The 97th annual Academy Awards have concluded with a near-sweep for the indie darling Anora, which won five of the six categories it was nominated in.
Many of those wins came in the most competitive fields of the night: Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing.
And at the conclusion of Sunday’s awards ceremony, Anora also scored the biggest prize of all, Best Picture.
It trounced the duelling musicals Emilia Perez and Wicked, which received 13 and 10 nominations respectively — but only won two Oscars apiece.
And it also proved to be a bigger crowd-pleaser amongst the Academy voters than another independent film favourite, The Brutalist, which picked up three wins out of 10 nominations.
But some of the biggest takeaways of the evening did not come in the final tally of who gobbled up the most Oscars. Instead, they came in the ideals espoused on the Oscars stage: bold statements underscoring the need for justice and an acknowledgement of our shared humanity.
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Here are five major themes that emerged from tonight’s Oscar awards.
No Other Land sends powerful message about ethnic cleansing
One of the biggest surprises of the night came in the competitive Best Documentary Feature category, when the film No Other Land was named the winner.
The film chronicles the destruction of the West Bank town of Masafer Yatta, where one of the film’s directors, Basel Adra, is from.
Adra teamed up with Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham to capture the violent attacks Israeli settlers launch on Masafer Yatta, pushing its Palestinian residents from their homes and burning structures to the ground.
The film also captures the growing — but sometimes tense — friendship between Adra and Abraham, as they navigate the restrictions Palestinians in the West Bank face.
Despite the film racking up accolades at film festivals around the world, no distributor stepped forward to give the documentary a wide release in the US. To qualify for Sunday’s Oscars, the filmmakers had to arrange a one-week screening at New York’s Lincoln Center.
But the filmmakers did not focus on those hurdles when they took the Oscar stage to accept their prize.
Instead, they kept their remarks centred on the continuing death and destruction Palestinians face in Gaza and the West Bank.
“ About two months ago, I became a father,” Adra told the audience.
“And my hope to my daughter [is] that she will not have to live the same life I’m living now — always fearing settler violence, home demolitions and forcible displacements that my community Masafer Yatta is living and facing every day under Israeli occupation.”
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Both Adra and Abraham appealed to the global community to pressure Israel for an end to the human rights abuses.
“No Other Land reflects the harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades,” Adra explained. “We call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and stop the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.”
Abraham, meanwhile, directed his comments specifically at the largely American audience watching the Academy Awards.
“The foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path,” Abraham added, to applause. “Can’t you see that we’re intertwined — that my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe?”
Anora puts sex workers’ humanity in the spotlight
With its five wins, Anora also cast a spotlight on a misunderstood and often stereotyped community: sex workers.
The film follows the story of a Russian American stripper named Anora, who lives a precarious existence in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. When the young son of a Russian oligarch takes a shine to her, Anora starts to imagine a better life for herself — and when he proposes marriage, she accepts.
But things fall apart when the young man’s parents demand the marriage be annulled — and the son flees, leaving Anora to confront the consequences alone.
This is not the first film from director Sean Baker to focus on sex workers. His 2015 film Tangerine, shot entirely on iPhones, follows a pair of transgender sex workers on Christmas Eve. It proved to be one of his breakout hits.
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Baker acknowledged the ways sex workers and other people on the margins of society shaped his work in one of his many acceptance speeches on Sunday night.
“I want to thank the sex worker community. They have shared their stories. They have shared their life experiences with me over the years. My deepest respect,” Baker said. “I share this with you.”
Mikey Madison, Anora’s leading lady, echoed his appreciation with gratitude of her own.
“I also just want to again recognise and honour the sex worker community,” she said as she accepted the Best Actress trophy.
“I will continue to support and be an ally. All of the incredible people — the women I have had the privilege of meeting from that community — has been one of the highlights of this entire incredible experience.”
Artists blast hate and authoritarian leanings, at home and abroad
Questions about democracy, discrimination and human rights in general floated over the night’s proceedings, marking a subtle but distinctly present motif.
In a speech accepting the Best Actor award for his work in The Brutalist, performer Adrien Brody spoke in sweeping idealistic terms, reflecting on how both of his Oscar wins — this year and in 2003 — came on the back of films about the Holocaust.
“I’m here once again to represent the lingering traumas and repercussions of war and systematic oppression and of anti-Semitism and racism and othering,” Brody said.
