Oscars 2025: Hollywood crowns a new Jewish queen, and Israeli-Palestinian Best Documentary winners make waves
Other Jewish wins include ‘A Real Pain’ and Mikey Madison for ‘Anora’
Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal, Basel Adra and Yuval Abraham accept the Documentary Feature Film award “No Other Land.” Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images
By Mira Fox, PJ Grisar, Samuel Eli Shepherd, Talya ZaxMarch 2, 2025
In an Oscars night full of surprises, the most pointed statements may have come from two of the directors of Best Documentary Feature No Other Land, about the destruction of a village in the West Bank. In accepting the award, Yuval Abraham, who is Israeli, said that Israelis’ and Palestinians’ voices are stronger together, spoke out against the destruction caused by Israel’s war in Gaza, and called for the return of hostages.
“Can’t you see that we are intertwined?” Abraham asked. “That my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly safe, and free?”
In other notable awards of the evening, Mikey Madison took home Best Actress for Anora in an upset win over Demi Moore; Kieran Culkin won Best Supporting Actor for his show-stealing turn in A Real Pain, about a pair of cousins visiting the Majdanek concentration camp; and Adrien Brody won Best Actor for his role as a Holocaust survivor architect in The Brutalist. In his speech, Brody said his performance was dedicated to the “lingering traumas of war and systemic oppression and antisemitism.”
We live-blogged through it all. Our panelists: PJ Grisar and Mira Fox, Forward culture writers and sharp-eyed observers of the ins and outs of Hollywood trends; Talya Zax, opinion editor with many strong opinions about the cinema; and Samuel Eli Shepherd, our culture intern.
A notably undramatic red carpet
Mira Fox: During the previews, just caught Jesse Eisenberg, who wrote and directed A Real Pain, complaining — jovially! — about the fact that he keeps accepting awards on behalf of Kieran Culkin. “It feels really great to get an award but it’s always been for Kieran,” he said on the red carpet at the Critics’ Choice Awards, a quote ABC’s coverage decided to highlight.
PJ Grisar: Something I’m not seeing a lot of — pins, either the ArtistsForCeasefire pins or yellow ribbons to raise awareness of hostages (the latter are missing even from Israeli actors Gal Gadot and Mark Ivanir). It’s possible there was a memo that went around warning against it. In the case of the ceasefire pins, it could be a success for efforts by a group called The Brigade, formed after Oct. 7 by Hollywood people who support Israel. They called the pin an “emblem of Jewish bloodshed” in a recent statement.
Sam Shepherd: I think I just spotted a silver hostage pin on Gal Gadot’s husband Jaron Varsano? But none on Gal Gadot, although that long, red dress is outstanding.
PJ: If the color is silver how do we know what it’s for? The pin is just like a ribbon?
Sam: Just saw another one. Oh, wait. It might be Dennis Quaid wearing a cross. Definitely not a Jewish symbol!
Talya Zax: Rachel Sennot just grievously misidentified as Rachel Zegler! Get your Rachels who are regularly mistaken for being Jewish, but are not actually Jewish, correct!
PJ: Scarlett Johansson elected to wear a blue velvet dress, but not the “F Kanye” shirt of her deepfake avatar. What’s everyone’s snack situation? I’m trying to exercise self control and not eat an entire bag of maple chex mix I got from a maple tree farm.
What a ‘Wicked’ way to start the ceremony
Mira: I’m going in for some boxed mac and cheese with broccoli…not very glamorous.
Talya: I’m making gnocchi with vegan sausage and peas. (Thanks NYT Cooking!) And my friend whose sisters are both at the ceremony as seat fillers is watching with me, so we’re both happily envisioning them sobbing to Ariana Grande’s “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”
Sam: I’m eating with a crowd today. We have four different types of popcorn among us — chocolate strawberry, Himalayan salt, white cheddar and kettle corn. All of them are kosher!
PJ: “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” was penned by Jewish songwriters Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg. Whatever happened to Jewish guys named Yip?
Sam: I tried to recreate this “Defying Gravity” riff in my Bar Mitzvah portion when I was 13. I don’t think I did it quite as well as Cynthia, though.
Talya: Here’s the problem: Why should I care about the ceremony after this Wizard of Oz-Wiz-Wicked medley? Nothing will be as good as it and I will spend the next three hours feeling resentful. Mira, what does the Talmud say about setting expectations too high?
Mira: I’m too busy watching Conan O’Brien climb out of Demi Moore’s back to look into that, sorry.
