In a year with few surprises in the awards categories, there was also a dearth of surprises on the Oscars red carpet.

The sartorial themes included sparkling metallics, coloured menswear and bows, bows and more bows.

Metallic gowns that resemble the Oscar statue are a familiar sight at the Academy Awards and this year was no different.

Some of the standouts included best actress nominee Demi Moore in a magnificently glittering silver Armani Privé gown, Selena Gomez in custom Ralph Lauren encrusted with 16,000 individual blush-toned jewel teardrops, and Emma Stone in a minimalist Louis Vuitton sheath covered in iridescent fish scales.

In the menswear category, tuxedos reign supreme. This year was notable only for the diversity of colours in which these suits came.

Best actor nominee Timothée Chalamet lived up to his reputation for monochrome, richly hued ensembles in a custom butter yellow leather suit by Givenchy, paired with a matching silk shirt and delicate neck brooch in place of a tie.

His best actor nominated compatriot, Colman Domingo (one of the best dressed men in Hollywood) was pristine in a double-breasted red silk jacket with black lapels, black trousers and matching red shirt by Valentino, similarly eschewing a tie in favour of a fine gold brooch. Andrew Garfield wore louche chocolate brown Gucci and Jeremy Strong wore a suit by Loro Piana in an unusual tone of olive green.

Bows of varying size and stature were perhaps the strongest theme of the night.

Best actress winner Mikey Madison in black and pink Dior, best supporting actress nominee Felicity Jones in shimmering liquid silver Armani, Elle Fanning in white and black Givenchy and Lupita Nyong’o in white Chanel were all adorned with bows at their waists.

The most remarkable bow of the night though was best actress nominee Cynthia Erivo in a structured deep emerald-green velvet Louis Vuitton gown, the broad, wing-like sleeves of which were crafted as a bow.

Notable mentions must also go to those attendees who do not fit neatly into any thematic category. Best supporting actress nominee Ariana Grande wore a meticulously crafted pale pink Schiaparelli confection and Lisa (of Blackpink and now White Lotus fame) perfected a feminine take on masculine suiting in a tuxedo dress by Markgong.

The only real surprise was the lack of political statements on display. Unlike recent years, when pins and ribbons in support of Ukraine and Palestine were widely worn, this year only Guy Pearce was spotted wearing a Free Palestine pin, Conclave writer Peter Straughan wore a Ukrainian flag pin and Kayo Shekoni had “free Congo” emblazoned on the sole of her high heels.

– Harriette Richards

Best picture?

And the best picture Oscar goes to … Anora – the film that was favoured to win, so no surprises here.

Though he had been working for more than a decade at the time, writer-director-editor Sean Baker came onto the independent movie scene with a bang with 2015’s Tangerine, a gimmicky film that was mainly celebrated for being shot on an iPhone.

Why this would be celebrated is anyone’s guess. I suspect it’s because of the “I could do it too” factor – something the average person certainly couldn’t say if we’re talking 35mm celluloid.

Since then, Baker’s films have relished in embracing the digital, neon world, but always in a kind of sentimental and shallow, rather than critical, register.

None of his films are awful – and maybe that’s saying something in this day and age. Anora also is not awful, but it’s not particularly memorable either.

Anora follows a run of the mill American dream-type story about a hard-working stripper who seems to strike fairytale gold when a young, fun Russian oligarch falls in love with her.

Only the dream turns out to be more of a nightmare (kind of) when things don’t quite work out and the film ends with the titular character once again independent and free.

The idea of undercutting the fairytale setup of the typical rom-com is not at all original, and the film strikes me as even more schmaltzy in its rejection of the fairytale dream than if it had embraced it and played like a tween-focused Nickelodeon film (it’s about as poignant as this).

The film’s cardinal sin, however – and it’s certainly not alone in this – is its critical overlength. Each of the film’s sections could have had some 20 minutes cut and we would have had an enjoyably tight romp at 80 minutes. Instead, Anora drags on, swept up in its imagining of its own profundity – at times pretentious, but mainly tedious.

– Ari Mattes

 Best actor and actress

Mikey Madison, who won the best actress award for Anora, is quite good in the role. That said, it’s difficult to evaluate her performance in such a meandering film.

She tries hard playing a stripper who falls for ‘Prince Charming’ – a Russian oligarch (Hollywood’s anti-Russian sentiment has certainly grown in recent years) who turns out to be a bit of a weakling with meanie parents.

But Madison never really convincingly embodies the character, and we’re ever aware as we watch the film that she’s an actress working her way through relevant emotions and intensities.

That said, Madison is good at yelling and stripping, and this is the main way she shows her chops here.

