Who Won Big at the 97th Academy Awards?

Lights, Camera, Awards!

The most anticipated ceremony in all of Hollywood has come and gone, rewarding some of the biggest movies to come out in 2024! On Sunday, March 2, the 97th Academy Awards–also known as the Oscars–were broadcasted on ABC and Hulu. For those unaware, this is an annual ceremony where members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) vote on the strongest achievements in the film industry. Watched by over 19 million people in the United States and hosted by Conan O’Brien, this year’s ceremony saw a plethora of noteworthy wins and unexpected surprises.

There were many noteworthy films honored through varying nominations and wins, with the most prestigious award being Best Picture. In this category, only one movie is selected amidst ten nominees as the strongest feature of the year. For this year’s ceremony, the nominees in this category included various genres and styles. 

From drama to musical, lighthearted to demented, and even some of the biggest box office hits of 2024, these films all accomplished something magnificent which led to their recognition at the ceremony. This year’s nominees for Best Picture were as follows:

Anora

The Brutalist

A Complete Unknown

Conclave

Dune: Part Two

Emilia Pérez

I’m Still Here

Nickel Boys

The Substance

Wicked

Leading to this category, however, was a wide range of other awards which recognized key aspects of filmmaking such as acting, visual effects, music composition, writing, and many more. A total of 23 awards were given at this event, raising many questions. Who won the most awards? What were the biggest surprises? And, most notably, who won the coveted Best Picture? 

Well, pop some popcorn and lay back in your recliner as we delve into some of the biggest winners from Hollywood’s biggest event!

Who Hit the Jackpot?

After O’Brien kicked the show off with his signature over-the-top and fun humor–which he maintained throughout the entire hosting gig–the award recognition began. Amid such a long list of winners, let’s start by covering some of the noteworthy wins in technical categories. 

Dune: Part Two, one of the most acclaimed sequels in recent memory, rode a sandworm home with two Oscars–Best Sound and Best Visual Effects, out of five total nominations. In addition to Best Picture, it was also nominated for Best Production Design and Best Cinematography, both of which it ended up losing. 

Also walking away with two awards apiece were two of the most nominated films of the ceremony. One of them, musical box office juggernaut Wicked, won the aforementioned Best Production Design as well as Best Costume Design out of a total ten nominations. Alongside historical epic The Brutalist, it was the second most-nominated film of the entire ceremony, having also been recognized in Best Actress–Lead and Supporting–Best Visual Effects, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling among many others. Ultimately, despite limited wins, it did not fly away on its broomstick empty-handed. 

The most nominated film of the event was another musical, albeit one much less fantastical and more controversial: Netflix’s foreign-language feature, Emilia Pérez. Despite a heavily polarized reception from audiences due to the film’s content, it still found itself nominated for a whopping 13 Academy Awards. For context, this makes it the most chosen non-English film in Oscars history, besting a record previously held by 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But even with this massive number, the film won only two awards: Best Original Song for “El Mal” and Best Supporting Actress for Zoe Saldaña, the front runners in both categories. 

Among its multitude of other nominations, Emilia Pérez was listed as a finalist for Best International Feature Film. Given the amount of recognition the AMPAS gave it, the movie seemed like the choice to win this award as well. However, one of the biggest upsets of the night occurred when the Brazilian political drama, I’m Still Here, took home the award. It was also nominated in two other categories, Best Picture and Best Lead Actress, but it ended up losing both of them.

Also nominated for Best International Feature was the Latvian animated film, Flow, which is noteworthy for how it lacks any dialogue, focusing on letting the environment tell the story. This makes it the first movie from Latvia to be recognized in any capacity at the Oscars. While it did not win in this category, it did win the other award it was nominated for: Best Animated Feature. Considering the competition from other noteworthy pictures, including Pixar’s Inside Out 2 and DreamWorks’s The Wild Robot–itself earning four nominations–this was seen as a major win for international animation. 

Even the horror genre was recognized during this year’s ceremony, with scary satire The Substance being nominated in five categories. This marks the first time a film in the genre has been extensively noticed since 2017’s Get Out. In fact, it even walked away with an award! Despite losing its competition in Best Lead Actress, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Director, it did walk away screaming out of joy–not fear–with an Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling.

A Historic Moment

The biggest winners of the night came from those in some of the most fundamental categories: acting, writing, editing, and directing. As previously mentioned, Best Supporting Actress was one of two awards won by Emilia Pérez. But who else would join Saldaña in the winner’s circle? 

The companion award, Best Supporting Actor, ended up going to another front runner who had consistently won at other ceremonies: Kieran Culkin in the comedy-drama, A Real Pain, which was nominated for two awards. Even though it lost Best Original Screenplay, it still managed to walk away with something, despite the competition. In a stacked category with names like Yura Borisov, Edward Norton, Guy Pearce, and Jeremy Strong, Culkin managed to emerge victorious for his performance, having come a long way from a supporting role in Home Alone. 

Best Lead Actor saw a bit of a face-off prior to the Oscars, as there was debate as to whether Adrien Brody or Timothée Chalamet would win for The Brutalist or A Complete Unknown, respectively. Ultimately, the trophy went to Brody in one of three awards The Brutalist ended up winning. It had previously won for both Best Cinematography and Best Original Score. Though three does not sound like a big number, this actually makes it the movie with the second-most Oscar wins of the evening. 

But that raises the question: who was the biggest winner of the night? 

That would be none other than the independent comedy-drama film, Anora, which won five awards out of six total nominations. The film started off its streak with a win for Best Original Screenplay. Its companion, Best Adapted Screenplay, went to the psychological drama film Conclave, in its only win of the evening. 

Following this, Anora made a massive surge in wins, taking home Best Editing, Best Director, and Best Lead Actress for Mikey Madison, who beat Demi Moore for The Substance in another face-off similar to Brody and Chalamet. Finally, it capped off the night with the coveted Best Picture trophy, accepted by producers Alex Coco, Samantha Quan, and Sean Baker.

A historic moment was made that night as Baker walked away as the first person to ever win four Oscars in a single night. In addition to producing the film, he also served as the movie’s editor, writer, and director. This ceremony turned out to be a major success for Baker and the team behind Anora, which is continuing to be praised even weeks after the event occurred. In fact, the movie just came to streaming not too long ago; if you’re curious to see what helped this film win five awards, including the most sought-after, it’s now on Hulu for your viewing pleasure!

A Reel Good Celebration

The 97th Academy Awards recognized some of the biggest films that came out in 2024. While Anora undeniably walked away as the biggest winner of the night, many other movies including Dune: Part Two, Flow, The Substance, The Brutalist, and Wicked still walked away accomplished with their own wins.

In an event watched by millions every year, several filmmakers and creative teams were recognized for their efforts in bringing creative ideas and engaging stories to the big screen. The biggest names in Hollywood unite for the ceremony, celebrated annually, which continues to recognize the time and effort that goes into making a film, whether through a key foundation like writing and directing or something technical like music and cinematography. 

As the camera faded out on this year’s ceremony and Anora left the building with its final trophy in tow, the door was left open as to who the nominees and winners of the 98th Oscars will be. But until 2026, there’s still much to celebrate with the big winners of this year’s biggest Hollywood event!