And here’s your host…
PJ: I am hoping for an appearance of Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, frequent collaborator of Conan and brainchild of Robert Smigel, who based the accent on his Jewish Russian grandparents. (Also Paul Rudd pranking Conan with a clip from Mac and Me.)
Mira: I do like that Conan called out the Jewish movies in his opening monologue as mean things he was called on the red carpet (“a real pain”). Comedy: a proud Jewish lineage! Even when it’s the Holocaust.
Sam: Conan mentioned the length of The Brutalist in his monologue. I watched The Brutalist in AMC Lincoln Square on Christmas Eve. I started at 10:30AM and it was dark by the time I exited the theatre!
PJ: Jeff Bezos being hauled out in an Amazon box — reminiscent of how Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai was smuggled out of the gates of Jerusalem in a coffin… or not. I noticed that Guy Pearce was wearing a dove pin that said “Free Palestine,” perhaps a compromise given he wore the ceasefire pin in the past.
Mira: Both Timmy Chalamet and Adam Sandler getting big focused roasts in the monologue, and I love to see the Jews get their moment, but Sandler’s moment went on too long. (I’m sorry: I never found him funny.)
PJ: Adam Sandler — appearing schlubby in gym shorts — and Conan are neighbors.
Sam: I’m in a crowd of Jewish twenty-somethings and when Sandler hugged Chalamet they all cheered “Jew on Jew!”
The crowning of Kieran Culkin
Mira: I’m glad to see Culkin, as expected, take home the first award of the night: Best Supporting Actor. A Real Pain was the least didactic Holocaust movie I’ve ever seen, a blessing to the genre. And he gets bleeped for the entire first sentence of his speech, a profanity-filled compliment to his onscreen brother in Succession, Jeremy Strong, nominated tonight for his role as Roy Cohn in The Apprentice.
Talya: Culkin, who is not Jewish, plays a very specific Jewish role in A Real Pain, and he’s playing another one tonight: Overly profane relative who you expect to say something outrageous. “I should thank my mom and Steve for trying to raise me” — he delivers.
PJ: Culkin is putting very funny public pressure on his wife to be fruitful and multiply now that he has his Oscar.
Mira: A great example of why we shouldn’t be too worried about Jewface. Culkin was a very believable neurotic Jewish stereotype without being actually stereotypical.
Best costumes, on stage and at home
Talya: Jewish heartthrob Andrew Garfield, whose public mourning for his late mother has been really something to see, thanking Goldie Hawn for being an actor his mother loved profoundly is lovely. So far, this Oscars has been surprisingly moving to me; usually the ceremony feels pretty emotionally superficial, but I don’t mind a slightly more heartfelt tenor.
PJ: I bet she liked Private Benjamin. Not many people know this, but Flow is actually a spiritual sequel to Adam Sandler’s Hustle.
Talya: PJ, readers don’t know you like we know you; please clarify whether this is sarcasm. ($10 says definitely.)
PJ: It is a joke. More capybaras in Flow.
Talya: Time for the ritual outfit check-in (in honor of the costume category): Which of us will win best-dressed Forward Oscars roundtable contributor? I am wearing quite an aged pair of Old Navy leggings, so probably not me.
PJ: I’m in blue jeans and, in questionable honor of László Tóth, main character of The Brutalist, a black, quarter-zip sweater.
Mira: Cashmere sweater, but with Uniqlo elastic waisted wool pants so that sort of ruins it.
Talya: Mira wins! Cashmere on a Sunday evening! My sweater is, I fear, recycled polyester (very soft).
Hats off to Wicked, and kippah-influenced hats in Conclave
Talya: Wicked wins its first award, for costume design! Rachel Zegler (yes, it’s actually her this time, and she’s still not Jewish) gets a nice spotlight applauding with tears in her eyes.
PJ: I believe witch hats are modelled on hats Jews used to have to wear.
Talya: Sarcasm?
PJ: Actually not this time!
Mira: They’re part of why people associate horns with Jews. And people in the Dark Ages thought Jews practiced black magic, hence the witch association.
Sam: Imagine how many girls prepping for their bat-mitzvah right now are eyeing Ariana’s bubble gown.
Talya: Conan makes an interesting shoutout to Emil Jannings, first winner of Best Actor, but fails to mention that he subsequently starred in a ton of Nazi propaganda…
Mira: Two Jewish films — A Real Pain and September 5 — up for Best Original Screenplay; neither got it though. Everyone did love Anora, which won.