She screamed well in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019), too. The bar this year was admittedly pretty low, and truth be told Madison’s performance in Anora (aside from Fernanda Torres for I’m Still Here) is probably the best out of the nominees.

In contrast, Adrien Brody, who won the best actor award, is absolutely unforgettable in the flawed but magnificent The Brutalist – the best he’s been since The Pianist, and the deserved winner by a mile out of a similarly mediocre field.

Brody is simply a pleasure to watch, and drives, in a wholly embodied way, this grandiose and exceedingly long film (the fact it doesn’t feel long is largely due to his magnetism).

The screenplay, in which the character comes across as a combination of arrogant, sweet and at times comedic, allows Brody to display the full range of his talent, and he plays the whole thing with an endearing vulnerability.

But, again, it’s unfair to compare Brody and Madison – The Brutalist is a spectacularly accomplished cinematic epic, while Anora feels as stylish and profound as a social media video (I know that’s the point, but that doesn’t make it any more compelling).

– Ari Mattes

Not the year to stick a neck out

The speeches this year were conspicuously meek. No announcer majorly insulted anyone else. No winner assaulted anyone else. Even the James Bond retrospective lacked energy. What’s going on in Hollywood?

There are clues that help explain this curious flatness. Host Conan O’Brien mentioned the pressure of “divisive politics” while reflecting on California’s wildfires.

Several winners spoke about the importance of shared experience, of what unites us, of film as a medium that brings people together, a force for “good and progress in the world” and “a reminder not to let hate go unchecked”.

The directors of No Other Land, receiving their Oscar for best documentary, shared the one clear critical voice.

Palestinian Basel Adra wished his newborn daughter a life without the fear that governs daily life in his homeland.

Israeli co-director Yuval Abraham agreed: “There is another way. It’s not too late for life and for the living. There is no other way.”

However, that was the only moment people at the Oscars seemed willing to confront the political elephant in the room.

Anora director Sean Baker used his last (of four!) acceptance speeches to compel more people to help keep cinema doors open. He made his point passionately: this was the best way to sustain an industry that could continue to make brilliant movies.

That said, the most emotive speeches of past Oscars events went much further than just commenting on the bread and butter concerns of the film industry.

This year, there were more clues in what people did not say.

There were feints at Russian dictators – but nobody mentioned the war in Ukraine. There was no discussion of a certain election result, nor of filmmakers’ fears that Washington is now in the control of a governing faction that loathes them.

Most revealing of all: nobody raised a peep about the US President or his friends.

Hollywood’s collective discipline was on show tonight – and 2025 is not the year to stick a neck out.

– Tom Clark

Banner year for independent film

Independent films were the big winners for this year’s Oscars.

While many of the technical awards went to the big budget films, such as Wicked (the US$145 million film won costume design and production design) and Dune: Part 2 (made at a budget of US$190 million, and winning sound and visual effects), the night’s major awards went to small productions.

While the definitions of “independence” and “studio” films don’t exist in a neat binary when it comes to production and global distribution, we can distinguish between film juggernauts and smaller films.

Three independent films won significant awards that are of note. Latvian film Flow was the first independent film to win best animated feature, up against major films Inside Out 2 (Pixar Films) and The Wild Robot (DreamWorks).

The film follows a cat, a dog, a capybara, a secretary bird and a ring-tailed lemur navigating a post-apocalyptic world with rising sea levels. The film also only used free and open-source software Blender and mostly used sounds from real world counterparts of the various characters. It was made for a budget of just €3.5 million ($5.9 million).

The best documentary film nominees were dominated by independent films.

Notably, the winner No Other Land has sadly been unable to find a distributor to release the film in the United States. (It is available for streaming in Australia on DocPlay, and in select cinemas.) The film was only eligible because the Film Lincoln Centre in New York facilitated a one-week, qualifying theatrical run.

The night’s top glories went to Anora, made on a budget of just US$6 million ($9.7 million), and taking home the awards for best film, director, actress, screenplay and editing.

In his acceptance speech for best director, Sean Baker spoke of the importance of films getting a theatrical release. Films, he said, are about humanity – and that is best experienced in watching a film with other people.

During awards season, Baker has often spoken about the importance of small budget films in the expression of core human experiences.

The final message of the night went to Baker when he thanked the Academy for recognising a truly independent film: “Long live independent film!”

Indeed, independent films ruled this year’s Oscars.

– Stuart Richards

Harriette Richards, Senior Lecturer, School of Fashion and Textiles, RMIT University; Ari Mattes, Lecturer in Communications and Media, University of Notre Dame Australia; Stuart Richards, Senior Lecturer in Screen Studies, University of South Australia, and Tom Clark, Chair of Academic Board, Victoria University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.