Mikey Madison and Adrien Brody win big, and all the other Jewish moments of the 2025 Academy Awards.

By Evelyn Frick

March 3, 2025

Photos by Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images and Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic via Getty Images

Throughout the Academy Awards’ long history, plenty of Jewish actors, actresses and filmmakers have taken home the highest honors the film industry has to bestow. But at last night’s 97th Oscars ceremony, only for the third time in history were both the Best Actor and Best Actress categories won by Jewish performers when Adrien Brody won for “The Brutalist” and Mikey Madison won for “Anora.” The last time this happened was in 1987 when Paul Newman won the Oscar for “The Color of Money” and Marlee Matlin won for “Children of a Lesser God;” and the first time was at the 9th Academy Awards in 1937 when Paul Muni won for “The Story of Louis Pasteur” and Luise Rainer won for “The Great Ziegfeld.”

And while Brody and Madison’s awards were perhaps the most significant Jewish wins of the night, they weren’t the only ones. Here are all the best Jewish moments from the 2025 Oscars:

1. Adam Sandler’s cameo in the host monologue

Leave it to the Sandman to wear basketball shorts and a hoodie to the Academy Awards. During his monologue, host Conan O’Brien jokingly called out the Jewish comedian for being underdressed to the ceremony, though Adam Sandler was clearly only there for the bit anyway. “You know what, Conan? I like the way I look, ’cause I’m a good person,” Sandler said, pulling the mensch card in his iconic character voice. He then announced that he and his “snazzy gym shorts and fluffy sweatshirt” were leaving, to protestations for the crowd. Before he left, however, he invited everyone in the audience to a game of 5v5 basketball at midnight, mispronounced “Nosferatu” as “Nosterafu” and hugged Timothée Chalamet, uttering, “CHALAMEEEETTTT.”

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2. Kieran Culkin’s award season sweep of the Best Supporting Actor category for “A Real Pain”

No, Best Supporting Actor winner Kieran Culkin is not Jewish. But as Jewish comic Orli Matlow said on BlueSky last night, “Mazel tov Kieran Culkin, a goy I grant a waiver to play Jewish because we know he had a traumatic childhood.” Culkin won his first Academy Award last night for his portrayal of troubled Jewish 30-something Benji Kaplan in Jesse Eisenberg’s Holocaust-generational-trauma dark comedy “A Real Pain.” To win the award, he beat out former “Succession” castmate Jeremy Strong who played Jewish lawyer Roy Cohn in “The Apprentice.” Strong doesn’t identify as Jewish, but his father and grandfather are both Jewish.

Though Jesse Eisenberg was himself nominated in the Best Original Screenplay category, Culkin’s win gave “A Real Pain” its only Academy Award of the night. As Lior Zaltzman wrote for Kveller, “A Real Pain” is a “masterful” Holocaust movie, and it is absolutely deserving of more recognition from the Academy then it got. But an Oscar is an Oscar, so thank you Kieran Culkin for making “A Real Pain” an Oscar-winning film.

3. Jewish actors Andrew Garfield and Goldie Hawn present Best Animated Film

Truth be told, this moment between Jewish actors Andrew Garfield and Goldie Hawn was a bit cringe. Garfield was clearly trying to have an authentic, bittersweet chat about how Goldie’s acting gave comfort to his mother while she was dying. And Goldie… really did not match his energy. Still, it’s always nice to see different generations of Jewish talent next to each other. And Garfield was able to have a more wholesome meeting of the minds with “The Social Network” co-star Jesse Eisenberg at the Vanity Fair Oscars party.

4. Jewish actors June Squibb and ScarJo present Best Makeup and Hairstyling

There were plenty of funny bits during last night’s Oscars. But perhaps the most unexpected and delightful came when Jewish actresses June Squibb and Scarlett Johansson presented the award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. (Squibb converted to Judaism in the 1950s.) “I got up at 6am just so [makeup artists] could do my makeup in a way that looks like I didn’t actually do my makeup,” ScarJo quipped to the audience. “I got a little makeup done too,” Squibb responded, “And I’m actually being played by Bill Skarsgård right now.”

“You mean the guy from ‘Nosferatu’ and the clown from ‘It’?” Johnsson questioned. “Yeah, and June Squibb at the Oscars,” Squibb added. Once again, June Squibb proves with her signature deadpan that she isn’t funny in spite of being 95, she’s 95 years old and absolutely hilarious. This bit is also a sign that if you haven’t seen her play a kickass Jewish grandma in “Thelma,” the time is now.

5. Ben Stiller presents Best Production Design

Is Ben Stiller reheating Sabrina Carpenter’s nachos, which were Goldie Hawn’s nachos to begin with, with this set-malfunction gag? As some are pointing out online, perhaps. (If you, like I, needed an explainer on the whole “reheated nachos” slang, here you go.) But hey, a funny bit is a funny bit and the Jewish actor and comedian sells the heck out of it. As Ben Stiller starts to come into view on stage, the raised platform clearly is having some technical difficulties, and he becomes stuck with only his upper torso and head in view. “Production design,” he begins announcing the awards, eliciting laughter, “it is a field where the slightest miscalculation could lose the trust of the audience and humiliate the performers onscreen.” The son of legendary comedy duo Stiller and Meara eventually hopped up and down from underneath the stage to try to announce the winner, before finally getting to the microphone.

