And the Oscar goes to… How Adobe tools helped make 2025’s winners for Best Picture, Best Editing, Best Visual Effects and more this awards season

Image credit: Adobe Stock/ santima.

On March 2, Sean Baker made Oscars history, becoming the first person to win four Academy Awards in a single year for the same film. Baker took home awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Screenplay for “Anora” — a film brought to life in part with Premiere Pro. During the same ceremony, “Dune: Part Two” was awarded Best Visual Effects. The movie’s VFX artists used Substance 3D to bring the film’s breathtaking worlds to life.

Adobe would like to offer a huge congratulations to the teams behind these films, and all the winners and nominees.

Celebrating this year’s winners and nominees

Exceptional storytellers behind this year’s most acclaimed films and television series relied on Adobe Creative Cloud tools to craft their projects. Here’s a closer look at some of the nominees:

“Anora” — directed and edited by Sean Baker

Edited on Premiere Pro by Sean Baker, “Anora” is a modern-day Cinderella story with a twist. After winning the 2024 Cannes Palme d’Or, it has emerged as a leading contender this awards season, with nominations including the Academy Award for Best Picture, the Academy Award for Best Editing and the Eddie Award for Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy, Theatrical).

“Adobe Premiere Pro has been a go-to tool for me because of its versatility and ability to handle everything from quick edits to detailed, complex sequences,” said Sean Baker, writer, director and editor of “Anora”. “For ‘Anora’, it was important for me to experiment freely while staying true to the story’s authenticity and Premiere Pro allowed me to do that."

“Dune: Part Two” — Visual effects by Paul Lambert, Rhys Salcombe, Stephen James, Gerd Nefzer and Patrick Heinen

DNEG, one of the world's leading visual effects and animation studios for feature film and television, used Substance 3D to craft “Dune: Part Two’s” stunning visuals. The epic film won the Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects and Best Sound and took home four Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards.

“The Substance” — edited by Jérôme Eltabet, Coralie Fargeat and Valentin Feron

“The Substance,” edited on Premiere Pro, is nominated for five Academy Awards and the Eddie Award for Best Feature Film (Comedy, Theatrical). For this film made from more than 300 hours of footage and 230 sequences with very little dialogue, the team chose Premiere Pro to build the film’s dynamic rhythm.

Editor Jérôme Eltabet shared: “We primarily used Premiere Pro, which we chose for its intuitive and modern interface. Coralie and I work a lot on sound editing — and Premiere Pro is the perfect tool for this. Its flexibility and powerful features make it ideal for shaping the sound design. It allowed us to create the precise atmosphere we envisioned for each scene.”

“Black Box Diaries” — Edited by Ema Ryan Yamazaki

A Sundance standout, “Black Box Diaries” is nominated for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards. Editor Ema Ryan Yamazaki worked closely with director Shiori Ito, using Premiere Pro and Frame.io, to craft this powerful story.

“I used Premiere Pro to edit because that’s been my preference on single-editor projects for a long time,” said Yamazaki. “We also used Frame.io to communicate with our colorist/VFX staff, as it’s very convenient to be able to write frame-specific notes.”

“Dune: Part Two” — Visual effects by Paul Lambert, Rhys Salcombe, Stephen James, Gerd Nefzer and Patrick Heinen

DNEG, one of the world's leading visual effects and animation studios for feature film and television, used Substance 3D to craft “Dune: Part Two’s” stunning visuals. The epic film is nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Visual Effects, and took home four Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards.

“Wicked” — pre-visualization and texturing by Framestore

The award-winning VFX house Framestore used Adobe After Effects during pre-production for pre-visualization and Substance 3D for texturing on “Wicked”, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.

“The Bear” — edited by Joanna Naugle, ACE

The award-winning FX show scored 11 Emmys this season, including editor Joanna Naugle’s win for Outstanding Picture Editing, and is nominated for the Eddie Award for Best Edited Single Camera Comedy Series.

Naugle brought the chaotic world of the kitchen to life using Premiere Pro, Frame.io and After Effects: “I use Adobe Premiere Pro for 100 percent of the things that I cut,” said Naugle. “I just love it, it’s so easy to use. My presets let me jump in quickly. We used [the Premiere Pro feature] Productions on FX’s ‘The Bear’ so we could all collaborate remotely while the team was shooting in Chicago.”

“The Jinx — Part Two” — Edited by David Tillman and team

This groundbreaking, Emmy-winning HBO docuseries was supported by a team of more than ten editors and assistant editors and is nominated for the Eddie for Best Edited Documentary Series. Creative Cloud tools, including Premiere Pro, After Effects and Frame.io also helped craft the gripping series.

“When working on documentaries, especially ones with tons of interviews and archival footage that span years, transcripts are an invaluable tool to help find relevant material,” editor David Tillman said. “When we discovered the transcription feature built right into Premiere Pro, it was a boon to our workflow. Not only did it help us quickly transcribe archival material, but it also helped us easily make transcripts of our cuts as well, which was very helpful in the editorial process.”

“Will and Harper” — Edited by Monique Zavistovski, ACE

This touching documentary, cut on Premiere Pro Productions and Frame.io, won Best Documentary at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards and is nominated for the Eddie for Best Edited Documentary (Theatrical).

“We decided to use Adobe Premiere Pro’s Productions feature because we had such a complex workflow,” said editor Monique Zavistovski, ACE. “It was the first time I had used Productions and it was a lifesaver to be able to organize the footage into shareable, smaller projects that Hunter and I could quickly pass back and forth. Because a lot of our footage was endless hours of car conversations, Premiere’s transcription feature was also a key component of our workflow. The ability to generate transcripts from within the project and utilize them immediately shaved weeks off our timeline.”

“John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in L.A.” — Edited by Kelly Lyon, ACE, Sean McIlraith, and Ryan McIlraith

The live talk show series featuring SNL veteran John Mulaney was edited on Premiere Pro and Frame.io and took home the Emmy for Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming as well as a Critics Choice Award for Best Talk Show. Lyon is nominated for the Eddie for Best Edited Variety Talk/Sketch Show or Special.

“I love Frame.io. We used Frame.io to share and review cuts. Collaborators really liked being able to leave comments on the video timeline, so I would always know exactly what changes they wanted and where, said editor Kelly Lyon, ACE. “We also used Frame.io to post dailies. The writers and producers could review the largely improvised footage, flag selects and leave notes for us right in Frame.io.”