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“And I believe — I pray — for a healthier and a happier and a more inclusive world. And I believe, if the past can teach us anything, it’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.”
Brody was only 29 when he won his first Best Actor trophy for The Pianist, a story of a musician’s survival in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. This year, he once again topped the category for his portrayal of László Tóth, a brutalist architect who survives the Holocaust only to face anti-Semitism and violence in the United States.
Another big winner tackled the subject of Brazil’s dictatorship, which lasted from 1964 to 1985.
The film I’m Still Here traced the real-life story of Eunice Paiva, whose husband, a congressman, was taken into custody by Brazilian soldiers, never to be seen again. She dedicated her life to uncovering what happened to him.
While accepting the award for Best International Feature, director Walter Salles paid tribute to Paiva’s sacrifices.
“ This goes to a woman who, after a loss suffered during an authoritarian regime, decided not to bend and to resist,” Salles told the audience.
Resistance was also the subject of a late quip from Oscar host Conan O’Brien, who largely avoided the subject of politics throughout the night.
But as Anora started to rack up the wins, O’Brien could not help but take a jab at US President Donald Trump, who has shown an affinity for his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin — a man accused of war crimes in Ukraine.
“Anora’s having a good night. That’s great news. Two wins already. I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian,” O’Brien said to riotous applause.
Sean Baker, Zoe Saldana and Paul Tazewell notch new ‘firsts’
It was a historic night for several of the nominees, who broke new records with their wins.
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Never before had a single artist walked away with four awards on the same night for the same film. That is, not until Baker did so on Sunday with his film Anora.
He won for Best Director, Best Editing, Best Original Screenplay and Best Picture, his arms brimming with little golden statuettes by the end of the night.
But other winners notched wins that broke barriers for diversity — a not insignificant task at the Oscars, which skews white and male.
Paul Tazewell, for instance, became the first African American man to win the Best Costume Design category, for his work on the Broadway musical adaptation Wicked.
“This is absolutely astounding. Thank you, Academy, for this very significant honour,” Tazewell said as he took the stage, choking with emotion. “I’m the first Black man to receive the Costume Design award for my work on Wicked. I’m so proud of this.”
The crowd, at that point, had largely leapt to its feet.
Performer Zoe Saldana also highlighted the historic nature of her win as she took the stage to accept the Best Supporting Actress trophy for her work singing and dancing in the musical Emilia Perez.
“My grandmother came to this country in 1961. I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hardworking hands, and I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award,” Saldana said.
“I know I will not be the last. I hope the fact that I’m getting an award for a role where I got to sing and speak in Spanish — my grandmother, if she were here, she would be so delighted.”
Performers testify to the power of cinema
Despite the glitz and glamour at Sunday’s Oscars, a bitter reality prevails in Hollywood: The movie industry has yet to emerge from its pandemic-era slump after COVID-19 struck in 2020.
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The gross domestic yield from US box office sales dropped from more than $11bn per year to barely $2bn in 2020, according to the industry website Box Office Mojo.
Since then, sales have slowly started to recover, but they have yet to reach that pre-pandemic total. In 2024, for instance, US movie ticket sales only generated $8.6bn.
With competition from streaming services growing, the artists on stage at Sunday’s Oscars appealed to audiences not to give up on the magic of the movies.
“Where did we fall in love with the movies? At the movie theatre,” Baker said as he picked up the Oscar for Best Director.
“Watching a film in the theatre with an audience is an experience we can laugh together, cry together, scream in fright together, perhaps sit in devastated silence together. And in a time in which the world can feel very divided, this is more important than ever. It’s a communal experience you simply don’t get at home.”
Brody, meanwhile, reflected on the precarious nature of pursuing acting as a profession, in a time of increasing instability in the arts. He struggled to land leading roles after his success in 2003’s The Pianist.
“ Acting is a very fragile profession. It looks very glamorous, and in certain moments, it is. But the one thing that I’ve gained, having the privilege to come back here, is to have some perspective. And no matter where you are in your career, no matter what you’ve accomplished, it can all go away,” Brody said.
Baker, on the other hand, highlighted the financial pitfalls facing movie theatres themselves, especially locally owned ones.
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“Right now, the theatre-going experience is under threat. Movie theatres, especially independently owned theatres, are struggling,” he said. “It’s up to us to support them.”