PJ: It’s possible that September 5, about the massacre of Israeli athletes during the Munich Olympics, might have racked up more nominations if not for the war in Gaza. It had strong awards buzz, but also some notable bad press, including a petition to stop screening it started by workers at New York City Alamo Drafthouse locations.
Mira: The extremely not Jewish Conclave, about the machinations involved in electing a new pope, won Best Adapted Screenplay. But the kippah-like hats that all the cardinals in it wear feel at least rooted in the Jewish beliefs that filtered into Christianity. (I spent a long time reading about that bit of style history after seeing it.)
Doja Cat, the Sacklers (?) and Ben Stiller
PJ: Jewish singer Doja Cat sang “Diamonds Are Forever” in the Bond medley. She wore little more than strings of (presumably fake) diamonds — it was one of her tamer outfits.
Talya: Unfortunately she was also notably off key through most of the performance. Anyone else think that Raye, who performed after her, is trying to emulate Amy Winehouse a bit? The vocals sound familiar in a Winehouse-y way.
PJ: The Sacklers (along with the royal family of Saudi Arabia) got a not-so-positive shout out in a fake commercial for Conan’s new smartphone movie theater venture.
Talya: Zoe Saldaña’s shoutout to her immigrant parents is about as political as things have gotten tonight, which is interesting.
Mira: It was a moving speech that really highlighted how slow this show has been.
Sam: Did you check out that shot of Ben Stiller giving a note to what appears to be a production assistant? Perhaps he was sharing a Severance spoiler.
Mira: He looks really good, I know everyone is talking about Halle Berry but he’s come so far since Zoolander.
Talya: Mira, I am so glad you said that. If Paul Rudd can be the sexiest man alive, why not Stiller?
Mira: Also, to show he’s still got his slapstick edge, his bit of physical comedy presenting Best Production Design — in which the lift failed to deliver him to the stage and he had to clamber out — was funnier than anything Conan has done tonight.
PJ: Much like Joseph, he emerged from the pit.
Talya: Do we drink when one of us makes a compelling biblical reference?
No other choice for Best Documentary than No Other Land
Mira: The controversial No Other Land, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, takes Best Documentary. When it premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, where it also took home Best Documentary, Berlin’s mayor, Kai Wegner, called the ceremony antisemitic when numerous winners, including No Other Land’s co-director Basel Adra, sharply criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza. Claudia Roth, Germany’s culture minister, applauded the film’s win but later said that she was applauding only for the Israeli director, Yuval Abraham, and not the Palestinian half of the directing pair. Here he is, winning again, and making a similar pointed speech.
Sam: Despite being nominated — and now winning — an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature, the film struggled to find a distributor in the U.S. A few days ago, Yuval Abraham and Basel Adra also noted that the village on which the documentary is based, Masafer Yatta, was being demolished by Israeli soldiers.
Talya: “My hope to my daughter, that she will not have to live the same life I am living now” — filmmaker and activist Basel Adra, a new father, issues a powerful call. “We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger,” adds his collaborator Yuval Abraham. “There is a different path.”
And Abraham calls out the U.S.: “The foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path,” he said. “Can’t you see that we are intertwined? That my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly safe, and free?”
Sam: The room in which I was watching fell silent as the No Other Land team accepted the award. I imagine the backlash to Abraham’s speech is going to be fierce, and may mirror the backlash to Jonathan Glazer’s speech for Zone of Interest last year.
Mira: The cut from the No Other Land filmmaker’s talk of U.S. complicity in war in Israel-Palestine to a plea for LA fire relief is an interesting choice, as though the show is telling the audience to worry less about tumult abroad.
In memoriam, and a fruitful Oscars pool
Sam: The In Memoriam section honors Jewish creatives like Marshall Brickman, screenwriter and collaborator with Woody Allen; film producers Paula Weinstein and Lynda Obst; children’s film composer Richard M. Sherman; and Titanic producer Jon Landau.
PJ: The segment left out Michelle Trachtenberg, who died last week at 39.
Separately, The Brutalist, which was filmed in a old-school format called Vistavision, won its first award of the night for cinematographer Lol Crawley.
Talya: How are we all holding up through the final third of the ceremony? Brownies just got out of the oven over here, which I expect will help.
PJ: I am poised to at least come in second in my Oscar pool, so that’s seeing me through a bit.
Talya: Wow! Seems like you’re quite qualified to be commentating here with us tonight. Mazel tov.
PJ: Thank you. Like any cinephile, I’m mostly in it for the money.
Sam: I’m not doing well in my Oscar’s pool at all. I’ve been told “voting from the heart” is a bad strategy. But one girl is knitting a tank top — good strategy!
