What 2025 Oscar Wins Mean for Trends in Screenwriting
written by Ella Henke
If you missed the Oscars, don’t worry – rumour has it Adrien Brody’s still on stage accepting his award for Best Actor. (We tease – congratulations to Adrien on a fantastic performance!) Aside from the internet’s most talked about celebrity moments, there’s a lot to be learned from awards season. As writers, we can take the wins of the night and use them to understand more about the kinds of stories the industry is responding to.
So, let’s break down what this year’s Oscar films tell us about current trends in film writing.
MISSED THE BIG NIGHT? HERE’S A RUNDOWN OF THE WINNERS:
Sean Baker’s hugely popular Cinderella-story-gone-wrong ANORA came out on top, scooping up the most wins, including Best Picture, Best Director for Baker, and Best Actor for breakout star Mikey Madison.
ANORA also won Best Original Screenplay, while CONCLAVE, based on Robert Harris’ 2016 novel of the same name, won Best Adapted Screenplay.
Immersive epic DUNE: PART TWO took home both Best Sound and Best Visual Effects, while box office hit WICKED defied gravity with Best Production Design and Best Costume Design.
ORIGINAL CONTENT COMES OUT ON TOP
A story about a sex worker from Brighton Beach, New York sweeping the Oscars came as a bit of a surprise to viewers. But ANORA’s success highlights the demand for original content, even in the age of intellectual property. While revivals and reboots dominate today’s film market, there is still a large audience hungry for stories as fresh and raw as ANORA.
As emerging writers, the emphasis placed on stories derived from existing IP can sometimes feel limiting. However, ANORA reminds us that unconventional, original stories can always break through and find an audience if they’re charming enough.
STORIES WITH A SOCIAL CONSCIENCE WANTED
ANORA’s non-exploitative representation of sex workers and Best Animated Feature FLOW’s thinly veiled allegory for the refugee boat crisis highlights the desire for films with a social commentary at their core.
It can sometimes feel daunting to tackle social issues in your own writing, but there’s no need to shy away from them. The industry is drawn to stories that reflect our off-screen world and engage audiences with topics that mean something to them.
Research plays a big part in pulling this off. For example, ANORA’s screenwriter Sean Baker doesn’t have lived experience as a sex worker, but he has often credited the authentic feeling of his films to the real-life people he researches and oftentimes street casts. If you do your homework, you can explore whole microcosms that may have little to do with your own reality.
COMMERCIAL AND CRITICAL ACCLAIM BLEND
The 97th Academy Awards was a night where the commercial and the critical met. Just as the 3-and-a-half-hour post-war epic THE BRUTALIST and charming indie A REAL PAIN did well, so too did box office giants WICKED and DUNE: PART TWO.
This could perhaps be attributed to the role the Internet now plays in the film market, in the sense that a film is often only as big at the box office as it is pervasive on our social media feeds. WICKED’s memeable press tour and DUNE’s leading heartthrob, Timothee Chalamet, were just as key to their respective success as ANORA’s viral film screenings held for real sex workers.
There seems to be a noticeable shift in the Academy recognizing more films that have a healthy online presence and box office performance.
While writers may not be in control of their film’s campaign buzz, you can try to write scripts that will appeal to a wider audience through universal themes while still nurturing the specificity that makes your story unique.
CLOSE-TO-HOME SUBJECT MATTERS
This year’s Oscars placed value on stories that didn’t stray too far from home, or from real-world subject matters. Whether it was Ali Abbasi’s nominated THE APPRENTICE, or ANORA’s arguably political metaphor for fighting a higher Russian power or Sam and David Cutler-Kreutz’ short film A LIEN about ICE targeting immigrants going through the green card process, it was clear this year’s Oscar films were grounded somewhere in the real world. This serves as a reminder that we can successfully draw from current news cycles and discourses in our own writing to capture an audience. Inspiration may be closer than you think.
And with that, the curtains have closed on Awards Season. What industry trends or observations did you spot while watching the Oscars? And how might they inform your next project?
We hope this season’s winners have left you feeling inspired to write the kinds of stories that will one day sweep up awards of their own.
Have a feature screenplay you’re currently working on? Our 2025 Feature Contest reopens in May, so now’s the time to get some coverage if you’re looking to get one more draft in. Our coverage service offers a range of options from 3-page reports on features to a comprehensive proofread of your complete script. Find a full breakdown of our coverage here. We can’t wait to read your work!
Ella is a lover of all things storytelling. When she’s not conducting market research at her part-time job as a movie theatre usher, she’s interning at Shore Scripts or hunched over Final Draft. So far, her scripts tell coming-of-age tales that are seemingly about very little but show seismic shifts in her character’s growing worlds. You can find her at ellahenke.com.