Road to the Oscars Wrap-Up: The 97th Academy Awards Forget Michelle Trachtenberg as ‘Anora’ Pulls Off a Well-Deserved Near-Sweep

And that’s a wrap on the 97th Academy Awards, an Oscars ceremony with a lot of surprises this year. There were a lot of odd decisions made for the ceremony this year, and I didn’t necessarily like all of them. But Conan O’Brien was an excellent host and brought his usual brand of brilliantly self-deprecating humor and overall wackiness. And, in the end, I was very happy to see Anora sweep almost every category it was nominated for. I didn’t think that was going to be possible, but I’ve never  been so happy to be wrong.

First and foremost, my biggest complaint of the Oscars were the glaring omissions from the In Memoriam section, which pays tribute to all those who died in the past year. The tribute shockingly forgot to mention Michelle Trachtenberg, who died just days before the Oscars. I realize that makes for a quick turnaround, but how hard is it to edit in a 10-second clip from Harriet the Spy or EuroTrip? Another shocking omission from In Memoriam was Shannen Doherty, who they can’t say they left out because it was too recent as she died in April of 2024. There were a few other major In Memoriam snubs as reported by other outlets, including Linda Lavin, Marianne Faithful, and Tony Todd.  

The sad thread that runs through a number of these very glaring omissions is that a lot of them are the kind of actors that were never recognized by the Academy. But that shouldn’t be a factor. The In Memoriam section is supposed to pay tribute to all of the actors, directors, writers, and crew members lost in the past year regardless of what kind of movies they made. Trachtenberg and Doherty may be more well known for their careers in television, but they made movies, too, and they deserve to be recognized amongst their peers. And I feel like a lot of us were robbed of that important moment of mourning that comes from seeing one of our favorite actors listed in that segment. Justice for popcorn movie stars!

Speaking of startling omissions, as Them.us pointed out, none of the winners for Emilia Pérez (not that there were very many) mentioned the trans community in their acceptance speeches. Not even that very weird half-sung acceptance speech for Best Song. Seriously, what the fuck was that? Zoe Saldaña did, however, dedicate her BAFTA win to her trans nephew. Why she didn’t bring that up at the Oscars is beyond me, and it would have been an important topic to tackle right now. Meanwhile, Mikey Madison dedicated her award to the sex worker community for inspiring her role, which was a really classy move on her part.

There was also the odd omission of the Best Song performances this year. Typically, all of the nominees for Best Song are given the opportunity to perform their song in full, giving us such great moments as Robin Williams’ brilliant rendition of “Blame Canada” from South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut in 1999, or last year’s outstanding performance of “I’m Just Ken” from Barbie. This year, they made the very weird decision to cut all the musical performances to save time, opting instead to just show pre-recorded segments of the songwriters discussing their songs. So we missed out on Zoe Saldaña doing a live performance of “El Mal” and the great Elton John doing a performance of his new song “Never Too Late.” Instead we got a very unnecessary tribute montage to James Bond films that could have been cut to accommodate some of the musical performances.

Okay, now that those grievances are out of the way, let’s see how my Oscars’ predictions fared for each category.

Category: Best Adapted Screenplay

Who I Thought Would Win: Conclave
Who I Thought Should Win: A Complete Unknown
Who Won: Conclave

The best screenplay categories really set the stage for the Best Picture category to be a showdown between Anora and Conclave, but the way Anora swept through almost every category it was nominated for made it clear who was going to win Best Picture at the end of the night. Conclave wasn’t my “should win” choice, but it was still an excellent script that deserved to be recognized, so I’m not upset about this win at all.

Category: Best Original Screenplay

Who I Thought Would Win: Anora
Who I Thought Should Win: Anora
Who Won: Anora

Anora was an unstoppable force all night, picking up wins for basically everything it was nominated for except Best Supporting Actor. The Best Original Screenplay category set off the movie’s huge sweep of the awards, and I couldn’t be happier about that.

Category: Best Director

Who I Thought Would Win: Brady Corbet for The Brutalist
Who I Thought Should Win: Jacques Audiard for Emilia Pérez
Who Won: Sean Baker for Anora

Even when Vegas odds* favored Anora in many of these categories, I simply didn’t think the Academy would give all these awards to a small, indie comedy about a sex worker. Again, I have never been happier to be wrong about something, and Sean Baker said a lot of great things the many times he went up to accept his awards.

Category: Best Supporting Actress

Who I Thought Would Win: Zoe Saldaña for Emilia Pérez
Who I Thought Should Win: Monica Barbaro for A Complete Unknown
Who Won: Zoe Saldaña for Emilia Perez

This one was hardly a surprise, and Saldaña’s award was well-deserved. As pointed out earlier, her choice to leave out trans people as part of her speech was an oddly glaring omission, but this was still an award I was happy to see awarded to Emilia Pérez.

Category: Best Supporting Actor

Who I Thought Would Win: Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain
Who I Thought Should Win: Edward Norton for A Complete Unknown
Who Won: Kieran Culkin for A Real Pain

Okay, when I picked Edward Norton as my “should win” pick, I hadn’t yet seen A Real Pain. On Saturday night, I decided to watch A Real Pain to see what the hype was all about. I retract my pick of Edward Norton because, as great as he was playing Pete Seeger, Culkin really brought so many layers to that character. Somehow, despite being a buddy comedy, A Real Pain became the better Holocaust-related film compared to The Brutalist, and Culkin was the best part of that. Now, how exactly Culkin’s character got categorized as the supporting character is beyond me. And Culkin’s weird speech about his wife offering him a fourth kid if he ever won an Oscar was cringeworthy. But it was still a well-deserved win.

Category: Best Actress

Who I Thought Wouldl Win: Demi Moore for The Substance
Who I Thought Should Win: Fernanda Torres for I’m Still Here
Who Won: Mikey Madison for Anora

This was the biggest shock of the night for me, as I didn’t think anyone could stand in the way of Demi Moore’s inevitable win. Madison defied the Vegas odds to pull off the upset and, while I’m sad to see Moore walk away without an award, Madison did do an excellent job in Anora so I’m not mad about this award in the least.

Category: Best Actor

Who I Thought Would l Win: Timothée Chalamet for A Complete Unknown
Who I Thought Should Win: Timothée Chalamet for A Complete Unknown
Who Won: Adrien Brody for The Brutalist

I thought Chalamet would defy the odds and pull the upset on this one. I thought the controversy around the use of AI to enhance Brody’s performance in The Brutalist would sink his chances for sure. In this case, I’m very disappointed to be wrong because I hated The Brutalist (in case I hadn’t made that clear yet). But I didn’t hate The Brutalist as much as I hated Brody’s very meandering and long speech. At one point he told them to stop playing him off and promised he wouldn’t abuse his time, then he proceeded to completely abuse his time. I really wanted him to shut up and get off the stage.

Category: Best Picture

Who I Thought Would Win: Conclave
Who I Thought Should Win: Anora
Who Won: Anora

Everyone and everything said that Anora would win and I wanted to see it happen, but I thought it was too good to be true. Thankfully, it wasn’t and Anora pulled off an amazing sweep, defying the typical logic that only boring and depressing movies win Oscars. I’m so glad to see this movie pull off the win.

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And that’s a wrap on my Oscars coverage for this year. But tune back in next year for another edition of OUT FRONT Magazine’s Road to the Oscars.

Photo courtesy of Disney/Frank Micelotta