Where to stream the 2025 Oscar winners, from ‘Anora’ to ‘Flow’

In a resounding win for American independent film, “Anora,” Sean Baker’s rambunctious comedy-drama about the marriage between a Brighton Beach sex worker and the son of a Russian oligarch, won five Oscars, including one for its lead actress, Mikey Madison, and a record-tying four for Baker, who took home statuettes for picture, director, editing and his original screenplay.

“Anora” and most of the other winners are available to rent on major platforms or subscription services, and the three winning shorts are only a click away, too, although the full Oscar shorts programs are still circulating in theaters across the country. The only films only available in theaters are the best international feature winner “I’m Still Here” and the documentary feature winner “No Other Land,” an Israeli-Palestinian co-production that’s finding its way to art houses around the United States without official distribution.

‘Anora’

(Won for: Best picture, director, actress, original screenplay, editing.)

Writer-director Sean Baker’s film concerns the whirlwind romance between a sex worker from Brighton Beach and the son of a Russian oligarch. It somehow channels both the madcap energy of classic screwball and the unfiltered emotion of John Cassavetes. Much of that liveliness is owed to Mikey Madison’s firecracker of a performance as Ani, a stripper whose time with a handsome young party animal, Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), at first seems like a “Pretty Woman” fantasy. But a quickie marriage draws attention from Ivan’s minders in the states and his parents abroad. Ani’s fight for their relationship, which turns literal at times, is alternately slapstick and touching.

How to watch: Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV+, Fandango at Home, Google Play and YouTube.

‘The Brutalist’

(Won for: Best actor, cinematography, score.)

Just as the unity of form and function is the goal of any great architect, Brady Corbet’s epic about the architectural vision of a Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor goes pointedly against the grain, from its 215-minute running time (with an intermission in theaters) to its use of VistaVision, a large-format process that hadn’t been used for a feature since 1961. As László Toth (Adrien Brody) emigrates to Philadelphia after the war and eventually finds work for a temperamental industrialist (Guy Pearce) with big plans for a community center, “The Brutalist” grows into a grand statement on the tension between art and commerce, and the compromise that often comes as a result. On that front, Corbet himself has unquestionably triumphed.

How to watch: Buy it on Amazon, Apple TV and Fandango at Home.

‘Conclave’

(Won for: Adapted screenplay.)

To the outside world, the selection of a new pope is a solemn and mysterious ritual that ends with white smoke emerging from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. In the lively drama “Conclave,” however, the gathering of the College of Cardinals is full of paranoia, back-stabbing and other political intrigue, as the direction of the Catholic Church naturally sets various cliques against each other. Ralph Fiennes stars as a cat-herder responsible for running the election through multiple ballots and ever-shifting alliances, all while the world outside the Vatican rumbles with violent discord.

How to watch: Stream it on Peacock. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, Google Play and YouTube.

‘Emilia Pérez’

(Won for: Best supporting actress, original song.)

Undeniably audacious in its plotting and conceit, Jacques Audiard’s musical about the wild odyssey of a transgender cartel boss in Mexico goes to places most movies wouldn’t dare, including a showstopper set during a transition surgery. Though stylish and briskly entertaining, “Emilia Pérez” is not short on other provocations, too, starting with the physical and moral transformation of a kingpin (Karla Sofía Gascón) who hires a lawyer (Zoe Saldaña) to arrange a new life to go along with her secret shift in gender identification. When she emerges as a philanthropist seeking to locate the bodies of cartel victims, her past sins inevitably (and toe-tappingly) collide with the present.

How to watch: Stream it on Netflix.

‘A Real Pain’

(Won for: Best supporting actor.)

In a performance that embodies the dual meaning of writer-director-star Jesse Eisenberg’s unsettling comedy-drama, Kieran Culkin carries over much of the agitation and unfiltered language that made him a standout as Roman Roy on HBO’s “Succession.” But there are distinct pockets of vulnerability to his character in “A Real Pain,” a lonely drifter who joins his cousin (Eisenberg) on a group tour of Polish-Jewish heritage sites in the wake of their grandmother’s death. His tendency to speak his mind even in the most delicate situations gives the film a high cringe factor, but his honesty has a profound impact on the people around him and he proves more sensitive to his surroundings than he appears to be.

How to watch: Stream it on Hulu. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, Google Play and YouTube.

‘Flow’

(Won for: Best animated feature.)

A few mainstream animated films like “WALL-E” and another 2025 nominee, “The Wild Robot,” have opened with wordless sequences that feel poetic and magisterial, but this experimental Latvian film about a cat’s incredible forest adventure has no talking animals and that makes all the difference. Setting simply rendered computer-generated creatures against a photorealistic backdrop, “Flow” follows its solitary feline hero as he’s whisked through a catastrophic flood, eventually landing on a boat where other survivors, like a sweet Labrador and a dazed capybara, have taken refuge. The totems of lost humanity are still present in this Noah’s Ark-level event, but the film keeps the focus on this small, scrappy community that’s forged by disaster.

