The Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars, are the biggest annual award show for films in the United States. They’ve been running for over 97 years. Nearly every year, the nominations for the Oscars are debated by fans and critics of the films, and each year usually has at least a few controversial nominations and award winners.
2025 has been an especially controversial year for the Academy Awards. The rise of generative AI, its use in film, and companies not disclosing what is made with AI are some of many recent problems that have arisen with the nominations, as well as film in general. Additionally, this year sees the typical controversial picks, which are simply bad films that are there for hollow tokenism because they made a lot of money, or merely to fill a slot.
The show opened with a performance of “Defying Gravity” from Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo from the musical “Wicked,” which was nominated for multiple awards and won for both costume design and production design. Cynthia and Ariana were also both nominated for actress and supporting actress, respectively, though neither won.
This year, the Oscars were hosted by comedian and TV host Conan O’Brien, who gave a more comedy-focused speech to open the show following the performance of “Defying Gravity.” The speech included multiple jokes and comments about the nominees and the actors present at the show, including a notable shot at Karla Sofía Gascón, the star of “Emilia Perez,” who was criticized for a string of controversial tweets.
“Emilia Perez” was by far the most controversial film of the night, in part due to Gascón’s tweets but also for other issues it had. The social groups the film was attempting to represent had numerous criticisms for their depictions in it, and audiences that both fit into those bubbles and didn’t pointed out the poor quality of the music. “Emilia Perez” won two nominations during the show, ïncluding best supporting actress for Zoe Saldaña and best original song for “El Mal”, the latter of which was mocked by audiences for a poor English dub of the original French composition
Moving away from the night’s most controversial film, the rest of the show saw mixed reactions from fans of the nominated films. The best animated feature went to “Flow.” The animated feature category has seen more praise in recent years for its winners, with “The Boy and the Heron” winning the award in 2023, and Guillermo del Toro’s “Pinocchio” winning in 2022. The sweeping film of this year’s awards was “Anora,” which won best actress for Mikey Madison’s performance in the film, best director, best original screenplay, editing, and the night’s coveted award, best picture. While many agreed that “Anora” was a strong film, and not a bad pick for the awards, there was discourse about whether it deserved to win as many awards as it did.
Some viewers were disappointed that Denis Villenueve’s “Dune: Part Two” didn’t win more awards, though it did win both best visual effects and sound. There was also disappointment that Timothée Chalemet’s performance in the film didn’t get any nominations, though he was nominated for best actor for his performance in “A Complete Unknown,” a drama about musician Bob Dylan, in which Chalamet portrays the titular character. The actor category also saw some disappointment from fans of actor Sebastian Stan, who felt that he deserved the award for his performance as Donald Trump in “The Apprentice,” a biopic about Trump’s early career and what led him to where he is now.
There was also discourse regarding the actor category due to Adrien Brody’s victory in the category for “The Brutalist,” in which AI was reportedly used to help with the Hungarian spoken in the film. The use of AI wasn’t disclosed until after the film’s nomination, which is why the controversy sparked. This sparked another industry-wide discussion: The use of generative AI in films, especially the lack of companies disclosing when AI is used.
Overall, continuing the trend, the 2025 Oscars were controversial, to say the least, from poorly received films winning multiple awards to strong performances and films not receiving enough. There was plenty of discourse to go around this year, and this year’s Oscar’s cycle highlighted many issues within the film and entertainment industry.
