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Reuters

Associated Press

Anora, the story of a sex worker who gets a chance at a new life when she marries a wealthy client on a whim, has won five Academy Awards, including the coveted best picture Oscar.
The movie’s 25-year-old star, Mikey Madison, was named best actress. The film also won best director, original screenplay and editing for its creator, Sean Baker.
Madison scored an upset over Demi Moore, who had been favoured to win best actress for her role in The Substance.
“I grew up in Los Angeles, but Hollywood always felt so far away from me,” Madison said on stage. “To be here standing in this room today is really incredible.”

She said she wanted to “thank and honour the sex worker community” and added: “I will continue to be an ally.”
Anora emerged as the winner in an unpredictable Oscars race that included papal thriller Conclave, Jewish immigrant story The Brutalist and blockbuster musical Wicked.
While eight of the 10 movies nominated for best picture came away with at least one award, Oscar voters, eschewing blockbuster contenders like Wicked and Dune: Part Two, instead added Anora to a string of recent indie best picture winners, including Everything Everywhere All at Once, CODA and Nomadland.
Winners of the gold Oscar statuettes are chosen by the roughly 11,000 actors, producers, directors and film craftspeople who make up the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In personally winning four Oscars, Baker tied the mark held by Walt Disney, who won for four different films in 1954.

“Long live independent film!” shouted Baker from the Dolby Theatre stage.
Adrien Brody claimed his second Academy Award, winning the best actor trophy for his role as a Jewish immigrant and architect who chases the American dream in The Brutalist.
Brody’s win came 22 years after he took the best actor Oscar for playing another Holocaust survivor in The Pianist.

“I’m here once again to represent the lingering traumas and the repercussions of war and systematic oppression and of antisemitism and racism and othering,” said Brody. “I pray for a healthier and happier and more inclusive world. If the past can teach us anything it’s to not let hate go unchecked.”
Netflix’s beleaguered contender Emilia Perez, the lead nominee going into the show, weathered the scandal caused by offensive tweets by star Karla Sofia Gascon to pick up awards for best song and best supporting actress, for Zoe Saldana, for her role as the fixer for a Mexican drug lord in the Spanish-language musical.
“I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hard-working hands,” said Saldana. “I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award, and I know I will not be the last.”
Kieran Culkin, who started acting as a child, received the best supporting actor award for playing one of two cousins who travel to Poland to study their family’s roots in A Real Pain.
“I have no idea how I got here,” said Culkin. “I’ve just been acting my whole life.”

No Other Land, a film showing the alliance that develops between a Palestinian activist and an Israeli journalist amid their peoples’ conflict on the occupied West Bank, won the documentary feature film Oscar.
In the biggest upset of the night, the prize for best animated feature went to independent film Flow, the first movie from Latvia to win an Oscar. The wordless film upset DreamWorks Animations’ The Wild Robot.
“Thank you to my cats and dogs,” director Gints Zilbalodis said as he accepted the award.
Brazilian movie I’m Still Here received the best international feature award. Walter Salles’ film is a portrait of resistance under the country’s military dictatorship.

Nominees Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo opened the Oscars celebration with a Wizard of Oz-themed medley including the showstopping hit “Defying Gravity” from Wicked.
The ceremony took place days after the death of Gene Hackman. The 95-year-old two-time Oscar winner and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, were found dead last week at their New Mexico home. Morgan Freeman, his co-star in Unforgiven and Under Suspicion, honoured him.
“This week, our community lost a giant,” said Freeman, “and I lost a dear friend.”


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American cinema

At Oscars 2025 indie drama Anora wins big, Adrien Brody makes it two, Demi Moore spurned

Sean Baker holds his Oscars for best picture, best director, best film editing and best original screenplay for Anora. Photo: EPA-EFE

Samantha Quan (front, centre) accepts the award for best picture for Anora during the Oscars ceremony at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. Behind her (centre) are best actress winner Mikey Madison, in pink, and to her left, director Sean Baker. Photo: AP 

Mikey Madison accepts the Oscar for best actress for Anora. Photo: AP

Anora’s Sean Baker with his Oscars for best picture, best directing, best film editing and best original screenplay. Photo: EPA-EFE

Adrien Brody (centre) in the audience at the Dolby Theatre with fellow best actor nominees Timothée Chalamet (left) Colman Domingo and Ralph Fiennes (rear), and Sebastian Stan. Photo: AP

Kieran Culkin, winner of the award for best supporting actor for A Real Pain, attends the Governors Ball after the Oscars. Photo: AP

Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande on stage during the Oscars. Photo: AP

Oscars 2025 as it happened: Sean Baker’s Anora wins best picture and 4 other awards

Sean Baker with his Oscar for best film editing for Anora. It was soon capped by his wins for best director and then best picture, taking his personal tally for the night to four. The film’s star, Mikey Madison, scored an upset best actress win. Photo: Reuters

Ariana Grande on the red carpet. Photo: Reuters

Hollywood hosts the Oscars, but will it be the centre of filmmaking for much longer?

Cynthia Erivo (left) and Ariana Grande in a scene from Wicked, filmed in Britain. Photo: AP

Movie and television production has been exiting Hollywood (pictured) for years. Can the trend be reversed? Photo: Getty Images

Striking Writers Guild of America workers picket outside Paramount Studios in Los Angeles in 2023. Film crews have been hoping for a rebound in film and television production after a series of strikes that year. Photo: Getty Images via AFP

Homes burned in the Palisades fire in Malibu, California. The wildfires that destroyed sections of Los Angeles in January accelerated concerns that producers may look elsewhere to film. Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images/TNS

Cynthia Erivo (left) and Ariana Grande in a scene from Wicked, which was filmed in Britain. Photo: Universal Pictures via AP

That 90s Show, a television series being filmed at the Sunset Bronson Studios in Los Angeles. Photo: TNS

Make-up artists work on a Hollywood film set. There are fears recent wildfires that destroyed homes in Los Angeles could lead make-up artists and others working on film sets to leave the city. Photo: Getty Images

And the 2025 Oscar for best international film doesn’t go to … protesters or dissidents

Director Mohammad Rasoulof, whose film The Seed of the Sacred Fig wasn’t put forward for the Oscars by his country, Iran. Photo: AP

Sandra Hüller in a still from The Zone of Interest, a German-language British film about Auschwitz, and last year’s winner of the Academy Award for the best international film. Photo: A24

Mohammad Rasoulof, director of German best international film entry The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which he shot in Iran before fleeing into exile, says he feels ripped of his Iranian national identity. Photo: AP

What killed Bruce Lee? 4 leading theories medical and martial arts experts proposed after his shock death 50 years ago in July, 1973

Bruce Lee on the set of “The Big Boss”. Lee died two years after the movie’s 1971 release, and in the years since, competing theories have been posited as to what exactly killed the martial arts star.  Photo: Yau Leung

Bruce Lee in a still from “Fist of Fury” (1972).

Lee with Taiwanese actress Betty Ting Pei. The two spent time together soon before Lee’s death.

Bruce Lee in a still from “Enter the Dragon” (1973). Photo: TNS

 Lee circa 1970. He had “chronic fluid intake” by virtue of his alcohol- and juice-based diet. Photo: Getty Images

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History repeats itself as Academy ignores Hollywood blockbusters to elevate sex drama Anora, winner of best picture and four other Oscars


History repeats itself as Academy ignores Hollywood blockbusters to elevate sex drama Anora, winner of best picture and four other Oscars.


Cinema

European cinema

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