The 97th Annual Academy Awards took place last night, on Sunday March 2nd. It’s been two years since the legendary 2023 Oscars that saw “Naatu Naatu” from RRR win Best Song, and Guneet Monga win Best Documentary Short Film for The Elephant Whisperers.

This year’s Oscars saw four movies with South Asian representation nominated for a sleuth of awards. The nominations included Suchitra Mattai, Adam Graves and Guneet Monga for Anuja, David Taghioff for Emilia Pérez, David Taghioff for I'm Still Here, and Smriti Mundhra for I Am Ready, Warden.

David Taghioff, producer of Best International Feature winner from Brazil I’m Still Here, saw the only South Asian success of the night. Taghioff also produced Best International Feature and Best Picture nominee Emilia Pérez. 

Before the 2025 awards, 22 Indians have previously been nominated and 11 have won Oscars. This includes awards across categories that are technical in nature. The Oscars have constantly been criticized for a lack of representation for minorities, especially Asian and Latino creatives. 

South Asian representation on TV has increased somewhat recently. The 2020-2021 TV season report indicated that South Asian men actually reached a share of screen close to their share of the U.S. population, at 2.3%. This number was 0.3% share of screen for South Asian women, however.

Representation in film still lacks, however. The 2021 USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative's research found that between 2007 and 2019, the 1,300 top-grossing films had only 11 (or 0.85%) South Asian leads. Not a single one of the South Asian leads was female. 

South Asian representation in Hollywood can be a precarious topic, with many creatives often left uncredited for their contributions to the industry. Moreover, once representation is found, misrepresentations and stereotypes are often abound with many debating the merits of inaccurate representation versus no representation at all. 

Despite not seeing much award success this year, South Asian creatives nominated for Academy Awards gathered on February 26th to celebrate the diaspora’s much-needed representation. Guests included Mindy Kaling, Lilly Singh, Poorna Jagannathan, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Jay Shetty. 

Producer of Anuja, Suchitra Mattai, spoke at the event about the need to “share the stories and voices of people who haven’t been heard before.”