Smaller movies didn’t mean smaller viewer numbers for the Oscars. An estimated 19.7 million viewers watched Sunday night’s 97th Academy Awards ceremony, the biggest audience in five years.

This year's Oscars telecast that celebrated independent film "Anora" brought in 19.7 million U.S. viewers, the largest audience for Hollywood's highest honors in five years, broadcaster ABC said on Tuesday.

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Los Angeles — The Oscars dropped nearly 8% to 18 million viewers Sunday, the first year-to-year decline for the ABC telecast since 2021. The decrease is hardly a shock, as the majority of this year's Oscars contenders were not box office hits, including "Anora," which won for best picture and four other trophies.

The ratings for Sunday’s Oscars ceremony actually increased from last year’s three-year high, final Nielsen numbers showed, drawing its largest audience since 2020. The final count showed 19.69 million people watched Conan O’Brien make his hosting debut at the ceremony on ABC and Hulu,

Oscar viewership has been steadily recovering since the all-time low (10.4 million) in 2021, increasing every year since to a healthy 19.5 million viewers in 2024. But it’s not all bad news for 2025.