“Emilia Pérez” leads the pack of nominees at the 2025 Academy Awards, racking in a total of 13.
The movie musical also swept the Golden Globes on Jan. 5, winning best motion picture in the musical or comedy category, as well as best motion picture (non-English language).
The Spanish-language operatic musical also won a Golden Globe for best original song and Zoe Saldaña took home an award for best supporting female actor in a motion picture.
The movie was written and directed by French filmmaker Jacques Audiard, who, when accepting awards at the Golden Globes, spoke through a translator.
“Emilia Pérez” stars Karla Sofía Gascón as a Mexican cartel kingpin who dreams of having gender-affirming surgery to live authentically as a woman.
Gascón, the first openly transgender woman to be nominated for a Globe for a leading film role, accepted the award for best motion picture in the musical comedy category on behalf of the cast and crew.
“Light always wins over darkness,” she said in a tearful speech. “You can maybe put us in jail, you can beat us up, but you never can take away our soul, our existence, and our identity.”
“Emilia Pérez” also stars Selena Gomez as Emilia’s wife, Jessi Del Monte, and Zoe Saldaña as a lawyer who helps Emilia fake her own death, as well as Adriana Paz and Édgar Ramírez.
In December, Gascón, who is from Spain, opened up about the “phenomenal” experience of portraying Emilia.
“It’s a dream role that is hard to find because it has so much depth, so much richness,” she told Netflix’s Tudum blog. “And for an actor to get into it, it needs a lot of dedication, and a lot of work because you have two voices that also sing with a Mexican accent. It is so huge.”
The movie isn’t without controversy, however. Critics have questioned how the movie, which is set in Mexico, was created by a French director and does not star Mexican actors in lead roles.
Mexican actor Adriana Paz, who plays Emilia’s lover, defended the movie in an interview with IndieWire.
“I’ve heard people saying it’s offensive to Mexico. I really want to know why, because I didn’t feel that way. And I have questioned some people that I trust, not just as artists but as people, and they don’t feel that way, so I am trying to understand,” Paz said, adding that she feels the movie’s director is a “genius.”
The movie has also sparked debate about the depiction of its transgender lead. Gascón has responded to people who call her “Emilia Pérez” character transphobic.
“There are some that say, ‘I want to see LGBTQ or trans characters outdoing what people do in real life,’ but we do bad things too … I don’t understand the criticism about the representation of portraying Emilia Pérez this way,” she told Vanity Fair in January. “The reality is that the trans experience is not the same for everybody — my trans experience is different from somebody else’s.”
How to watch ‘Emilia Pérez’
“Emilia Pérez” is currently available to stream on Netflix for those with a Netflix subscription.