The fourth floor of the Wilson Student Union trembled on Monday as several pairs of film-loving knees hit the floor when multiple members of the Daily Trojan — including myself — wailed upon viewing Oscar nominations for the 2025 awards season. 

There were hits from every angle. Denis Villeneuve snubbed for directing. Jacques Audiard, director of “Emilia Pérez” (2024), was nominated for best director. “Nickel Boys” (2024) snubbed for cinematography. “Emilia Pérez” nominated for cinematography. “Challengers” (2024) receiving an astonishing zero nominations. “Emilia Pérez” with not only 13 nominations across the board, but also being the most-nominated film of the season as a result.

To put that into perspective, “Emilia Pérez,” a movie with a 21% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes and over 5,000 reviews, has the same number of Academy Award nominations as “Oppenheimer” (2023), the highest-grossing Best Picture winner in the past two decades.

If that wasn’t enough, “Wicked” (2024) was nominated for Best Original Score despite originating from a musical that has existed since 2003, while Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s innovative techno masterpiece for “Challengers” — a work that has arguably altered the cultural zeitgeist of what can be done with a cinematic soundtrack — has been left to age as gorgeously and unappreciated as Mike Faist’s character in the movie.

Don’t get me wrong, I love John Powell. But how is he just now being nominated for adapting a score alongside Stephen Schwartz — the original composer of the musical — when he wrote the scores for all three of the “How to Train Your Dragon” movies and received little to no major acclaim for them.

Overall, this year’s Oscars season feels like it’s being run by a hopeless older uncle who’s trying his best to meet you where you’re at, but somehow failing miserably in all the ways that count. Yes, we wanted more LGBTQIA+ representation in the nominated films. No, we did not want that in a film whose depiction of the transgender experience is so terrible that GLAAD felt the need to make a statement that identified it as doing more harm than good.

All the progress that “Challengers” made in normalizing a relatively complex representation of bisexuality — not to mention how it delivered Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor acting gay for pay alongside a pissed-off Zendaya as one of the most relevant pop culture moments of 2024 — has been undone by several of this year’s Oscar nominations.

We could have had Luca Guadagnino’s caring and heart-wrenching depictions of the LGBTQIA+ experience in either “Challengers” or “Queer” (2024) taking the main stage.

Instead, we’re left with the dating rumors swirling around Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo merely because of some awkward finger-holding and a French cisgender man’s take on a Mexican trans woman’s narrative that has been decried by Mexican audiences for its mishandling of such a sensitive subject. 

Yes, there have been some wins. A horror film starring 62-year-old Demi Moore and about the dangers of artificial anti-aging is nominated for Best Picture. Indie films like “Anora” (2024) and “Conclave” (2024) are getting their time in the spotlight. Colson Whitehead’s poignant, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and its film adaptation are getting the attention they deserve. Several of the nominees are also proud members of the LGBTQIA+ community, including Colman Domingo, Cynthia Erivo and Karla Sofía Gascón. And Conan O’Brien is hosting — thank god.

It’s also not as if there will be a shortage of interesting moments on Oscars night. For fans of the weird tension between former “Succession” co-stars Kieran Culkin and Jeremy Strong, you better believe some camera people will be keeping a lens on each of them for the duration of the night.

Not to mention, Timothée Chalamet has had an incredibly unique yet effective Oscar campaign that has set a new standard for Gen Z actors in contention for critical acclaim. 

Stunts like the bizarre, rave-like Instagram livestream with Bob Dylan songs blasting in the background to showing up as the first-ever guest on Brittany Broski’s “The Broski Report” or being both the host and musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” have all helped his chances of snagging Best Actor in a Leading Role.

And yet, each action that’s been met by the public with excitement has had an equal and opposite fumble that has left even the most fervent cinephiles hesitant to tune in to the ceremony’s proceedings on March 2, including me. I’ll likely be seated, but I’ll be grumbling to myself the entire time, reminiscing on the “I’m Just Ken” performance during the 2024 Academy Awards ceremony.

Anna Jordan is a sophomore writing about pop culture controversies in her column, “Chronically Online,” which runs every other Thursday. She is also the chief copy editor at the Daily Trojan.