Afterwards, in what is perhaps the most Jewish New Yorker behavior of all time, Stiller tweeted about the New York Knicks win while still at the Oscars.

6. Israeli-Palestinian film “No Other Land” wins best Documentary Feature

Perhaps the most poignant moment of the evening was when “No Other Land,” a film which shows Israel’s demolition of Palestinian homes in the West Bank village of Masafer Yatta, won for Best Documentary Feature Film. The movie was made by a team of Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers, Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Hamdan Ballal and Rachel Szor. In their acceptance speech, Adra and Abraham both spoke, and emphasized the hope for future peace and justice, as well as Israeli-Palestinian solidarity.

Adra, a Palestinian activist from the West Bank, spoke first: “About two months ago I became a father, and my hope to my daughter: that she will not have to live the same life I am living now, always feeling settler violence, home demolitions and forceful displacement that my community, Masafer Yatta, is living and facing every day under the Israeli occupation. ‘No Other Land’ reflect the harsh reality we have been enduring for decades and still resist as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.”

Co-director and journalist Yuval Abraham then began his speech: “We make this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voice is stronger. We see each other: The atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end. The Israeli hostages, brutally taken in the crime of Oct. 7, which must be freed. When I look at Basel, I see my brother. But we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control.”

He closed: “Here is a different path, a political solution, without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people. And I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path. Why? Can’t you see that we are intertwined? That my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe? There is another way. It’s not too late for life, for the living.”

7. Jewish composer Daniel Blumberg wins Best Score

Shockingly, “The Brutalist,” the three-and-a-half-hour long epic about a Holocaust survivor and architect, only nabbed three Oscar wins out of its 10 nominations. But one of the wins went to British-Jewish composer Daniel Blumberg for his majestic and sweeping original score. “I’ve definitely become more aware of my Jewish heritage as I’ve grown older,” Blumberg told the Jewish Chronicle in 2020. “I was quite dismissive of it before, but I’ve definitely realized it’s a bigger part of me.” In the interview, he added that some of his music is inspired by nigguns and chazanut, or cantorial singing.

8. Adrien Brody wins Best Actor

22 years ago, Adrien Brody, then himself 29, won the Best Actor Academy Award for playing Jewish pianist and Holocaust survivor Władysław Szpilman in “The Pianist.” So Brody’s win last night, this time for portraying fictional architect and Holocaust survivor László Tóth, felt like déjà vu in the best way. (Notably, he did not pull Cillian Murphy, who presented the award, into a passionate kiss, like he did with presenter Halle Berry in 2003. Berry, on the other hand, did give Brody his own smack on the lips on the Red Carpet.) During his five-minute-and-40-second speech, the longest in Oscar history, Brody thanked his parents, his partner Georgina and the “real László Tóth,” aka Jewish production designer Judy Becker.

“I’m here once again,” Brody told the crowd, “to represent the lingering traumas and the repercussions of war, and systematic oppression and of antisemitism and racism and of othering, and I believe that I pray for a healthier and a happier and a more inclusive world, and I believe if the past can teach us anything, it’s a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.”

9. Mikey Madison wins Best Actress

Last night was clearly “Anora”‘s night, with the Sean Baker film taking home five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Editing and, of course, Best Actress for Mikey Madison. Looking stunning in a pink-and-black Dior gown, the Jewish actress thanked her family (including twin brother Miles), Sean Baker, the cast, the Brighton Beach community and, most notably, the sex worker community. “I will continue to support and be an ally, all of the incredible people, the women, that I’ve had the privilege of meeting from that community has been one of the highlights of this entire incredible experience,” she said.

Though “Anora” is not explicitly Jewish, the movie takes place in the extremely Russian-Jewish New York neighborhood of Brighton Beach and features both Mikey Madison and Russian Jewish actor Mark Edelshteyn. No word yet from Mikey Madison on how an Oscar compares to the “Anora” menorah.

10. The real “When Harry Met Sally” reunion was the Best Picture announcement

Sure, Meg Ryan and Jewish comedian Billy Crystal had a questionable “When Harry Met Sally” reunion for a Super Bowl commercial about mayo, of all things. But to Hey Alma, this is the real “When Harry Met Sally” reunion. The pair entered the stage to Harry Connick Jr.’s “It Had to Be You” and exchanged some playful banter about Crystal who “used to work here,” in reference to the fact that he has hosted the Oscars nine times. When Ryan said they should cut to the chase, Crystal nodded to the famous line from the movie: “Because when you have a chance of being an Oscar winner for the rest of your life, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5688334&forum_id=2Elisa#48710533)