How to watch: Stream it on Max. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV+ and Fandango at Home.

‘Wicked’

(Won for: Best production design, costume design.)

Splitting the Broadway musical hit into two parts seemed like a mercenary ploy that might make “Wicked” play like half a movie stretched perilously thin, but director Jon M. Chu, who most recently brought “In the Heights” to the screen, keeps his adaptation remarkably fleet afoot. Much of that buoyancy is owed to the mismatched buddy chemistry between Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba, a green-skinned loner with a talent for sorcery, and Ariana Grande as Glinda, a bubbly good-witch-to-be who befriends Elphaba at a university. As Glinda strains to boost the outcast among her peers, Elphaba starts to get a better sense of her powers and how they might be wielded in the Land of Oz.

How to watch: Buy it on Amazon, Apple TV, Fandango at Home, Google Play and YouTube.

‘The Substance’

(Won for: Best makeup and hairstyling.)

For Coralie Fargeat’s delectably nasty fusion of feminist satire and Cronenbergian body horror, Demi Moore draws on her past as one of the most glamorous stars of the ’80s to reveal the agonies of public women aging naturally. When her grotesque network boss (Dennis Quaid) marks her 50th birthday by firing her from a popular TV aerobics show, Elizabeth Sparkle (Moore) pursues a new technology that will allow her to coexist with a younger version of herself. But tension quickly develops between Elizabeth and this perky new creation (Margaret Qualley), sparking a metaphysical battle that takes a toll on both of them. The intoxications of celebrity and vanity play a role in “The Substance,” but the film is just as much about a society that sets women against each other — even if, in this case, they’re sort of the same woman.

How to watch: Stream it on Mubi. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV and Fandango at Home.

‘Dune: Part Two’

(Won for: Best sound, visual effects.)

After doing the vexing work of successfully bringing Frank Herbert’s novel to the screen with the first part of “Dune” in 2021, director Denis Villeneuve faces a complicated balancing act in “Dune: Part Two,” which contends with the potentially destructive consequences of its hero’s ascendence. Picking up after the powerful Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) joins forces with the Fremen, the native people of the resource-rich desert planet Arrakis, the film continues Paul’s education in leadership, including one thrilling ride atop a sandworm. But as Paul starts to meet the prophetic expectations of his most fervent followers, there are signs of a holy war that could have terrible consequences.

How to watch: Stream it on Max and Netflix. Rent it on Amazon, Apple TV+, Fandango at Home, Google Play and YouTube.

‘In the Shadow of the Cypress’

(Won for: Best animated short.)

Though the devastating effects of PTSD are the ostensible subject of this lovely, minimalist Iranian short, directors Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani address the issue from a wholly unexpected and affecting angle. As her father, a former naval captain, suffers an agonizing meltdown in his seaside home, a traumatized woman packs her suitcase and leaves, only to discover a beached whale suffering along the shoreline. Without a word of dialogue, “In the Shadow of the Cypress” follows their efforts to free the whale while delving deeper into the captain’s resurfacing trauma and his daughter’s conflicted feelings about tending to a man she loves but cannot control.

How to watch: Rent it on Vimeo.

‘The Only Girl in the Orchestra’

(Won for: Best documentary short.)

Under the direction of Leonard Bernstein, who called her double bass “a source of radiance,” Orin O’Brien made history in 1966 when she became the first woman ever to join the 104-piece New York Philharmonic Orchestra. “The Only Girl in the Orchestra,” directed by her niece, Molly O’Brien, pores through some of the sexist press clippings that greeted her appointment, like a male musician who said he couldn’t perform alongside such an attractive woman. But O’Brien isn’t interested in talking about herself as a trailblazer so much as sharing her love of music and of the double bass specifically, which helps unify and steady the contributions of other musicians.

How to watch: Stream it on Netflix.

‘I’m Not a Robot’

(Won for: Best live-action short)

Everyone who’s spent any time on the internet has encountered those irritating Captcha verification prompts that ask you to prove you’re not a robot by clicking on picture squares that contain, say, a traffic light or a crosswalk. And everyone fails that test once in a while. But this darkly funny Dutch science-fiction short, directed by Victoria Warmerdam, wonders what might happen if you fail the test repeatedly — and, perhaps, deservedly. That’s how Lara (Ellen Parren), a producer at a record company, kicks a bizarre existential odyssey to discover who she is, where she comes from and what she means to the people in her life. Through her experience, “I’m Not a Robot” scratches the intriguing surface of a dystopian world that looks an awful lot like our own.

How to watch: Stream it on YouTube.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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