The Academy Awards 2025 is done and dusted, and here in the Philippines, it was streaming live on Disney+. Now we all know that Disney’s all-time biggest mascot would be Mickey Mouse; but on Oscar night, among the biggest stars was another Mikey. That would surprise Best Actress winner, Mikey Madison. The other big winner was her Anora director, Sean Baker, who won four Oscars for a single movie - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Editing. 

Coincidentally, Walt Disney would be the other four statuette winners on a single night in Oscar history, but it wasn’t for a single film. And there were several instances when someone took three Oscars home in a single night. So, call Sean Baker and Anora, which win one big salute to indie filmmakers. Anora was produced for a paltry $6 million - a drop in the bucket when considering the cost of Hollywood films nowadays. What that says about the voting members of the various guilds that make up the Academy today, you can also make conjectures about - that they're younger, have a finer appreciation of indie-filmmaking, and the social realism or fantasy elements of its subject matter and attack.

Other than the Mikey Madison upset over Demi Moore; there were no real big surprises this Oscar night. I was rooting for Madison. Nothing against Moore and how physical her role in The Substance was, but it was in the body horror genre, and depended a lot on make-up and special effects. Meanwhile, the Ani of Madison’s Anora was sheer acting, and she took us on a wild journey of her character’s arc as a sex worker and then a stubborn ‘victim’. Plus, I loved Anora and how Pretty Woman was stripped of fairy tale elements. 

And yes, Conan O’Brien acquitted himself for a first-time host rather well. He mixed his one-liners with some singing and dancing (surprise!), and struck the right note when talking about the LA wildfires. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande had a fun musical number, incorporating songs from The Wizard of Oz, from The Wiz, and of course, from Wicked. The James Bond musical tribute had great performers, but was off conceptually - and seemed more a nod to Amazon Studios having recently acquired the rights to the franchise. 

Now, let’s see how well I scored with my predictions for this year’s Oscars. I got Best Picture and Best Director with Anora, plus struck gold with Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted (Conclave). I correctly guessed three of four of the acting awards, but I missed out on Mikey, who predicted Demi. 

In my Oscars crystal-ball gazing feature of Feb. 23, I did well on 10 of the 19 awards I predicted. As I wrote a Who Will Win—Who Should Win report, if you include those I claimed Should along with the Will, my score shoots up to 14 of the 19. So with my 10 of 19, I still got the majority right, but only by a whisker! Better luck next year for me!

Looking back on this year’s big winners, I’d say that the indie film industry truly has its hooks on today's Oscar voting. We saw the first glimmer of that in 2017 when Moonlight won Best Picture over La La Land. And if you reflect on Parasite in 2020, followed by Nomadland in 2021, CODA in 2022, and Everything Everywhere All At Once in 2023, you’ll observe that Oppenheimer of 2024 was more the exception than the rule. When it comes to voting by the guild members, the more artistic films, which excel on a shoestring budget, are getting the voters' attention.