Oscars 2025 live: Anora, Wicked and Emilia Pérez pick up early awards as Dune wins for sound and visual effects

Lol Crawley gets The Brutalist’s first award of the night. He’s accosted by a million well-wishers on his way to the microphone, and then panics because he won’t have time to get through his speech. But he does it. What a champ.

Stuart Heritage

For best cinematography, they’re going down the costume route and getting performers from each nominated film to floridly pay tribute to each nominated cinematographer. If you want to pop out and make a cuppa, you’ve probably got a few minutes here.

Stuart Heritage

Although, now I think of it, I’m not sure that ending an In Memoriam segment with a prompt to scan a QR code is necessarily the graceful touch the Oscars think it is.

Gwilym Mumford

Ahead of the In Memoriam segment, Morgan Freeman paid personal tribute to Gene Hackman, who was found dead this week:

“This week our community lost a giant,” Freeman said. “And I lost a dear friend – Gene Hackman. I had the pleasure of working alongside Gene on two films: Unforgiven and Under Suspicion. Like everyone who has ever shared a scene with him, I learned he was a generous performer and a man who elevated everyone’s work. He won two Oscars and won hearts of people around the world. Gene told me, ‘I don’t think about legacy, I just hope people will remember me as someone who did good work.’ Gene, you’ll be remembered for that and so much more. Rest in peace, my friend.”

Stuart Heritage

This is a very traditional In Memoriam. Nothing flashy, just a lot of (big) names and sad music. It did the job.

Stuart Heritage

Here’s Morgan Freeman now, paying tribute to Gene Hackman. It’s as heartfelt as you can get, and it plays to absolute silence. And it is a prelude to the In Memoriam section.

Stuart Heritage

And they were played off just as they were expressing their love for each other. Perfect timing.

I’m Not a Robot wins live action short

Stuart Heritage

Victoria Warmerdam and Trent accept the award and, the way things are going, they had better be snappy before their mics get cut off.

Gwilym Mumford

There has been a widespread assumption that Dune: Part Two’s Oscar chances had been hampered by the fact that there’s another instalment to come: no one wants to hand a prize to the middle film in a trilogy. So it’s good that it at least has managed a few below-the-line awards. In fact it’s now at the top of the leaderboard with Emilia Pérez and Anora.

Still I wonder if that third Dune film is going to do as well at the Oscars as people might expect. By all accounts the source material is pretty loopy: