix’s Emilia Pérez and Searchlight’s A Real Pain, respectively. Adrien Brody won Best Actor for A24’s The Brutalist—more than two decades after his win in the same category for The Pianist.
Queer favorite Wicked won for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design. In winning, gay costume designer Paul Tazewell became the first Black man to prevail in that category. On a related note, Grammy winner Quincy Jones got a special tribute with Queen Latifah singing “Ease on Down the Road” from The Wiz—a Black version of The Wizard of Oz. The number was introduced by Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg, who both count the Jones-scored The Color Purple as their first film.
LGBTQ+ nominees who came up short included Colman Domingo (Best Actor, for Sing Sing) and Cynthia Erivo (Best Actress, for Wicked).
Gena Rowlands, Teri Garr, David Lynch, Maggie Smith, James Earl Jones, Donald Sutherland, Shelley Duvall, Bob Newhart, John Amos and Roger Corman were among those remembered during the “In Memoriam” segment, according to Variety. However, because of time limitations, others (as always) were omitted, including Tony Todd, Chance Perdomo, Shannon Doherty, Alain Delon, documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock, Linda Lavin, Mitzi Gaynor and the recently deceased Harriet the Spy star Michelle Trachtenberg. Gene Hackman was remembered with a tribute from Morgan Freeman, who worked with him on Unforgiven and Under Suspicion.
At one point, Emilia Pérez, which was nominated for a total 13 Oscars and ultimately won two—Saldaña’s and Original Song—was a frontrunner in several other categories. However, the expectations for the movie were torpedoed by the unearthing of transgender Lead Actress nominee Karla Sofía Gascón’s controversial tweets, and the film received negative reactions from Mexican people who felt misrepresented by Emilia Pérez‘s depiction of Mexico and its people.
Speaking backstage after her win, Saldaña apologized to the people of Mexico for any offense caused by Emilia Pérez, according to Deadline. Saldaña responded to a Mexican journalist who said the film had been “very very hurtful to Mexican people,” especially since Mexico was “at the heart” of the film. However, the Oscar winner disagreed with the thought that the film was about Mexico, saying, “I don’t share your opinion. For me, the heart of this movie was not Mexico; we weren’t making a film about a country. We were making a film about four women, and these women could have been Russian, could have been Dominican, could have been Black from Detroit, could have been from Israel, could have been from Gaza, and these women were still very universal women, but are struggling every day. They’re trying to survive systemic oppression and trying to find their most authentic voices. So, I will stand by that.”
Regarding Gascón, she appeared at the ceremony. In an exchange some have called awkward, she greeted Emilia Pérez co-star Selena Gomez—months after Gascón allegedly called the singer/actress a “rich rat” on social media, per The New York Post.
Conan O’Brien made his Oscars hosting debut, and generally received praise.