It was always Brody. In an incredibly tight race, Adrien Brody pulled ahead at Oscars 2025, winning best actor for his performance as Hungarian archi
It was always Brody. In an incredibly tight race, Adrien Brody pulled ahead at Oscars 2025, winning best actor for his performance as Hungarian architect László Toth in The Brutalist. With his win, he joins the likes of Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Sean Penn, and Tom Hanks as one of the 11 actors to ever win at least two Academy Awards for best actor.
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“Thank you God,” said a visibly emotional Brody in his acceptance speech. “Thank you for this gift.”
It was anything but a foregone conclusion that Brody would be standing on that stage. Brody was nominated against A Complete Unknown’s Timothée Chalamet, Conclave’s Ralph Fiennes, Sing Sing’s Colman Domingo, and The Apprentice’s Sebastian Stan. As awards season unfolded, it became clear that best actor was a two-horse race between Brody and Chalamet—both of whom, coincidentally, are alumni of Manhattan’s “Fame” school, LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts.
Brody took home the bulk of the awards this award season, winning the Golden Globe for lead actor in a drama over Chalamet, as well as the BAFTA and Critics Choice Award for best actor. Chalamet, however, had a late-breaking moment when he won the SAG award for best actor over Brody last weekend, possibly a sign of shifting momentum heading into Oscars weekend. But ultimately, it was Brody’s award to lose, and The Brutalist star prevailed. Had Chalamet won the Oscar, he would have become the youngest best actor Oscar winner of all time, unseating the record set by Brody himself when he won the Oscar for The Pianist at 29 in 2003.
Not only is Brody’s record secure for the time being, but he has now entered an exclusive club of two-time lead actor winners. Only 10 other male actors have won two of those prizes, a feat that was most recently achieved by Anthony Hopkins, who took home his second best actor Oscar for The Father in 2021 after winning for The Silence of the Lambs in 1992.
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After winning his second Oscar, Brody seemed to reference the fact that he didn’t necessarily think he would ever be back accepting an Oscar. “The one thing that I’ve gained having the privilege to come back here is to have some perspective. No matter what you’ve gained… it can all go away,” he said.
Brody thanked CAA, A24, Focus Features, and Universal when the orchestra began to play him off. Brody, however, was not having it. “Please turn the music off I’ve done this before, thank you,” he said to the crowd. He continued, thanking his parents and referencing his films subject matter. I’m here once again to represent the lingering traumas of war and systematic oppression and of antisemitism and racism and of othering,” he said. “I pray for a healthier and happier and a more inclusive world and I believe if the past can teach us anything its a reminder to not let hate go unchecked.”
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