Photo source: firstshowing.net
The 97th Academy Awards, which took place in Los Angeles a week ago, remain among the hottest topics of discussion, trailing only slightly behind politics. Perhaps this is because they became entangled in today’s political context.
The celebrated triumph of Anora, a melodrama directed by Sean Baker, which won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing, and Best Actress for independent American performer Mikey Madison, has sparked circulating conspiracy theories, with some claiming the film serves as a form of Kremlin «soft power».
Moreover, the Oscars did not go without reference to the controversy in the Oval Office between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and its current occupant. The incident was humorously reenacted during the ceremony by host Conan O’Brien and actor Adam Sandler, who arrived at the event in athletic shorts and a light blue hoodie, justifying his attire with the statement, «But at least I’m a good perso».
The culmination of this political sketch was a moment between Sandler and Timothée Chalamet. When Chalamet’s yellow suit merged with Sandler’s hoodie, it briefly formed the colors of the Ukrainian flag.
THE POLITICS OF APOLITICISM
The Oscars have always maintained a stance of apoliticism. A quick look at their history makes this evident. The Cold War and the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia — which turned the USSR into a pariah state — did not prevent the Academy from awarding War and Peace by Sergei Bondarchuk in April 1969, Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears by Vladimir Menshov in the spring of 1981, or Private Life by Yuli Raizman in 1983, despite the ongoing Soviet–American proxy war in Afghanistan.
Searching for a «Russian trace» in Anora is as futile as looking for a black cat in a dark room — especially if the cat isn’t there. The Academy members were not under pressure from the White House (which seeks reconciliation with Russia), let alone the Kremlin.
Sean Baker’s film is an oddity — an Oscar anomaly that melted the hearts of Academy voters with the Cinderella-like story of a fragile sex worker dreaming of a prince (though only briefly becoming the wife of a Russian oligarch’s son) while striving to maintain her dignity in degrading circumstances.
Mikey Madison, who played the lead, received her own personal Oscar, along with a flood of praise from global film critics, who variously described her performance as «incredibly sensitive», «wild», «touching», and «stunning». After its Cannes premiere, the film itself was dubbed «piercing, funny, frantic, and melancholic».
Baker has spent his career telling small stories about small people — the so-called «riffraff» of society: pimps, trans prostitutes, washed-up porn stars, strippers. Yet, Anora was the film that finally brought him from the indie backroads to the industry’s main stage. Its unpretentious humanism and sympathy for marginalized characters won over critics, audiences, and both the Cannes jury and the American Academy.
Looking back, it seems that without its Cannes triumph — secured largely thanks to Baker’s close friend, jury president Greta Gerwig (the hipster-generation icon and director of the buzzworthy Barbie, Lady Bird, and Little Women) — none of this would have happened. Gerwig pushed through the Palme d’Or for her friend and like-minded filmmaker, and the (in my opinion, rather weak) Anora ended up where it did, simultaneously dividing audiences into ardent supporters and fierce opponents.
The film is equally reviled in Ukraine — for allegedly glorifying Russians and casting Moscow-based actor Yuri Borisov in a role — and in Russia, where it has been labeled a «mockery of the Russian soul». Yet Baker presents his morally ambiguous characters without idealization or contempt, subtly mocking stereotypes while offering a profound understanding of the world’s underbelly.
EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE
In many ways, Anora aligns perfectly with contemporary trends and adheres to the current standards of inclusivity. Despite not being a commercial blockbuster, the film resonated with a wide range of influential groups — from advocates for the marginalized to conservatives, who saw in it the classic American tradition dating back to the first settlers and immigrants, united by hardship and the pursuit of happiness in this New World of grand dreams. Baker’s little people tell their stories — funny, sad, but never boring. And they are America.
AN OSCAR BAIT
The triumph of Anora, as I have noted, is an exception to the rule. Traditionally, the Best Picture category overwhelmingly (90%, according to statistics) favors dramas over comedies. And not just dramas but long, sweeping narratives with runtimes exceeding two and a half hours. A Film of the Year contender must be serious and lengthy — ideally historical, period-based, and grounded in a remarkable real-life biography.
By these criteria, Anora‘s main competitor in this year’s race was the ambitious Brutalist, which trailed closely behind Baker’s Social Fairy Tale throughout the awards season but ultimately secured only three wins out of its ten nominations — Best Cinematography (for Lou Crawley), Best Score (for composer Daniel Blumberg), and Best Actor for Adrien Brody.
In this three-and-a-half-hour epic by Brady Corbet, Brody portrays a fictional architect named László Toth, a Hungarian Jew who escapes Buchenwald and finds himself thrust into post-war American capitalism.
A Bauhaus-trained visionary, László spreads his wings in the U.S., building a brilliant career and becoming a trendsetter in architectural design, whose achievements will eventually be recognized at the Venice Biennale. However, his rise to success comes at a steep price: he falls into heroin addiction and experiences sexual assault at the hands of his own patron, the domineering capitalist Van Buren (played by Guy Pearce).
This Oscar marks Adrien Brody’s second win, with his first awarded for a strikingly similar role — the Holocaust-surviving pianist in Roman Polanski’s The Pianist. The parallels are unmistakable: this László Toth appears almost as a twin to Władysław Szpilman.
Monumental, if not outright overwhelming, Brutalist dissects the poisonous nature of oligarchic capitalism. The film blends an irrational longing for the past with the sobering terror of realization, creating a uniquely immersive atmosphere.
