The best and worst moments from the 2025 Oscars

The Oscars has wrapped for another year, with Anora taking home Best Picture and four other Academy Awards, including a surprise Best Actress win for Mikey Madison.

But aside from the winners and losers, which moments stood out at the 97th Academy Awards? What were some of the highlights and lowlights?

From Conan O’Brien’s hilarious hosting to livestream technical issues, we’ve rounded up the best and worst Oscars 2025 moments below.

The best

Conan O’Brien as Oscars host

A great host!
Credit: Frank Micelotta / Disney via Getty Images

A surprise song, a Substance-skit, and back-and-forths with both Adam Sandler and Nick Offerman were just some of the elements that made Conan O’Brien’s hosting so much fun to watch. You can catch up on his full opening monologue, which included jabs at AI and Netflix and plenty of O’Brien’s trademark self-deprecation.

A Wicked opening number

Wicked stars and Oscar nominees Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo kicked off the Oscars in monumental fashion, with an homage to The Wizard of Oz, The Wiz, and Wicked, ending with a duet of “Defying Gravity” and Erivo’s major note moment.

John Lithgow’s disappointed face

“If your acceptance speech goes too long, instead of playing you off with music, we have something much more powerful,” O’Brien said during his monologue. “We’ll cut to John Lithgow in the audience looking not angry, but slightly disappointed.”

Conclave star Lithgow’s resulting expression was frankly award-worthy in and of itself.

Colman Domingo hyping up the crowd

The Oscars is a long ceremony, so what better way to inject a bit of life into the audience than with an impromptu dance party? This is exactly what Sing Sing star and Best Actor nominee Colman Domingo did during an ad break, taking to the stage and getting the room up and dancing while swigging Champagne.

Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham’s No Other Land speech

When No Other Land took home Best Documentary, the film’s directors Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham (a Palestinian and Israeli journalist, respectively) made one of the best and most political acceptance speeches of the night.

“About two months ago, I became a father, and my hope to my daughter that she will not have to live the same life I am living now, always fearing settlers, violence, home demolitions and forcible displacements that my community Masafer Yatta is living and tasting every day under Israeli occupation,” said Adra.

“We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together we are stronger,” said Abraham. “When I look at Basel, I see my brother, but we are unequal.”

Kieran Culkin shouting out Jeremy Strong

They may have been at each other’s throats in Succession, but onscreen brothers Kieran Culkin and Jeremy Strong had a lot of love for each other at the Oscars. The stars of A Real Pain and The Apprentice shared a sweet moment on the red carpet, and then Culkin shouted out his former co-star and fellow Oscar nominee after he picked up the award for Best Supporting Actor.

The musical sandworm

Sandworms have been catapulted to deserving levels of fame thanks to the Dune movies and that ensuing popcorn bucket. During the Oscars, the colossal creatures of Denis Villeneuve’s nominated film got their moment in the sun. Said moment? Someone in a sandworm costume playing piano, and then later playing the harp.

“When you spend that much money on a bit,” said O’Brien. “You have to do it twice.”

The worst

Some glaring In Memoriam omissions

There were some big names in this year’s In Memoriam segment, including Dame Maggie Smith, David Lynch, James Earl Jones, and Gene Hackman. But as many people pointed out online, there were also some strange omissions, such as Candyman actor Tony Todd and Gossip Girl star Michelle Trachtenberg.

The Hulu livestream cutting off

Technical issues are the bane of any live event, and Sunday night’s awards proved a nightmare for anyone watching the Hulu livestream — which cut off before Best Actress and Best Picture had been announced. People were John Lithgow levels of disappointed, although the mishap did serve to underline Sean Baker’s Best Director speech about the importance of the big screen.

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The failed Emilia Perez sing-a-long

It’s fairly easy for an awards show speech to be remembered for the wrong reasons, and attempting to lead a non-committal audience in a sing-a-long is one surefire way to do it. Unfortunately that was the slightly uncomfortable outcome when Emilia Pérez‘s “El Mal” songwriters Clement Ducol, Camille and Jacques Audiard took to the stage to pick up the award for Best Song. Ouch.

Adrien Brody’s lengthy speech

Talking of acceptance speeches, The Brutalist star Adrien Brody took a solid six minutes — filled with pauses aplenty and one attempted music play-off — when collecting his Best Actor award, and social media was having none of it.

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Where’s John Lithgow when you need him?

Check out the full list of Oscar winners on Mashable.