The Oscars saw history last night with the tying of one of Walt Disney’s Oscar records but Walt still holds a big one in Academy history!
The Oscars are always notable for some fun records and achievements being made. The 2025 ceremony saw a few, such as Best Actor winner Adrian Brody, setting the record for the longest acceptance speech at five minutes and forty-five seconds.
In the Best Animated Feature category, Pixar's Inside Out 2 lost the award not to the favored The Wild Robot but the indie feature Flow in what many saw as the biggest upset of the night.
The ceremony was good, and host Conan O’Brien kept it going. However, Disney got some embarrassment as the live Hulu stream of the event was interrupted by the server crashing mid-way through. Worse, the live feed cut off at the scheduled time of 10:30 EST, right before the announcement of Best Actress.
Aside from that snafu, the Oscars did have some good moments. The big winner of the night was Anora as the indie dark romantic comedy scored five Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Original Screenplay for Sean Baker and Mikey Madison upset the favored Demi Moore for Best Actress.
It was a great night for the movie, and Baker was praised for his speech, which encouraged people to come back to theaters. It also meant Baker won four Oscars in one night, a record tying him with a certain Hollywood luminary we all know!
Walt Disney’s Oscar history
With his wins for Picture, Director, Screenplay and Film Editing, Sean Baker joined the elite club of men to win four Oscars in one night. The previous record of four was held by Walt Disney in 1954.
However, there’s one key difference: Walt had won those four Oscars for four different films and in categories that no longer exist. Back in Walt’s time, the Oscars were divided up into one or two-reel short films. Those were combined into simply one Live Action Short Film category in 1957.
So Walt’s wins in 1954 were for The Living Desert (Best Documentary Feature), The Alaskan Eskimo (Best Documentary Short Subject) Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (Best Short Subject Cartoon) and Bear Country (Best Short Subject Two-Reel).
Baker, however, has become the first person to win four Oscars in one night for the same film. That’s an incredible achievement that even legends like Francis Ford Coppola or Martin Scorsese can boast.
Of course, when it comes to the number of Oscar wins, Walt still tops everyone. He had 59 nominations and 26 wins over his career with an additional three honorary Oscars. That included a special one for Snow White and the Seven Dwarves that famously had a regular sized-Oscar with seven smaller statues.
Most of the wins were for the acclaimed True-Life Adventures documentary series that set the bar for wildlife documentaries. Others were for some animated shorts. As Walt was considered producer for every Disney production, he had a lot more opportunities for an Oscar than a standard studio chief.
Surprisingly, Walt’s only Best Picture nomination was for Mary Poppins. His final Oscar came for 1969’s Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day, putting Walt in the club to earn a posthumous award.
So it’s a big deal for Baker to set a new record over Walt yet Walt still holds a record for the number of Oscars that’s likely never going to be broken, no matter how many people try.