In his opening monologue at the 98th Academy Awards, host Conan O’Brien sounded a note of caution for easily offended viewers.
“I’m warning you, tonight could get political,” O’Brien said. “If that makes you uncomfortable, there’s an alternative Oscars hosted by Kid Rock at Dave & Buster’s down the street.”
I found myself rolling my eyes at the suggestion that Hollywood’s biggest night was ready to confront the grim realities of the world. But this year’s Oscars turned out to be unusually contentious for a night of glamor and glitz, although there was plenty of the latter too.
You could blame that on the dominance of films dealing with social issues in the nomination field, including Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which won six awards, including best picture, and Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which took home four trophies. Or perhaps you could attribute it to the increasing pressure on celebrities to speak out. But perhaps it’s simply that the growing global horrors are harder than ever to ignore.
Presenting the award for best international feature film, Javier Bardem spoke candidly without remorse and said: “No to war and free Palestine.” The Dolby Theater in Los Angeles immediately erupted in applause.
As the biggest winner of the night with six trophies, One Battle After Another took home awards for best picture, director, adapted screenplay, supporting actor (Sean Penn), editing, and the new Academy Award for best ensemble. The epic film, spanning a decade, centers on a rebel group fighting a cruel authoritarian government faction that corrals immigrants into detention centers in an effort to make America great again.
In his acceptance speech for best adapted screenplay, Paul Thomas Anderson seemed to recognize the parallels between his film and the current political climate. “I wrote this film for my children, to apologize for the mess we left in this world that we are giving them,” he said. “But also with the encouragement that, hopefully, they will be the generation that brings us some common sense and decency.”
Meanwhile, Sentimental Value director Joachim Trier appeared to criticize shortsighted global leaders (or perhaps just one global leader) when accepting the best international film award for Norway. “All adults are responsible for all children,” he said. “Let’s not vote for politicians who don’t take this seriously.”
Last year, the Film Academy expanded its membership by 40% in a move to increase diversity. About 45% of the new guests were people of color, while 41% were women. Winners’ speeches throughout the evening focused on inclusivity and the importance of trailblazers.
“I’m here because of the people who came before me,” Michael B. Jordan said while accepting his best actor award for Sinners. He listed icons Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Jamie Foxx, Forest Whitaker and Will Smith among the black actors who had paved the way.
In a tearful acceptance speech for best animated film, KPop Demon Hunters co-director Maggie Kang said, “I’m so sorry it took us so long to see ourselves in a movie like this. But it’s here. And that means the next generations don’t have to long for it. This is for Korea and for Koreans everywhere.”
At a pre-Oscars press conference on Wednesday, O’Brien said balancing politics and humor was a “very, very fine line.”
On Sunday night, O’Brien effectively threaded that needle. After the first commercial break of the night, the host mocked Donald Trump for naming American institutions after himself. “We come live from the ‘small penis theater,’” O Brien joked. “Let’s see how he puts his name in front of that.”
One of the most powerful speeches of the night came from the team behind the Netflix documentary short All the Empty Rooms, which highlights the empty rooms of children killed in school shootings. “My daughter Jackie was nine years old when they killed her,” said Gloria Cazares, protagonist of the film, when accepting the award for best short documentary alongside the filmmakers.
“From that day on, his bedroom was frozen in time,” Cazares continued. “Gun violence is now the leading cause of death among children and teenagers. We believe that if the world could see its empty rooms, it would be a different America.”
The team behind best documentary award winner Mr Nobody Against Putin appeared to address ICE killings in the United States in their acceptance speech. “We act as complicit when a government murders people in the streets of our major cities,” said co-director David Borenstein. “When we say nothing when oligarchs take over the media and control how we produce and consume it. We all face a moral choice, but even no one is more powerful than we think.”
In a rare tie, the Oscar for best live-action short film went to The Singers and Two People Exchanging Saliva. In an acceptance speech for the latter, co-director Natalie Musteata thanked the academy “for supporting a queer, queer film made by a majority of women.”
The Academy Awards have a history of keeping politics at arm’s length, but this year they indicated that this ethos may be changing. Last year, filmmakers Adrien Brody, Daryl Hannah and No Other Land were among the few to address political issues. Best Actor winner Brody spoke of the importance of learning from the past to “not let hate go unchecked,” while host Hannah went off script to declare “Slava Ukraini!” (“Glory to Ukraine”). Meanwhile, No Other Land co-director Yuval Abraham called for an end to the Gaza conflict and the release of Israeli hostages.
Tonight on the Oscars red carpet, Middle Eastern filmmakers spoke emphatically about the current conflicts in the region. The team behind best international film nominee The Voice of Hind Rajab wore brooches designed in collaboration with artist Shepard Fairey in demand of a “permanent ceasefire” in the war between Israel and Gaza. The film’s Palestinian lead actor, Motaz Malhees, was unable to attend the Oscars due to the US travel ban. “You can block a passport,” Malhees wrote. “You can’t block a voice.”
The Iranian directors of the best documentary feature nominee Cutting Through Rocks expressed their solidarity with the people of Iran. “Change is possible from within, not the other way around,” said co-director Sara Khaki. “We are here to defend the rights of our people.”
Meanwhile, light-hearted bits at the Dolby Theater took aim at AI, reflecting widespread concern in Hollywood about the technology threatening many jobs in the film industry. Presenting the awards for best animated feature and short film, actor and comedian Will Arnett said, “Tonight we celebrate people, not AI,” as the audience applauded. “Animation is more than just an order: it is an art form that deserves to be protected.”
Earlier in the evening, the show aired a fake commercial for AI Ventura Crossroads, a fictional company that preserves classic movies for the iPhone generation by making them “very thin” and “very tall”; The ad featured clips from classic films like North By Northwest and When Harry Met Sally that had been butchered after being cropped to fit vertical video formats.
Toward the end of his opening monologue, O’Brien took a serious tone as he discussed the pressures of the current political climate. “Everyone watching right now, around the world, is very aware that these are very chaotic and scary times,” he said.
“It’s times like these that I think the Oscars are particularly resonant: 31 countries on six continents are represented tonight, and every film we salute is the product of thousands of people speaking different languages, working hard to make something beautiful.”
On Sunday night many of those voices could be heard louder than ever.
