Adrien Brody's Oscars Speech Sets New Record

The 97th Academy Awards on March 3, 2025 marked a historic milestone as Adrien Brody exceeded an 82-year-old record for the longest Oscars acceptance speech with his five minutes and forty second speech. At the Best Actor acceptance for his role as Laszlo Toth in The Brutalist Adrien Brody delivered a speech lasting five minutes and forty seconds thereby breaking Greer Garson's 82-year-old record established in 1943 for her performance in Mrs. Miniver. Brody delivered a historic five minutes and forty second acceptance speech at the Dolby Theatre during the March 2nd 2025 gala event that extended to four hours.

During his acceptance speech at the Oscars the 51-year-old actor emphasized briefness several times before breaking the 45-second guideline that the Academy had established. Despite the orchestra building to pressure him to stop, Brody commanded "Please, turn the music off. I've done this before," said Brody, before continuing for another 90 seconds. His 558-word speech received varied opinions from viewers as it was viewed as deep by some while others considered it too long during an Oscar ceremony

The recognition of Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown) and Ralph Fiennes (Conclave) in Best Actor categories reinforced The Brutalist as a leading film while awarding Best Original Score and Cinematography along with Brody’s victory. The act of tossing gum toward Georgina Chapman before his stage entry generated equal public excitement to his record-breaking acceptance speech. ABC and Hulu viewership dropped to 18.1 million during the episode while social media response fluctuated between admiration and criticism. This entertainment event reached fewer viewers than the previous year when 19.5 million people joined the broadcast.