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And the moment goes to…
The biggest night in Hollywood has come and gone, as the 2025 Oscars were on Sunday, March 2 (at 7 p.m. live on ABC) hosted by Conan O’Brien.
This year, the main showdown was between “The Substance,” “Anora,” “Wicked,” “Conclave,” “The Brutalist,” “Emilia Perez” and “A Complete Unknown,” with “Anora” taking home the Best Picture win.
Timothée Chalamet and Adrien Brody were neck-in-neck in a tight best actor race, which Brody won, while Demi Moore seemed like she had the best actress race in the bag after winning both the Golden Globe and SAG Award — but Mikey Madison took home that trophy instead.
This year’s big scandal was “Emilia Pérez” star Karla Sofía Gascón, 52, who made history as the first transgender woman to get a best actress nomination, swiftly got her awards campaign derailed after her controversial social media posts resurfaced in January, leading to her own co-stars speaking out.
Selena Gomez admitted that “some of the magic” about the movie “disappeared” due to the scandal and Zoe Saldaña said she was “disappointed.”
Here are the best and worst moments of the night.
Best: Conan O’Brien’s playful monologue
Conan O’Brien is a longtime talk show host, but this was his first time as the Oscars emcee. He knocked it out of the park with clever jokes about this year’s films (“Wicked” is the perfect movie, “for anyone who has ever finished watching ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and thought ‘sure, but where did all the minor characters go to college?’” he quipped).
He also performed a musical number where he sang, “I won’t waste time,” mocking the Oscar hosts’ tendencies to do just that, by trotting out the “Dune” sandworm to dance with him “for no reason,” he said.
Additionally, he amusingly brought the sandworm costume out later in the show, joking, “When you spend that much on a bit, you’ve gotta do it twice.”
Most importantly, O’Brien rolled with the punches when a few of his jokes didn’t land, and made them funnier by adjusting on the fly.
The nominated movie “I’m Still Here” is about “a woman who forges ahead alone after her husband goes missing,” O’Brien said, which his wife called, “the feel-good movie of the year.” When that so-so joke got a weak reaction from the crowd, he said, “Thanks, one guy!” implying that just one guy laughed, which recovered the moment and made it more amusing.
Worst: Weird song placements
The 2025 Oscars began not with the host monologue, but with “Wicked” stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo singing a medley of songs from the musical such as “Defying Gravity” and “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” from the original “Wizard of Oz.” Their performances were great, and it’s appropriate for them to sing during the year that “Wicked” landed 10 Oscar nominations.
But, that felt more like a mid-show set piece, or even a late-show performance to rally the audience as the night was winding down. Staging this lengthy spectacle at the beginning of the show made the pacing feel like it was getting too long — before it even started.
Best: Addressing the scandal in the room immediately
The Oscars wasted no time in addressing the Karla Sofía Gascón scandal, and didn’t make the audience wait to see if they’d dance around it.
Early in his opening monologue, O’Brien said that one of this year’s nominated films, “Anora,” uses “the f-word 479 times.” He added, “That’s three more than the record set by Karla Sofía Gascón’s publicist!”
The host added that the actress “is here tonight,” as the camera cut to her cringing in the audience. “And Karla, if you are gonna tweet about the Oscars, remember, my name is Jimmy Kimmel,” O’Brien said.
Worst: Kieran Culkin gets censored in his acceptance speech
Kieran Culkin, 42, took home his first Oscar for best supporting actor in “A Real Pain.”
While he was onstage, Culkin turned to his former “Succession” onscreen brother, Jeremy Strong — who was sitting in the audience, as he earned a best supporting actor nomination for “The Apprentice” — and sweetly praised him. “You were great in ‘The Apprentice,’” Culkin began, before the sound cut out, censoring him. Play the whole speech, cowards!
Culkin also amusingly said that his wife, Jazz Charton, 36 – whom he married in 2013 and has two kids with – told him that she’d give him four kids when he won an Oscar. Addressing her, he declared, “Let’s get crackin’ on those kids, what do you say?”
Best: Zoe Saldana makes history
Saldana, 46, made history as she took home the best supporting actress Oscar for her role in “Emilia Pérez.”
“I am a proud child of immigrant parents…I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award. And, I know I won’t be the last,” The “Avatar” star said in her speech.
Since 2013, Saldaña has been married to Italian artist and filmmaker Marco Perego, with whom she has three kids. Perego sports a Fabio-style look of flowing golden locks, and Saldana got a laugh from the audience as she thanked him for his support.
“To my husband, with that beautiful hair!”
Best: The firefighters read jokes
Halfway through the show, O’Brien ushered out a large group of firefighters who helped battle the LA wildfires that devastated many celebrities’ homes. They got a standing ovation from the crowd.
That would have been enough to make for a nice moment, but then O’Brien sweetened the pot by making several of them read jokes from the teleprompter that he wasn’t “brave enough” to make. He implored the audience that they had to laugh because, “these are heroes!”
LAFD captain Eric Scott then read the first joke, “Our hearts go out to all of those who have lost their homes, and I’m talking about the producers of ‘Joker 2,’” referring to that movie’s box office failure.
Pilot Jonith Johnson, meanwhile, read the joke that mocked Bob Dylan’s vocals: “To play Bob Dylan, Timothée Chalamet learned how to sing – in fact, his singing was so good, he almost lost the part.”
Worst: Adrien Brody’s endless speech
Adrien Brody, 51, won best actor for “The Brutalist,” 22 years after his first best actor win for “The Pianist.” In his seemingly never-ending speech, he said, “Winning an award like this signifies a destination and something my character references in the film. But to me, it also, beyond the pinnacle of a career, it is a chance to begin again and the opportunity to hopefully be fortunate enough so that the next 20 years of my life, I can prove that I am worthy of such meaningful, important and relevant roles.”
When the music began to play him off, Brody snapped, “I’m wrapping up, please turn the music off! I’ve done this before, this is not my first rodeo.”
But, Brody didn’t keep it brief after that. He continued rambling for a while longer, forcing the music to cut in again, before he threw in the towel and said, “Okay! I’ll get out of here.”