Pretty good Oscars show on Sunday! Long, yes, at three hours and 45 minutes. Adrien Brody’s best actor acceptance speech for “The Brutalist” took three hours and 43 minutes of that, or felt like it. But the evening’s pace was steady, first-time host Conan O’Brien kept it moving (though he yelled a lot, as if there were no microphones involved) and the eventual big wins for Sean Baker’s “Anora” were A-OK with me.
My predictions, on the other hand? A personal worst-ever, with 13 correct picks over 23 categories. To wit: Do not listen to this man’s predictions (though I went 21 for 23 last year). Yet rarely have I been so pleased with being proven so wrong in so many categories.
Seven thoughts about Sunday night:
1. “Anora” now enters its “yeah? prove it” phase: Expectations have been officially inflated regarding the film that won for best picture, best director, best actress (Mikey Madison), best original screenplay and best editing. Writer-director-producer-editor Baker made history, and as the Oscar-winning editor of his own picture, he got off a good zinger about salvaging his director’s film in the editing stage.
The history part: Not since Walt Disney in 1954 has a filmmaker won four Oscars at the same ceremony, though Disney won for four different films. That year found the movie industry in a defensive crouch due to the rapid and increasingly affordable rival medium of television. In 2025, it’s still in a defensive crouch. Indie stalwart Baker, who made his shape-shifting wonder of a rom-com about a Brooklyn exotic dancer and the son of a Russian oligarch on a $6 million budget, spoke Sunday about where we are now while picking up his directing Oscar from presenter Quentin Tarantino.
“Where did we fall in love with the movies? At the movie theater,” he said. “Right now, the theatergoing experience is under threat. Movie theaters, especially independently owned movie theaters, are struggling. And it’s up to us to support them.” His “battle cry,” he added, is this: “Filmmakers, keep making films for the big screen. I know I will. Distributors, please focus first and foremost on the theatrical releases of your films.” This needed saying out loud. He also asked audiences to continue seeing films at the theater.
2. “Anora” deserved everything it won: I only wish supporting actor nominee Yura Borisov had won for his note-perfect portrayal of the cryptic Russian henchman dispatched to break up the marriage between the coked-up, ne’er-do-well son (Mark Eydelshteyn) of shadowy Russian wealth and the Brighton Beach sex worker Anora (Madison). If for whatever reason you may not want to take a chance on “Anora” because of the language or the sex or whatever, you might try one of Baker’s excellent earlier works, “Tangerine” or “The Florida Project” or “Red Rocket.” They’re also about sex workers, at least in part, and also about a lot more — the human comedy in every shade of every color.
3. For historical context, “Anora” is a period piece: It is set in 2019. If it were set today, deep into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, would it work at all, especially given the newfound American allegiance to a former adversary? Tellingly, Oscars host O’Brien’s material steered almost entirely clear of anti-Trump zingers, at least by name. Referencing the “Anora” wins, O’Brien made one effective exception: “I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian.”
The movie has also become an intriguing point of debate. Some have claimed Baker’s film plays into propagandistic Russian hands, with its depiction of the Russian oligarch class and, in particular, the sympathetic portrayal of the empathetic Russian henchman. Others simply cannot understand what critics, especially female critics, see in it. On that front, start with NPR’s Aisha Harris and Slate’s Dana Stevens.
4. One disappointment: When I say “Anora” deserved everything it got, I mean it, with an asterisk. “Nickel Boys” remains for me the most startlingly original feature of 2024, and it won zero Oscars. Which hurts, but the film still exists, and gradually it will be discovered by more of us.
5. Did “Wicked” deserve better from the Oscars? No. It won for costume design (Paul Tazewell, the first Black recipient in this category and a prior Tony Award winner for “Hamilton”), and for production design (Nathan Crowley). The latter I’d argue should have gone to “The Brutalist” and production designer Judy Becker. With “Dune: Part II” excepted — that’s a massively budgeted fantasy that feels entirely human-made by real artists — the 2024 movie year produced its most vital work on budgets a fraction of the size of “Wicked.”
6. Not sure about that James Bond dance number: In several Academy Awards shows of my youth, the “007” dance routines — cheesy, prolonged versions of the franchise’s opening credits — made for instant camp, or an excuse to go to the kitchen or somewhere. Sunday’s Bond spectacular, featuring a blur of scenic slaughter from clips culled from seven different decades, was the tribute no one asked for except perhaps Amazon Studios, the new keeper of the franchise.
7. Can an Oscar secure a documentary a distributor in 2025? We’ll see: “No Other Land,” the heartbreaking collaboration between Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers, is still looking for a fuller life in theaters as of March 3, 2025.
Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.
