Commentary: See 2025 Oscars Roundup

The 2025 Academy Awards are in the books and in case you missed it, don’t despair. I’ve got all the high and lowlights and there were plenty of each.

Starting with the winners, the evening kicked off award wise with the Best Supporting Actor trophy going to Keiren Culkin for his role in “A Real Pain.” It was Culkin’s first Oscar win.

Taking home Best Supporting Actress to no one’s real surprise was Zoe Saldaña for her role in “Amelia Perez,” a film that was nominated for 13 awards and one two.

Making history by winning his second Oscar for Best Actor was Adrien Brody for his role in “The Brutalist.” He probably deserved it just based on how long he had to actually play the character given the length of the film.

Best Actress went to Mikey Madison for her role as the title character in “Anora.” 

That film was really the story of the night as it made history with director Sean Baker becoming the first person to win four Oscars from the same film. Baker won for best Original Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture as the film’s producer. He also won for Best Editing. 

“I’m Still Here” won the Oscar for Best International Film and the movie “Flow” won for Best Animated Feature. 

The broadcast itself moved as quickly as can be expected and as usual there was tons of entertaining stuff mixed in between the award presentations. Some of the really fun moments over the course of the night included funny banter between Nick Offerman, who acted as the offstage announcer for the event and host Conan O’Brien.

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande performed a rousing duet from “Wicked,” which received 10 nominations but didn’t receive the same love from Academy voters that they did from movie goers as they left with two trophies.

Morgan Freeman took the stage to give his pal Gene Hackman a moving tribute right before the montage of Hollywood community members who have passed on.

There were also giant sandworms from “Dune 2.” (You just have to Google it but they played instruments, so it might be worth it.) There is nothing wrong with some silly fun in what can be a stuffy atmosphere!

The ceremony also took two separate instances to address the recent LA wildfires with a charity event to help victims out and then by having firefighters and first-responders take the stage for a nice tribute while also having them bring some comedy.

But it wouldn’t be the Oscars without some weirdness or general discomfort. There was a really strange James Bond tribute that featured Lisa and Doja Cat. And then there a nice tribute to Quincy Jones by Queen Latifah, who looked like she paratrooped into the awards, was running late and didn’t have time to remove her parachute. Brody also gave an acceptance speech where he was about to get cut off and insisted that they let him finish. Kind of ironic that the person who gave the longest speech of the night in the longest movie, “The Brutalist.”

Personally, the most disturbing sight of the night was probably seeing a Kardashian anywhere near the event, much less the front row sitting next to Timothee Chalamet, who was clad in a bright yellow outfit looking like a character from “Curious George.” I kind of wanted him to win until then.

Editor’s note: For more movie and entertainment talk, join Pete Schwaba weeknights from 6 p.m. to 8 p .m. for “Nite Lite” on the Civic Media radio network.