10 Reasons Adrien Brody deserved to win the Oscar 2025

Oscar 2025 brought reasons to celebrate for actor Adrian Brody as he won his second Academy Award for Best Actor for the movie The Brutalist. In the film, he played the role of a Hungarian-Jewish architect, Laszlo Toth, who has survived the Holocaust and has traveled to New York. The movie depicts the challenges he faced to build his name in America.

The Brutalist received 10 nominations for the Oscars 2025, winning three of them, which included Brody’s Best Actor Oscar. However, this wasn’t Brody’s first best actor award, as he earlier received the Oscar for his film, The Pianist.

Brody is known for his versatility as an actor and has played many critically acclaimed roles. In this article, we have listed 10 such roles where Adrian Brody shined with his talent and competence.

Please note that this entire article is based on the writer's opinion. Reader's discretion is advised.

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1) The Pianist

Roman Polanski’s Oscar-nominated film, The Pianist, is adapted from Wladyslaw Szpilman’s memoir of the same name.

In the film, Brody plays the role of Szpilman, who is a pianist. During the Holocaust, he and his family struggled to survive in Warsaw and later got separated before being transported to a concentration camp. Szpilman happens to escape with a friend’s help but faces many challenges while hiding from one place to another until the end of the war.

Brody won the best actor Oscar award for his performance in the film.

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2) The Thin Red Line

Adrian Brody played the role of Cpl. Geoffrey Fife in Terrence Malick’s Oscar-nominated war film.

The film dramatized the Battle of Mount Austen. During the Second World War, U.S. soldiers were sent to the island of Guadalcanal in order to attack the Japanese forces. The film showed the events and the struggles the soldiers went through and the lives that were lost during the assault.

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3) The Grand Budapest Hotel

Adrian Brody has been part of many Oscar-nominated movies; The Grand Budapest Hotel happens to be one of those.

In Wes Anderson’s visual masterpiece, Ralph Fiennes stars as Monsieur Gustave H., the Grand Budapest Hotel’s concierge. The film focuses on the aftermath of Madam D.’s death as Gustave is arrested for murdering her.

However, it is later revealed that Adrian Brody’s Dmitri, the son of Madame D., is the real killer and is trying to frame Gustave and is not letting him keep the Renaissance painting that Madame D. left for him. The film depicts the journey of Gustave and Zero (Tony Revolori) from working in the hotel to becoming the owners of great fortune.

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4) The Darjeeling Limited

Another of Wes Anderson’s gems, The Darjeeling Limited, tells the story of three brothers who travel to India to reconnect.

The three brothers, Owen Wilson’s Francis, Adrian Brody’s Peter, and Jason Schwartzman’s Jack, reunite on a train to go on a spiritual journey a year after their father’s death. The journey turns into a challenging pursuit as the brothers' complicated relationship comes into full display through their several arguments.

They fight, get ejected from the train, go to the Himalayas to look for their mother, and indulge in many more adventures throughout India.

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5) Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris tells the story of a man named Gil Pender, played by Owen Wilson, who travels to the early 20th century in Paris every night at midnight. There, he meets many artists, from painters to novelists, who help him realize the shortcomings of his current relationship.

Adrian Brody, one of the winners of the Oscar 2025, played the role of Salvador Dali, who couldn’t stop talking about Rhinoceros, one of Dali’s famous paintings. Wilson’s Pender reveals his secret of being from the future to Dali and his friends, but none of them doubt his claims or question him, as they were all surrealists.

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6) Detachment

Tony Kaye’s psychological film, Detachment, follows the story of Adrian Brody’s Henry Barthes, who joins as a substitute English teacher in a high school.

Brody’s Henry encounters several students in his class who are struggling with their own demons, which is affecting their behavior and their education, and tries to help them. In addition to that, Henry is also dealing with his personal problems and is trying to overcome them.

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7) King Kong

Peter Jackson’s King Kong follows Jack Black’s Carl Denham, a film director, as he and his crew travel to Skull Island. They encounter many unusual species, one of them being the giant gorilla, Kong. Coral and his people capture him and bring him to New York.

The best actor winner of the Oscar 2025, Adrian Brody, played the character of a screenwriter, Jack Driscoll. During their journey, he falls in love with Naomi Watts’s Ann Darrow and even searches for her alone when she gets kidnapped by Kong in Skull Island.

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8) Liberty Heights

Barry Levinson’s Liberty Heights gives us a glimpse of the racial injustices faced by African Americans and Jewish people in America.

Oscar 2025 winner Adrian Brody plays the role of Van Kurtzamn, the older son of Joe Mantegna’s Nate Kurtzman, who runs a burlesque club. Through the experiences of different characters of the Jewish and African American communities, the film depicts the prejudices the people had against these communities.

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9) Summer of Sam

Spike Lee’s crime thriller, Summer of Sam, follows the story of John Leguizamo’s Vinny and Adrian Brody’s Ritchie.

Leguizamo’s Vinny is struggling to maintain his marriage, while the Oscar 2025 winner, Brody’s Ritchie, has embraced a punk fashion that has deemed him a freak in their Italian-American neighborhood because of his fashion choice.

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10) The French Dispatch

Another one of Wes Anderson’s visually stunning works is The French Dispatch. The film follows the storylines of the four articles that will be published in the final issue of the magazine The French Dispatch.

Adrian Brody plays the role of an art dealer named Julien Cadazio, who buys the Moses Rosanthelar (Benicio Del Toro) painting and puts it on display by convincing his family of art exhibitors. Later, Rosanthelar becomes a popular painter but struggles to paint more due to a lack of inspiration.

Other than Brody, the film also stars Timothée Chalamet, who was also nominated for best actor in the Oscar 2025.

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