Oscars 2025 Winners List: “Anora” On Top, Horror Films Struggle Again

So it happens again: The 2025 Oscars, the 97th Academy Awards in number, took place early in the morning at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California, after a difficult few months in Hollywood following the enormous fires that destroyed entire neighborhoods in the “City of Angels.” Although the general headlines talk about the massive success of the independent film “Anora,” winning five HUGH awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress in a Leading Role, we have gathered here to talk about another topic: the films and actors from our favorite genre, which again came away with almost no awards.

It’s not that there were too many expectations, even after the announcement of the nominees a few weeks ago. After all, there were enough quality films outside the horror genre this year, and the Academy, as we know, tends to leave the movies we love so much behind (sometimes rightly, often not). There were some expectations for the excellent “The Substance,” especially Demi Moore. Still, in the end, we got only one win for a horror film – but a very justified one – in the technical category.

Here’s everything you need to know about the exciting angle of the 2025 Oscars: the scary one.

The Big Winner Of The 2025 Oscars: “Anora”

The award for Best Picture went to “Anora,” Sean Baker’s independent comedy-drama about the relationship between a stripper (Mikey Madison) and the son of a Russian oligarch (Mark Eydelshteyn). It’s hard to say that this win is surprising because “Anora” has won the sympathy of critics and audiences and has already received several important awards: the prestigious Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, Best Picture at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, and more. Although it went without an award at the Golden Globes, despite five nominations, it is the big winner at the Oscars with five awards out of six nominations.

“Anora” beat out nine other nominees, including the film “The Substance,” which is undoubtedly one of the prominent candidates for the unofficial title of the best horror film of 2024. The man behind “Anora,” Sean Baker – who wrote, directed, and edited the film – also won the award for Best Director, the prize for Best Original Screenplay (a category in which he also competed with “The Substance”), and the Best Film Editing. With this, Baker won four Oscars and was the first to win all these awards in one ceremony. It is an insane achievement for someone who has been working for over two decades but has so far been on the most extreme fringes of American cinema.

Amber From Scream Wins Best Actress

From the perspective of horror fans, the most open question is whether Demi Moore will receive the first win of her career, in her first nomination, after picking up the Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical award at the last Golden Globes.

The problem is that Moore was up against some great acting from Fernanda Torres (“I’m Still Here”), Cynthia Erivo (“Wicked”), Karla Sofía Gascón (“Emilia Perez”), and, most notably, Mikey Madison, who also won the award for her captivating role in “Anora.” Madison is doing it at just 25, making her the ninth youngest actress to receive the coveted prize.

Madison thanked the sex worker community in her speech and promised to stand next to them in the future. Still, we remember her best as Amber Freeman in the fifth “Scream” movie – and there will be some spoilers for the 2022 film here, so if you haven’t seen it yet, we recommend skipping to the following paragraphs. Anyway, in “Scream 5” (which is simply called “Scream,” for some reason), Amber Freeman – played by Madison – is Tara’s (Jenna Ortega) best friend, but ultimately also one of the killers under the Ghostface costume.

As far as I remember from discussions in various Facebook groups and articles on the subject, there is a lot of controversy surrounding her character. Quite a few fans define Amber as one of the weakest “Ghostface” in the franchise – I’m unsure if the fault here is Madison’s, but more on the script level. On the other hand, in other rankings, she is placed in a good place in the middle or even in the first places in terms of levels of cruelty.

In any case, Mikey Madison is not the first actress from the cast of “Scream” to be nominated, and even the first Scream Villain. She was preceded by Laurie Metcalf, who played Debbie Salt in “Scream 2, who eventually turned out to be the mother of Billy Loomis and the one who was behind Ghostface in this film. Metcalf was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Greta Gerwig’s 2017 film “Lady Bird,” but ultimately lost (quite rightly) to Allison Janney for “I, Tonya.”

Of course, the cast of Scream also includes an Oscar winner: Anna Paquin, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress as a child – at just 11 years old – for her role in “The Piano” (1993). We saw her in the controversial opening of Scream 4, as one of the characters in “Stab 7,” in what becomes a movie within a movie or other reflexive nonsense that mostly annoyed most fans.

Mary McDonnell, who played Jill’s mother (Emma Roberts, who ultimately turns out to be *SPOILER* in the film) in “Scream 4,” was nominated twice for an Oscar, for “Dances with Wolves” and “Passion Fish.”

Horror Films In The Technical Categories: At Least Horror Got An Award

Let’s go back to the list of winners of the 97th Academy Awards, with some horror films that managed to make it to the list of nominees. The only and very justified win from our favorite genre is Best Makeup and Hairstyling. This award went to “The Substance” thanks to the incredible work (mainly) on the character of Demi Moore and the changes she undergoes trying to create “the better version of herself.” “The Substance“ beat out another horror film (“Nosferatu”) and other high-quality films: “Wicked,” “Emilia Perez,“ and “A Different Man,“ which some have defined as a kind of less terrifying version of “The Substance.”

