Your 2025 Oscars Drinking Game

Chug every time Karla Sofia Gascón tweets about Hitler!

Welcome to The #Content Report, a newsletter by Vince Mancini. I’ve been writing about movies, culture, and food since the late aughts. Now I’m delivering it straight to you, with none of the autoplay videos, takeover ads, or chumboxes of the ad-ruined internet. Support my work and help me bring back the cool internet by subscribing, sharing, commenting, and keeping it real.

—

ABC

The Oscars. We love them, don’t we folks? Tremendous glitz, unbelievable glamour. The stars? They’re not in tonight, I’ll tell you that.

The telecast (not including red carpet stuff) will begin at 7pm/4pm eastern/pacific time this Sunday, March 2nd. That’s actually eight days earlier than last year’s telecast. Too early! Snuck up on me this year! It airs on ABC and also Hulu. Your host? (*Don Pardo voice*) Conan O’Brien!

This will be Conan’s first time hosting, which is surprising considering what an obvious choice he seems like now. He seems maybe a little too nice to make some of the jokes I want an Oscars host to make, but everyone ends up hating whoever hosts the Oscars anyway. And part of me does get a little excited thinking about people trying to hate Conan O’Brien, the guy no one ever admits hating. (Me? Love Conan, but I’m sick of the hair. What are you, a cartoon character? You’re 61, man! It’s time for a new haircut.)

The Presenters

Joe Alwyn, Dave Bautista, Halle Berry, Sterling K. Brown, Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Ana de Armas, Lily-Rose Depp, Robert Downey Jr., Elle Fanning, Harrison Ford, Gal Gadot, Andrew Garfield, Whoopi Goldberg, Selena Gomez, Goldie Hawn, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson, John Lithgow, Cillian Murphy, Connie Nielsen, Amy Poehler, Margaret Qualley, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Alba Rohrwacher, Zoe Saldaña, June Squibb, Ben Stiller, Emma Stone, Oprah Winfrey, Bowen Yang, and Rachel Zegler. (source)

By the way, when I copied this over from the official website, I had to remove “Disney Legend” title before a few people’s names. I love that Disney is so self-important that they think they can give aristocratic titles like they’re the Queen of England. Fuck outta here, Disney. I watched Inside Out again the other night and it still sucks.

The Performers

Doja Cat, Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, LISA of Blackpink, Queen Latifah, RAYE, Los Angeles Master Chorale.

I recognize a few of those names! Should’ve thrown Kid Rock in there, just to really pander to jug-hooting Americans. What happened to proper four-quadrant awards shows? Give me Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande defying gravity followed by Kid Rock shooting up a case of Bud Light with an AR-15 to support banning trans people from Space Force. Land of contrasts.

Before we get to the drinking game, here are some basic predictions: people will want to joke about Karla Sofia Gascón and the Emilia Pérez controversy, but that will be a little too spicy, and so there will be lots of jokes about Wicked and holding space for Defying Gravity. People will want to bring up Palestine, but that’s very dangerous territory in the entertainment industry, so they’ll bring up Ukraine a lot instead. The LA fires will be a nice, non-controversial avenue for philanthropic sentiment.

The Drinking Game

The Basics

A drink is… a drink. Maybe it’s a gulp, maybe it’s “a finger,” just be consistent. And smaller drinks for harder alcohol, duh. Don’t hurt yourselves. If you’re a non or former drinker, like Matt and most of my comedian friends, just replace drinks with Skittles. And instead of “finish your drink,” “finish the bag” and whatnot. If you’re underage, you can do whip-its or something. I’ve heard booze is out, but whip-its are back in a big way. It’s the pass-out game of drugs! (I’m only joking of course, no one under 21 watches the Oscars).

Serious Topics

Reference to the fires, one drink. Two drinks if it includes the word “devastation.”

Reference to Ukraine, one drink.

Acceptance speech referencing Trump, Elon, or funding for the arts, one drink.

Anti-Semitism, two drinks. “Worldwide,” or “college campuses,” finish your drink.

Palestine, Israel, or Gaza, finish your drink.

“DOGE?” Waterfall. Person with the alphabetically first name starts, don’t stop until the person to your left stops drinking.

Joke Rules

Joke about Wicked? One drink.

“Holding space for…” Finish your drink.

Joke about Emilia Pérez, or vetting tweets, waterfall.

Any reference to Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, smear campaigns, or It Ends with Us, social. Last person to shout “Baldoni!” has to finish their drink.

(I think there will be jokes about Elon, Tesla, and Cybertrucks too, but I don’t want to kill you).

The Chalamet Lightning Round

Why do I feel like there are going to be a lot of reaction shots of Timothée Chálámét? He’s in multiple nominated movies and up for best actor (as is Sebastian Stan, but just barely). And no Martin Scorsese movies this year, so no “Marty” rule. Ergo, the Timothee Chalamet Lightning Round.

A crowd shot of Timothee Chalamet begins the Timothee Chalamet Lightning Round. During the Timothee Chalamet Lightning, all one and two drink rules are doubled. Round ends with the next crowd shot of Timothee Chalamet.

Okay, I think that’s enough rules for this year.