Like Emilia Pérez — the groundbreaking musical by French director Jacques Audiard, which garnered a staggering 13 Oscar nominations but only won two — Brutalist is an example of working within a long-abandoned genre. The film is shot in the archaic, cumbersome VistaVision format, which, outside of its distinctly stylized opening credits, presents a sun-drenched American pastoral that feels profoundly different from its 1950s predecessors.
Brody’s swagger, defiant nature, and nonconformist streak are not drawn from post-war cinema; his disillusionment is forged not by the Holocaust or World War II but by the modern world. So why, despite its many achievements, did Brutalist fail to win the top Oscar?
After all, Corbet crafts an immense cinematic scope on a mere $10 million budget, masterfully working with space and his ensemble cast. Architectural precision is embedded in Brody’s very profile, in the broken line of his nose — let alone in the film’s meticulous framing and composition.
The answer is simple: Brutalist is, first and foremost, a visual feast rather than a substantive one. The authorial ambition here overshadows meaning. While attempting a critique of capitalism, the bold and ambitious Brady Corbet reduces his entire symbolic framework to a rather blunt assertion: every businessman exploits the artist.
I’ll allow myself to quote a certain filmmaker who once said: «I don’t understand how we’ve reached a point in history where a Hollywood blockbuster can be something so visually intricate and yet so dramaturgically primitive, with its only thematic core being a critique of American imperialism».
And from there, it’s just a short leap to Hollywood itself. After all, what is Hollywood if not an empire of cinema?
THE OSCARS: FROM LOVE TO HATE
Watching the online discourse surrounding this year’s Academy Awards, one thing becomes clear once again: the Oscars remain the most criticized award in the industry. Some condemn them for a lack of racial and gender diversity, while others argue the opposite — that there is too much of it. Some accuse Academy voters of being subjective, while others claim they are politically driven. And everyone, collectively, blames the Academy for the fact that each year, the actual winners’ list does not align with public expectations. «The Oscars just aren’t what they used to be», lament social media users.
Despite the constant debates surrounding this prestigious award, we rarely stop to consider who actually selects the winners, how much studios spend on Oscar campaigns, what factors influence the outcome, and why some films gain recognition while others are entirely overlooked by the Academy.
One thing to remember: the Oscar does not necessarily go to the best film objectively, but rather to the one that satisfies the majority — not the general audience, but the voting Academy members.
For some, it was a shock that early predictions favoring Carla Sofía Gascón — Spain’s transgender actress and the star of the crime-comedy musical Emilia Pérez — did not materialize into a win. Another strong contender, Demi Moore, whose performance in the nightmarish thriller The Substance was widely praised, also left the ceremony empty-handed.
Instead, it was a triumphant night for the supporting actors. In the Best Supporting Actress category, Zoe Saldaña won for her role as a lonely lawyer longing for motherhood in Emilia Pérez, while in the Best Supporting Actor category, Kieran Culkin celebrated his victory for playing the melancholic and aimless cousin of Jesse Eisenberg’s character in A Real Pain.
To the delight of Ukrainian audiences — and his own brother — Culkin outshone Russian actor Yuri Borisov, who played a sentimental thug in Anora; the brilliant Jeremy Strong, nominated for his portrayal of the ruthless lawyer Roy Cohn in The Apprentice, a biopic about Donald Trump’s early years; and even Guy Pearce, who was widely considered the standout supporting performance in Brutalist.
Pearce’s masterful depiction of shark-like ruthlessness, his capitalist sneer seamlessly transitioning into a grimace of near-unthinkable moral downfall, ultimately lost to the boyish sorrow of Culkin — who, one might argue, was rewarded not just for A Real Pain but also, indirectly, for his work in the cult-favorite series Succession.
WINNERS AND LOSERS
Among the other notable winners of this year’s ceremony was Conclave, the darkly realistic yet grotesque political drama by German director Edward Berger. Though largely pushed to the sidelines, the film secured the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. Based on the book by Robert Harris, a journalist specializing in political affairs, Conclave delves into the papal election process set against a backdrop of complex geopolitical tensions.
Denis Villeneuve’s two-part Dune was predictably awarded for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound. For years, the Academy has largely dismissed sci-fi films, categorizing them as technological achievements rather than works of thematic depth. This «Academy blindness» has previously sidelined undeniable masterpieces such as Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Alien, and Interstellar. Another perennially overlooked genre is horror.
In the entire history of the Oscars, only six horror films have ever won Best Picture. This year, The Substance suffered a familiar fate, receiving a fair yet undeniably condescending consolation prize — Best Makeup and Hairstyling. Meanwhile, the animated feature Flow brought Latvia its first-ever Oscar, marking a historic milestone for the country’s film industry.
A CENTURY OF PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATISM AND BIAS
The Academy’s decisions are criticized every year. One of the most explosive controversies erupted in the mid-2010s, when, for two consecutive years, all acting nominees were exclusively white. In response, a sweeping reform led to a significant diversification of the Academy’s voting body.
These changes immediately influenced both nominees and winners. Yet, they did not alter the fundamental nature of the Oscars — an institution that, for nearly a century, has masterfully balanced progressive choices with a deeply ingrained conservatism. Ignoring countless accusations of bias, blindness, and political maneuvering, the Academy continues to document the evolving history of cinema.
Ultimately, these voters are not so much selecting the best films — there are no truly objective criteria for that — as they are shaping the narrative of the past cinematic year. Their choices provide a unique lens through which we can observe how society and the world around us are changing in real-time.
Through this, the Oscars offer us a chance to hear the simplest yet most heartfelt humanist messages — messages infused with a love for cinema, encouraging filmmakers to keep creating and generating what Hollywood has always excelled at: emotions and meaning.
