The 97th Academy Awards Recap: Oscars Continue Their Slow Crawl Into Irrelevance

The 97th Academy Awards have come and gone, and if you didn’t bother tuning in, it’s hard to blame you. Hollywood’s annual self-congratulatory spectacle has long been a platform for pampered celebrities to preach hollow “values” while rewarding films and performances that most of us don’t relate to—or even hear about. And thanks to the Academy’s ongoing obsession with identity politics and official diversity quotas for nominations, the Oscars have continued their freefall from genuine cultural relevance into a curated echo chamber.

This year’s awards ceremony delivered more of the same, complete with political grandstanding, questionable decision-making, and yet another reminder of how out of touch this organization is with the general audience. That said, in case you care to know who actually won (even if the judges themselves didn’t bother watching some of the movies they voted on), here’s this year’s recap.

The Big Winners (and Losers We All Saw Coming)

• Best Picture went to Anora, the latest hyper-artsy flick directed by Sean Baker, which also took home awards for Best Director, Best Actress (Mikey Madison), Best Editing, and Best Original Screenplay. With domestic ticket sales scraping in at an underwhelming $15.7 million, it’s now the lowest-grossing Best Picture winner in history. A true “win” for mass appeal, right?
• Best Actor was awarded to Adrien Brody for his performance in The Brutalist, his first win since The Pianist 22 years ago. The Brutalist also bagged Best Cinematography and Best Original Score, proving once again that critics prefer their art films cold and detached.
• Kieran Culkin nabbed Best Supporting Actor for A Real Pain, while Best Supporting Actress went to Zoe Saldaña for her role in Emilia Pérez—a film surrounded by more controversy than acclaim.

Check out my interview on the @AlexCuestaShow. It was a ton of fun and we cover a bunch of topics.

Captain America
Fantastic Four
Emilia Perez
Will Hollywood change
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• Flow secured an unsurprising victory in the Best Animated Feature Film category. And yes, Dune: Part Two did predictably clean up two technical categories, winning Best Sound and Best Visual Effects—even though more than one Academy judge admitted they hadn’t even bothered to watch the movie.

A Ceremony of Errors

Adding fuel to the dumpster fire, it was revealed that several Oscar voters didn’t fully watch—or in some cases, even start—certain nominated films. Dune: Part Two, a major blockbuster and critical contender, became a prime victim of this. One voter called the first Dune “boring” and just decided to skip the sequel entirely. Another abstained because it wasn’t a priority on their list. This raises the obvious question—if they aren’t watching the films, then why are they voting?

It doesn’t stop there. Some voters even confused Ralph Fiennes as a past Best Actor winner to justify not voting for him in Conclave. (Spoiler alert—they’re wrong; he’s never won an Oscar.) That’s the kind of high-stakes decision-making you’d expect from an elite organization that prides itself on celebrating the “best” in cinema.

Political Soapboxes and Virtue Signaling, as Usual

The Award speeches weren’t short on politics either because Hollywood can never resist the opportunity to virtue signal. While host Conan O’Brien kept most of it light, the political moments still reared their predictable head. Zoe Saldaña managed to get a jab in about “borders,” and Basel Adra went on a tirade about ethnic cleansing during his speech for No Other Land (Best Documentary Feature). Subtlety clearly isn’t in their vocabulary.

If you’re someone looking for escapism, you’re not going to find it here. For an industry that loves to claim it reflects the audience, these moments only emphasize just how disconnected it really is.

A Nostalgia Grab That Fizzled

To appease the few people still tuning in, the ceremony leaned heavily on nostalgia. An extended tribute to Los Angeles was thrown in just in case people forgot what city the event was taking place in, while Gene Hackman was honored during the in memoriam segment—a bittersweet moment considering his recent and tragic passing. Otherwise, the proceedings felt like more of the same tired template, complete with Ariana Grande’s and Cynthia Erivo’s duet that came and went without much impact.

Final Thoughts

This year’s Oscars once again reminded us that Hollywood isn’t exactly trying to win back the general public’s trust or attention. Between their out-of-touch nominees, transparent identity quotas, and voters who can’t be bothered to watch the films, the awards can’t help but feel like their old gold-glam veneer is wearing thinner than ever.

Sure, Anora, The Brutalist, and Wicked will slap “Oscar-winning” on their posters to squeeze a few extra bucks out of their audience, but it’s clear the Oscars mean little more than an insider’s popularity contest at this point. If you’re like most of us and tuned out long ago, this year’s results provide little reason to tune back in anytime soon.