Zinger Key Points
- Independent films won big at the 2025 Academy Awards, while blockbuster films were left with few awards.
- Streaming may have been a loser at the awards with Netflix losing out on many top awards and Hulu having technical difficulties.
- Get 5 stock picks identified before their biggest breakouts, identified by the same system that spotted Insmed, Sprouts, and Uber before their 20%+ gains.
Sunday's 97th Academy Awards was one to remember for independent films "Anora" and "The Brutalist" and may have been a night to forget for streaming platforms Hulu and Netflix Inc NFLX, which despite the most nominations went home with few awards.
Here are the winners and losers from the 97th Academy Awards.
The Winners
"Anora": Independent film "Anora" from Neon Pictures was the big winner of the 97th Academy Awards, taking home five wins including Best Picture. The film scored wins for Best Actress, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing.
The film's director and writer Sean Baker was also a big winner taking home four awards, making him the first person to win four Academy Awards for the same movie. Legendary director Walt Disney previously won four Oscars at the same award ceremony in 1953, but his wins for four different movies, as reported by Variety.
"The Brutalist": The A24 film won three Academy Awards, including Best Actor for Adrien Brody. While the film had some controversy over its use of AI in editing, it was the second most awarded film Sunday night.
Movie Theaters: Several of the top winning films were independent films that people either saw in theaters or waited a long time to view on a streaming platform. Films that were released only on streaming or in theaters and then quickly on a streaming platform received fewer awards.
"Anora" director Baker encouraged film fans to show some love to movie theaters.
"Movie theaters, especially independently-owned theaters are struggling," Baker said during his acceptance speech. "During the pandemic, we lost 1,000 screens in the U.S. And we continue to lose them regularly."
Baker encouraged filmmakers to continue making movies for the big screen.
"This is my battle cry."
James Bond: While James Bond movies haven't been huge award winners, the spy franchise received a special shout out at the award ceremony with a medley of the film's songs. The event comes after Amazon.com Inc AMZN recently locked up a production deal with the Broccoli family to make more films in the franchise as part of its buyout of MGM Studios.
Betting the Favorites: Ahead of the award ceremony, Benzing shared betting odds on top award categories from DraftKings and prediction market Kalshi. The favorites ended up winning the majority of the big awards including "Anora" for Best Picture at -200 odds. Brody, Culkin and Saldana were also heavy favorites at -250, -3,5000 and -2,500 respectively. Baker was the top pick for Director at -175. Among the big awards it was only Mikey Madison who was the upset winner for Best Actress at +175, beating out favorite Demi Moore (-250).
Donald Trump: A film about Trump's earlier life that the president fought against was nominated for several acting awards. The film didn't win the acting awards, which is likely a win for the president. Had Sebastian Stan won for his portrayal of Trump, it would have heaped more attention onto the controversial film and his acceptance speech may have included negative comments on the president. While several acceptance speeches and comments from host Conan O'Brien were political, Trump was not mentioned by name.
Read Also: Top Anticipated 2025 Movies For Big Screen Success And Stocks Investors Should Watch
The Losers
"Emilia Pérez": The Netflix movie, nominated for 13 awards, faced controversy ahead of the ceremony when old questionable tweets from the film's star Karla Sofía Gascón came to public attention. The film won two awards with Zoe Saldana winning Best Supporting Actress and the musical's "El Mal" winning Best Original Song.
Netflix: The streaming giant entered the award ceremony with a good chance to take home many awards, but only took home two – one for "Emilia Pérez" and the other for the documentary film "The Only Girl in the Orchestra." Netflix has had at least one film nominated for Best Picture in each year since 2019, but has yet to win the top award. Last year’s most nominated film “Oppenheimer” took home seven wins including Best Picture from its 13 nominations.
Hulu: The 97th Academy Awards were broadcast by ABC and streamed by Hulu, both units of The Walt Disney Company DIS. The awards ceremony was expected to run around three and a half hours. For many users watching on Hulu, their feed cut off after that 3:30 mark leaving them unable to watch the final two awards (Best Actress, Best Picture).
"This evening, we experienced technical and live stream issues on Hulu which impacted some Oscars viewers. We apologize for the experience and will make a full replay of the event available as soon as possible," Disney told Deadline.
For streaming platforms, live coverage of events like awards shows and sports has to have the contingency of the event running longer than scheduled and this could be a big miss for Hulu. The streaming platform also had earlier outages at the beginning of the award show.
Movie Blockbusters: With independent films taking home many top awards, big studios were left winning the smaller films. Among the higher grossing films like "Dune: Part Two" and "Wicked," the films took home only technical awards. "Wicked" had 10 nominations, but failed to win any of the big awards. "Inside Out 2," which became one of the highest grossing animated films of all time missed out on the Best Animated film to "flow," a film from Latvia.
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