In total, “The Substance“ was nominated in five categories – Best Picture, Best Director (Coralie Fargeat), Best Actress (Demi Moore), Best Original Screenplay, and Best Makeup and Hairstyling – and, as mentioned, came away with only one award.

“Nosferatu,“ nominated in four technical categories – Best Production Design, Best Cinematography, Best Makeup and Hairstyling, and Best Costume Design – came away without an award. So did “Alien: Romulus,“ which lost in the Best Effects category to “Dune: Part 2”.

Oscars 2025 Winners List and Nominations:

Here is the complete list of the 2025 Oscar winners and candidates. The winning films are in bold, and the horror films are in red (just because it’s a scary color).

Best Picture

• “Anora”
• “The Brutalist“
• “A Complete Unknown“
• “Conclave“
• “Dune: Part Two“
• “Emilia Pérez“
• “I’m Still Here“
• “Nickel Boys“
• “The Substance”
• “Wicked”

Best Director

• Sean Baker, “Anora”
• Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”
• James Mangold, “A Complete Unknown”
• Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez”
• Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance”

Best Actor in a Leading Role

• Adrien Brody, “The Brutalist”
• Timothée Chalamet, “A Complete Unknown”
• Colman Domingo, “Sing Sing”
• Ralph Fiennes, “Conclave”
• Sebastian Stan, “The Apprentice”

Best Actress in a Leading Role

• Mikey Madison, “Anora”
• Cynthia Erivo, “Wicked”
• Karla Sofía Gascón, “Emilia Pérez”
• Demi Moore, “The Substance”
• Fernanda Torres, “I’m Still Here”

Best Actor in a Supporting Roleting Actor

• Kieran Culkin, “A Real Pain”
• Yura Borisov, “Anora”
• Edward Norton, “A Complete Unknown”
• Guy Pearce, “The Brutalist”
• Jeremy Strong, “The Apprentice”

Best Actress in a Supporting Role

• Zoe Saldaña, “Emilia Pérez”
• Monica Barbaro, “A Complete Unknown”
• Ariana Grande, “Wicked”
• Felicity Jones, “The Brutalist”
• Isabella Rossellini, “Conclave”

Best Original Screenplay

• “Anora”
• “The Brutalist“
• “A Real Pain”
• “September 5“
• “The Substance”

Best Adapted Screenplay

• “Conclave”
• “A Complete Unknown“
• “Sing Sing”
• “Emilia Pérez“
• “Nickel Boys”

Best Cinematography

• “The Brutalist”
• “Dune: Part Two“
• “Emilia Pérez“
• “Maria“
• “Nosferatu”

Best Film Editing

• “Anora”
• “The Brutalist”
• “Conclave”
• “Emilia Pérez”
• “Wicked”

Best Production Design

• “Wicked”
• “The Brutalist“
• “Conclave“
• “Dune: Part Two“
• “Nosferatu”

Best Costume Design

• “Wicked”
• “A Complete Unknown“
• “Conclave“
• “Gladiator II“
• “Nosferatu”

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

• “The Substance”
• “A Different Man“
• “Emilia Pérez“
• “Nosferatu”
• “Wicked”

Best Original Score

• “The Brutalist”
• “Conclave“
• “Emilia Pérez“
• “Wicked“
• “The Wild Robot”

Best Original Song

• “El Mal,” “Emilia Pérez”
• “The Journey,” “The Six Triple Eight“
• “Like a Bird,” “Sing Sing“
• “Mi Camino, “Emilia Pérez”
• “Never Too Late”, “Elton John: Never Too Late”

Best Sound

• “Dune: Part Two”
• “A Complete Unknown”
• “Emilia Pérez”
• “The Wild Robot”
• “Wicked”

Best Visual Effects

• “Dune: Part Two”
• “Alien: Romulus”
• “Better Man”
• “Kingdon of the Planet of the Apes”
• “Wicked”

Best Documentary Feature Film

• “No Other Land”
• “Black Box Diaries”
• “Porcelain War”
• “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat”
• “Sugarcane”

Best Documentary Short Film

• “The Only Girl in the Orchestra”
• “Death by Numbers”
• “I Am Ready, Warden”
• “Incident”
• “Instruments of a Beating Heart”

Best Live Action Short Film

• “The Silent Echo”
• “Crossroads”
• “Echoes”
• “The Letter Room”
• “Waves”

Best Animated Short Film

• “In the Shadow of the Cypress”
• “Beautiful Men”
• “Magic Candies”
• “Wander to Wonder”
• “Yuck!”

Best Animated Feature Film

• “Flow”
• “Inside Out 2”
• “Memoir of a Snail”
• “The Wild Robot”
• “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl”

Best International Feature Film

• “I’m Still Here” (Brazil)
• “Emilia Pérez” (France)
• “Flow” (Latvia)
• “The Girl with the Needle” (Denmark)
• “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” (Germany)

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