When Conan O’Brien emerged onto the stage at the 2025 Oscars for his opening monologue, he did so in a rather unusual way: by crawling out of Demi Moore’s spine in a morbid homage to Best Picture nominee The Substance. How else was he supposed to follow up Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo’s stunning performance of “Defying Gravity”?
After that bit of body horror, O’Brien delivered a classic Oscars opening monologue. “A Complete Unknown. A Real Pain. Nosferatu. These are just some of the names I was called on the red carpet.”
The jokes were funny but not too mean. In fact, one could say O’Brien was a perfectly non-threatening choice for an Oscar ceremony shrouded in some controversy. Yes, there was a joke about Emilia Pérez‘s Karla Sofía Gascón, who was in attendance. “Karla, if you are going to tweet about the Oscars, my name is Jimmy Kimmel,” he said to uncertain cheers in the audience. And to Netflix, he added, “Netflix leads nominations with a total of 18 price increases.”
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O’Brien also commented on the industry’s most hot-button topic: AI. “We did not use AI to make this show,” he said. “We would never do that. We used child labor. Hey, they’re still people!”
In a moment of sincerity — the first of many throughout the night, I’m sure — O’Brien took time to honor the city of Los Angeles and the craftspeople who make the movies so magical.
And, of course, he concluded the monologue with a song-and-dance number featuring the sandworm from Dune: Part Two playing “Chopsticks” on the piano and a dancing Deadpool.
