Conan O’Brien to Host 2025 Oscars: “America Demanded It!”

Emmy-winning comedian, writer, producer and former late-night host Conan O’Brien is your host for the 97th Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today.

“America demanded it and now it’s happening: Taco Bell’s new Cheesy Chalupa Supreme. In other news, I’m hosting the Oscars,” O’Brien jokingly remarked.

“We are thrilled and honored to have the incomparable Conan O’Brien host the Oscars this year,” Academy CEO Bill Kramer and president Janet Yang said in a joint statement. “He is the perfect person to help lead our global celebration of film with his brilliant humor, his love of movies and his live TV expertise. His remarkable ability to connect with audiences will bring viewers together to do what the Oscars do best — honor the spectacular films and filmmakers of this year.”

The show’s returning executive producers, Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan, said, “Conan has all the qualities of a great Oscars host — he is incredibly witty, charismatic and funny and has proven himself to be a master of live event television,” they said. “We are so looking forward to working with him to deliver a fresh, exciting and celebratory show for Hollywood’s biggest night.” Both Kapoor and Mullan recently won Emmys for Outstanding Variety Special (Live) for the 96th Oscars, its first win there ever.

Over his career, the 61-year-old O’Brien has been nominated for 31 Emmys, winning five. He is best known, of course, for having hosted late-night talk shows, beginning with Late Night with Conan O’Brien (1993–2009) his brief stint with The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien (2009–2010) on the NBC television network, and Conan (2010–2021) on the cable channel TBS. Before his hosting career, O’Brien was a writer for the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live from 1988 to 1991, and the Fox animated sitcom The Simpsons from 1991 to 1993. He has also been host of the podcast series Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend since 2018 and starred in the 2024 travel show Conan O’Brien Must Go on Max.

Nominations for the upcoming Academy Awards will be announced on January 17, 2025. The Oscars will take place at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood and will be broadcast live to more than 200 territories worldwide on Sunday, March 2, 2025, at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT, with the official live red carpet show airing at 6:30 p.m. ET/3:30 p.m. PT.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.

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