7 Biggest Winners and Losers of the 2025 Oscars

I watched the 2025 Oscars on Sunday night, well, most of it. The Minnesota Timberwolves and Phoenix Suns game started at 9:30—and by that point, I noticed I hadn’t actually seen any of the nominated movies, so it felt right to move on.

HOWEVER, I watched enough. I got the gist.

Let’s quickly do some winners and losers so we can get to What We Watchin Wednesday.

Winner: Conan O’Brien

“A Complete Unknown…A Real Pain…Nosferatu…these were just some of the names I was called on the red carpet.”

—Conan O’Brien during his Oscars monologue pic.twitter.com/ncMZk3PPby

— Spencer Althouse (@SpencerAlthouse) March 3, 2025

Conan’s superpower is his ability to turn into Bugs Bunny, tricking Elmer Fudd into shooting himself in the face or openly mocking Karla Sofía Gascón’s toxic digital footprint.

He’s always felt as if he’d rather make fun of himself than others. Working for Conan must be the dream job. You get paid to roast your boss all day, although, I reckon I’ve done that at every job I’ve ever had anyway.

In past years, the host went up there insulting actors, shifting the vibe in the room from celebratory to cautious—forcing everyone to walk on eggshells to avoid stepping on a rake of pretentiousness the host began the program making the audience hyper-aware of.

Sometimes, the host would be so antagonistic, Will Smith would smack them into concussion protocol.

In a world where most of the comedians we grew up idolizing have become uptight, standoffish, reactionary weirdos, desperate to fight an imaginary war against censorship or whatever—Conan O’Brien demonstrated the secret of great comedy: be funny.

Losers: Whoever goes against Jeremy Strong next year

The Best Supporting Actor Award was given to Kieran Culkin—who went on stage and praised his Succession co-star, and fellow nominee, Jeremy Strong.

But from the moment his name wasn’t called, Jeremy appeared to turn into the Joker. I could see his brain formulating plans to poison Gotham’s water supply.

Jeremy Strong is the type of actor—who if cast in the role of Ronald McDonald—would spend 6 months living in a McDonald’s ball pit.

If art is suffering, Jeremy Strong is more prolific than Picasso.

This loss is about to send Jeremy Strong into the best acting performance we’ve ever witnessed. The world is about to change.

Winner Kylie Jenner

Kylie Jenner’s had a weird life.

As a young girl, fame was thrust upon her by a family of carnies—including her Olympian father who is now her bigoted mother, rushing to Fox News to make sure life is harder for people like her.

Tyga was basically waiting outside of her crib like a dingo, slow-cooking her like a pot roast for 18 years so he could legally date her.

Then she had a child with Travis Scott named Stormi, while porn star Stormy Daniels was in the news for her relationship with Donald Trump. She named her child after a 90s VHS porn star. And I don’t even think it was a conscious decision. It’s like when I suddenly want Dominos because I’ve inadvertently internalized the 7 Dominos commercials I watched throughout the day.

And now she’s a billionaire, plus-one-ing the Oscars with Timothee Chalamet—one of the most respected actors in a room full of respected actors—all while the father of her child spent the weekend with The Rock and John Cena.

Good for Kylie.

Winner: Zoe Saldana

Around the holidays, I saw Zoe Saldana in a T-Mobile iPhone commercial and thought to myself “This woman is gorgeous, I wish she starred in better movies”.

Then I watched Emilia Perez and thought to myself “This woman is gorgeous, I wish she starred in better movies”.

I have no doubts Zoe put her all into this role like Leonardi DiCaprio dragging his body through snow in The Revenant for his Oscar. Effort should be rewarded. Good for her winning an Academy Award and immediately bursting into tears.

Zoe Saldana *needed* this. After a career of painting her skin every color, she finally got her Sally Field “You like me” moment for a movie most people don’t like.

Loser: Israel

For years, it seemed as though any criticisms of Israel could end your career but recently, the discourse has shifted so much that we’ve gone from celebrities doing the bare minimum with their little “Ceasefire” pins—implying the hellscape in Gaza would be remedied by a friendly handshake between neighbors—to now documentaries like No Other Land wining Oscars as more and more people recognize the asymmetrical power imbalance between the wealthy nation fueled by American dollars in perpituaty and the nation under their thumb that is, like, a month away from being removed from the map and turned into a Vegas strip, flooded with Trump Towers and casinos.

Winner: Demi Moore

I haven’t seen Anora yet but I trust the good things I’ve heard. Congrats to Mikey Madison for winning Best Actress.

Typically, the Academy is preferential to older talent, under the belief younger actors will have more future opportunities to return so it’s dope they didn’t get cute this year and just gave it to the woman they deemed most deserving.

But I want to say congrats to Demi Moore—who for the first time in her career, had a performance that made fans genuinely believe she deserves an Oscar. She may have lost to Mikey Madison—thus living the plot of The Substance in real life—but like Zoe Saldana, Demi gained the respect of her peers and can now put her full focus on her true love: collecting dolls.

Loser: Me, caring about The Wild Robot

11pm, me weeping while watching The Wild Robot—a movie about a service robot accidentally landing in the wilderness and raising a baby bird to adulthood. Only for The Wild Robot to lose Best Animated Film. All those tears for nothing.

#Justice4TheWildRobot