Mira: The end has picked up a bit! That helps. But I did throw out my back this weekend so I’m struggling regardless of the show though.
Talya: Oh Mira, what a bummer! And an update for those following at home: The brownies are, in fact, very good. Melissa Clark’s tip to substitute bourbon in for water when making boxed mix never fails. (She also says to use brown butter instead of oil, but, who has the time?)
PJ: Daniel Blumberg’s magisterial music (it actually, for once, seems like an apt adjective) for The Brutalist won Best Original Score. And, apropos of Queen Latifah’s performance, it’s good time to remind everyone that Sidney Lumet, of all people, directed the film of The Wiz.
Adrien Brody takes it home
Talya: It’s the Best Actor showdown. Adrien Brody? Timotheé Chalamet? My vote goes for Colman Domingo, who won’t win, but Sing Sing was criminally underserved by this year’s awards. And… it’s Brody, as widely predicted by, well, everyone.
PJ: The last time Adrien Brody won, in 2003 for The Pianist, it was also for playing a Holocaust survivor. He thanked Judy Becker, the production designer, who he called the “real László Tóth.” In an interview Becker told me her work was inspired, in part, by a synagogue in her hometown of Scarsdale, New York.
Sam: “I’ve done this before,” Brody said after nearly being cut off by outro music in his speech. He dedicated his performance in The Brutalist to the “lingering traumas of war and systemic oppression and antisemitism.”
“I believe if the past can teach us anything it’s to not let hate go unchecked,” said Brody, who consulted with a Holocaust survivor and his own Hungarian grandfather to fine-tune Tóth’s accent in the film.
Mira: No hostage or ceasefire pins but whatever giant sparkly brooch Brody is wearing is certainly…notable.
Talya: It stands for the principle of capital-A Art!
PJ: In other news, my ballot won.
Talya: PJ, our hero!
Major (Jewish!) upsets to close the night
Talya: Mikey Madison wins Best Actress for Anora. Apparently, the Jewish qualities of her hair caused some problems during filming.
Mira: Love her shoutout to Brighton Beach, a historic Brooklyn Jewish neighborhood that still feels about the same as I imagine it did 50 years ago.
PJ: Could Neil Simon have imagined this kinda Brighton Beach memoir?
On another note, this Billy Crystal-Meg Ryan reunion introducing Best Picture is much better than that mayo commercial.
Talya: And it’s a sweep for Sean Baker of Anora, marking two major upsets we can credit to the film: Of Demi Moore for Best Actress, and of The Brutalist for Best Picture. Mark Eydelstheyn, who plays a Russian oligarch’s playboy son, looks adorably out of place onstage, like he has no idea what to do with his limbs.
PJ: With this win, Baker ties Walt Disney for most Oscars received in a single ceremony, but it’s a record for a single film.
Talya: And the evening ends like all good festivities do: With an ad for Delta Airlines (?). I’m off to drink some chamomile tea and come up with an independent film project I can pitch on a budget of less than $10 million. Closing thoughts?
Mira: A great lineup of nominee movies, and I love to see a lot of lower budget films do well. But the show was, overall, exceedingly lackluster. Why exactly was there a Bond medley? Why didn’t they perform the Best Song nominees? My highlight was Timothée Chalamet’s lemon colored monochrome outfit — his second loud monochrome moment of the awards season. I think I just like tracking his fashion and brand evolution as he shapes the new era’s version of Hollywood heartthrob, and that train of thought was more interesting than most of the ceremony.
PJ: I liked the sandworm playing the harp more than I liked Anora.
Sam: I also didn’t love Anora. I found the main character lacked agency and the film exploited her naivete and suffering. My favorite films of the year were The Brutalist with The Substance, the latter of which was completely snubbed tonight. But I think the whole evening was worth it just to watch Conan O’Brien emerge Athena-style out of Demi Moore’s back in his opening monologue, and also to see Cynthia Erivo perform The Wiz.
Talya: PJ and Sam — haters! I liked Anora, but it was definitely half an hour too long. Mira, I thought Timmy’s suit was a bold choice — great cut — but I sadly don’t think yellow is his color. My nominee for next year’s best picture: Whatever Uncut Gems-style caper Mikey Madison is about to make with Adam Sandler, a film that exists only in my dreams unless any producers see this (call me!).
PJ: I agree on pacing, Talya. I guess I liked that the sandworm didn’t overstay his welcome. And by the way, I just crunched the numbers — I won my ballot with 18 points. How’s that for ending on a chai note?
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