It is safe to assume that the vast majority of Hungarians were rooting for the same film at the 97th annual Academy Awards, taking place on 2 March in Los Angeles, California. The Brutalist, directed by Brady Corbet, follows the story of László Tóth, a Hungarian architect who flees from the horrors of the Holocaust to the United States.
As we explained in a previous article, Tóth is a fictional character, likely based on the blend of a number of Jewish Hungarian architects who fled to the US at the time, such as Marcel Lajos Breuer and Ernő Goldfinger. Dávid Jancsó, however, is a very real Hungarian man who worked as an editor for the film. He too was nominated in his respective category—but, alas, neither the film nor he ended up winning.
Instead, Anora was chosen for the Best Picture award by the Academy. This film is about Anora ‘Ani’ Mikheeva, a Russian American stripper living in New York City, New York. She gets involved with Ivan ‘Vanya’ Zakharov, the son of a Russian oligarch studying in the US, who originally pays her for her company, but proposes to her while the two are in Las Vegas, Nevada. The more cynical critics of the Academy’s choice compare this plot to that of the 1990 blockbuster comedy Pretty Woman starring Richard Gere and Julia Roberts.
Anora director Sean Baker also won the Oscar in the Best Director category, as well as in Dávid Jancsó’s category for Best Film Editing. However, Adrien Brody portraying the Hungarian architect in The Brutalist won the Best Actor award of the night. Meanwhile, Mikey Madison playing the titular character in Anora went home with the Best Actress award.
The Brutalist got two more wins at the 2025 Oscars. Composer Daniel Blumberg was honoured in the Best Original Score category for his work for the film; while the Best Cinematography award went to Lol Crawley, the cinematographer for The Brutalist.
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