A film fan’s view of the Oscars

Onwy Gower

I am a 17 year old A-Level student with exams starting in under two months. However, last night I stayed awake to watch the Oscars ceremony live until around 2:30am mainly because I have watched 34 out of the 50 films nominated this year.

My interest was piqued this year particularly because of how close the race seemed for some of the categories, such as Best Actor. My Oscars binge was spurred on by my love of film of course, but also because I founded and currently run my school’s first Film Club and so it was essentially my duty to keep informed, it was also just really fun.

As it does every year, the ceremony began with the host’s monologue; this year the host, Conan O’Brien combined self-deprecating humour with clever effects to appear as thought he was running through the different nominees for Best Picture.

Unfortunately, not all of his jokes landed with the audience last night, but most still found them endearing.

The first award of the night went to Amy Madigan for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in ‘Weapons’. Although I didn’t personally enjoy ‘Weapons’ as much as I would’ve liked, I still believe she stole the screen every time she was on it.

Despite this, that doesn’t always mean it was the best performance. She managed to make her eccentric character seem natural, but she was still a slightly suprising win.

Most people (including myself) expected Wunmi Mosaku to win for her dazzling role in ‘Sinners’ which was a lot more understated. However, the entire category (as most others this year) was stacked.

I would’ve been content with either of the nominees from ‘Sentimental Value’ winning (Elle Fanning or Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) or Teyana Taylor for ‘One Battle After Another’ – although I believe Chase Infinity was more deserving of a nomination.

There isn’t much to say about the Best Animated Feature Film category since nearly everyone expected ‘Kpop Demon Hunters’ to win. Whether you watched the film or not, it’s highly likely you’ve heard about it to some extent.

Although ‘Zootopia 2’ was the highest grossing film of 2025, it still wasn’t as invasive as Huntrx and their songs.

One of my personal favourite categories to explore this year were the Best Animated Short Films. ‘The Girl Who Cried Pearls’ took five years to create and it’s easy to see why; every shot is intricate and intimate with a beautiful story to drive them along.

Although it was my second choice; personally, I was enthralled by ‘Butterfly’ and highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. The artwork is genuinely captivating.

Yet another highlight for me was the ‘Sinners’ Tribute. Based on the scene within the film (which is arguably one of my favourite scenes in recent cinema) it is a pure celebration of the arts. With Shaboozey coming on to sing and Misty Copeland coming out of retirement to dance ballet front and centre the entire interval was a feat of excellence.

‘Frankenstein’ then won Best Costume Design and Best Makeup and Hairstyling back to back with its costume designer, Kate Hawley, saying, “Thank you for recognising my craft” in an award season which truly felt appreciative of all the nominated categories.

Best Casting was a new category this year, with ‘One Battle After Another’ being its first winner. It was again a stacked category but I believe ‘One Battle After Another’ managed to cast an ensemble of both A-listers and newcomers without it being a noticeable point whilst watching. With other notable nominees (especially ‘Marty Supreme’) I found myself enjoying the film itself and suddenly a new character would be introduced (Tyler, the Creator for example) and it would momentarily take me out of the magic.

This is of course unavoidable, but Cassandra Kulukundis managed to cast the film naturally where each actor embodied their roles entirely.

Disappointing

The tie in Best Live Action Short shocked many. Personally, I found most of the Live Action Short Films relatively disappointing but I’m glad this year’s new rule (that every voter needs to have watched the films in their entirety) has given room to ties since some of the underdogs now have a fairer shot.

Best Supporting Actor went to Sean Penn (who wasn’t there to collect it) and was, in my opinion, well deserved. He was fantastic in ‘One Battle After Another’ but I still would’ve loved to see Stellan Skårsgard win for his beautiful role in ‘Sentimental Value’.

Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Screenplay were both relatively predictable; however, I was shocked to discover ‘Sinners’ was written in 2 months.

Michael B. Jordan’s win for Best Actor shocked a few, but not me. It was clearly a toss-up between Jordan and Chalamet but the latter has seemingly alienated himself from the voters during his campaign.

I believe Jordan deserved to win not just because he played twins, but because he committed entirely to the role. As did the rest of course, but ‘Sinners’ was an all-rounder for me; despite thinking Miles Caton deserved at least a nomination, I’m more than happy Jordan won in the end.

Paul Thomas Anderson won his first round of Oscars but, I’ve asked one of the most devoted Film Club members, M Chávez Smith, to write about his win.

“Alongside the obvious high points of the night (Michael B. Jordan winning Best Actor for ‘Sinners’ and Jessie Buckley winning Best Actress for ‘Hamnet’) the most exhilarating point of the show for me was Paul Thomas Anderson’s sweep. I think this win was a long time overdue, a moment reminiscent of Leonardo DiCaprio finally winning Best Actor for ‘The Revenant’.

Although I believe ‘One Battle After Another’ isn’t Anderson’s best film, when approaching his entire filmography the 3 wins feel more like legacy awards, a final recognition for all of his outstanding contributions to cinema with phenomenal films such as ‘There Will Be Blood’, ‘Phantom Thread’ and ‘Boogie Nights’. At the end of the night, the Best Picture award, in my eyes, was only really between ‘Sinners’ and ‘One Battle After Another’ as they had been showing to be the ‘top-dogs’ of the season. I have no particular or technical reason to deny ‘Sinners’ of the award but I just didn’t really feel as though it was as engaging as PTA’s relic.“

Another few guaranteed wins occurred, like ‘Golden’ winning Best Original Song, Ludwig Göransson winning Best Original Score for ‘Sinners’, ‘Sentimental Value’ winning Best International Feature and ‘Avatar: Fire and Ash’ winning Best Visual Effects.

Cinematography was a lovely moment for women in film since it was the first time for a woman, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, to win in the category – and ‘Sinners’ was a well deserved win if there ever was one. ‘Train Dreams’ heavily relied on the cinematography to tell the story but ‘Sinners’ managed to just exude beauty within every frame.

Documentaries

The documentaries were also moderately easy guesses (although my personal pick for feature was ‘Come See Me in the Good Light’ which followed Andrea Gibson throughout their journey with cancer in relation to their spoken poetry, and for short was ‘The Devil is Busy’ about an abortion clinic in Atlanta) I understand that documentaries aren’t judged as much based on the making itself but on the subject and context of making it mainly, so it’s not an upsetting loss for me.

Production Design, Sound and Film Editing were all also simple guesses and no matter right or wrong, the guesses would still be correct since they were all worthy. ‘Frankenstein’ had Guillermo Del Toro’s delicate technical touch to back its win whilst ‘F1’ had a very distinct racing roar where a single disconsonant sound would have completely ruined the atmosphere of the F1 races entirely. Film editing also was valid no matter who won, but ‘One Battle After Another’ did manage to tell all the different stories in a fluid and enthralling manner.

Best Picture was long awaited, of course coming at the end of a 3.5 hour ceremony. ‘One Battle After Another’ seemed to me as the safe choice for the Academy. It was a spectacle to watch, and was favoured to win, but I can’t help but feel mildly disappointed that the Norwegian ‘Sentimental Value’ didn’t even seem as talked about in the running despite being an arguably perfect film about family dynamics, as was ‘Sinners’.

All in all, the night was entertaining and every win was well deserved. I think this was one of the best years of nominations in recent memory – although I think ‘Superman’ was snubbed in the technical categories.