Javier Bardem Condemns ‘Trump and Netanyahu’ for ‘Another Illegal War’ at a Very Political Oscars

The last time Javier Bardem wore a patch to an awards show to protest a war in the Middle East waged with American bombs, it was 2003. The United States had just invaded Iraq, and Bardem wore a “No a la Guerra” patch on his lapel to the Goya Awards in Spain. Tonight, Bardem wore the patch again, this time to the Oscars to protest the war with Iran.

“I'm wearing a pin that I used in 2003 with the Iraq war, which was an illegal war,” Bardem told reporters on the red carpet, “and we are here, 23 years after, with another illegal war, created by Trump and Netanyahu with another lie.”

It was one of many pointed political messages at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, which came amid not just a new war in the Middle East but a cascade of controversies emanating from Washington, where President Donald Trump has overseen a second term defined more than anything by the brute force implementation of his political project.

At the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, host Conan O’Brien alluded to the storm clouds over the capital briefly in his opening monologue. There was an Epstein gag: “It's the first time since 2012 there are no British actors nominated for Best Actor or Best Actress. A British spokesperson said, ‘Yeah, well, at least we arrest our pedophiles.’” And a crack about the culture war that engulfed the Super Bowl last month: “I should warn you, tonight could get political,” O’Brien said, “and if that makes you uncomfortable, there’s an alternate Oscars hosted by Kid Rock at the Dave & Busters down the street.”

O’Brien brought the monologue home with some more somber commentary on the “very chaotic and frightening times” we find ourselves in, times he said make the Oscars “particularly resonant” as they bring together art from dozens of countries and languages around the world. "We pay tribute tonight to not just film, but the ideals of global artistry, patience, resilience, and that rarest of qualities today: optimism," O’Brien said. It was sincere, if circumspect.

Then there was Jimmy Kimmel, who cracked a joke about Melania Trump’s documentary: “And there are also documentaries where you walk around the White House trying on shoes.” He also dinged CBS: “There are some countries whose leaders don't support free speech,” Kimmel said. “I'm not at liberty to say which. Let's just leave it at North Korea and CBS.”

And there was director David Borenstein, who helmed Mr. Nobody Against Putin, which won the Oscar for best documentary. The film, he said, “is about how you lose your country. What we saw when working with this footage is that you lose it through countless small, little acts of complicity: when we act complicit when a government murders people on the streets of our major cities, when we don't say anything when oligarchs take over the media and control how we can produce it and consume it, we all face a moral choice. But luckily, even a nobody is more powerful than you think.”

The political atmosphere of the evening reflected the substance of the films nominated, the biggest of which were highly political. Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another is an Antifa-inflected fever dream, an epic in which left-wing activists fight an authoritarian government cracking down on immigrants and dissidents. Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is a horror set in the Jim Crow south, from a director whose breakout was the brilliant and deeply political film Fruitvale Station.

Like at many award ceremonies this season, much of the politics of the evening took place on the red carpet. The cast of The Voice of Hind Rajab, a piercing film about Israel’s killing of a five-year-old Palestinian girl and much of her family in Gaza, wore pins calling for a “permanent” ceasefire. The pins, said Hind Rajab star Saja Kilani, were made by Artists4Ceasefire in collaboration with the artist Shepard Fairey and represent a call for an end to violence and displacement “in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Venezuela and everywhere.” The cast pointed out that one of the stars of the film, Palestinian actor Motaz Malhees, could not attend the ceremony due to Trump's travel ban.

Bardem, who has been a vocal advocate for Palestinians and a critic of Israel’s war, also wore a pin in support of Palestine on his tuxedo lapel. On the pin was a drawing of Handala, a character created by Palestinian newspaper cartoonist Naji al-Ali in 1969. He is a 10-year-old boy who cannot grow until he is allowed to return to his homeland. Ali was 10 years old when his own family was exiled from their home in Palestine in the Nakba of 1948. As he presented the award for Best International Feature Film, Bardem said to cheers: “No to war, and free Palestine.”

There is a sense, here in Los Angeles, that expressions of political opinion have fallen out of favor in the second Trump term. It is a town more famous for its vapidity than intellectual rigor, of course, and celebrity support for political candidates feels less effective than ever. A poll from 2024—commissioned after Taylor Swift endorsed Kamala Harris in the presidential race—found that just 11 percent of Americans said a celebrity has ever caused them to reconsider their position on a political issue. Even fewer polled said they would vote based on the preferences of a celebrity.

There is a long history of stars wading into politics at the Oscars, from Marlon Brando’s refusal of his Best Actor win in 1973 to Michael Moore the last time the awards ceremony happened within days of the U.S. launching a war in the Middle East. (The documentarian condemned the Bush administration from the stage to a mixed response from the room.) With the increasingly high stakes of American politics, many stars are braving potential loss of work or public eye-rolls to speak out. ICE pins, worn in protest of Trump’s bloody immigration crackdown, have been a recurring character on red carpets this awards season.

And there is one person who absolutely cares about what these stars say and think. Trump, who has yet to weigh in on this year’s Oscars, has expressed outrage at past winners, including 2020 Best Picture Parasite (“What the hell was that all about?”) and The Apprentice, which scooped up two nominations in 2025. (Trump labeled the withering biopic “a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job.”) The 2021 Oscars, he complained, were too “politically correct.”

It doesn’t appear Trump was watching on Sunday night. As the show aired, according to pool reports, he was traveling on Air Force One from his Florida resort back to Washington. Around 50 minutes into the show, he posted a rant on Truth Social demanding that media outlets including The Wall Street Journal “be brought up on Charges for TREASON” for their coverage of the war in Iran.

The mood in the country may be charged, but heightened security kept any anxieties about the political climate at bay. In the years after 9/11, the Dolby Theater has become a heavily guarded fortress. Packed with globe-spanning celebrities, Hollywood’s biggest night is kept calm by the quiet hum of the Los Angeles Police Department, a force with nearly 10,000 officers and billions in its annual budget.

This year, with the war in Iran and attacks here at home, from a university shooting in Virginia to an attack on a synagogue in Michigan, security has been drastically dialed up from that high baseline. An LAPD source told The Los Angeles Times there would be a one mile security perimeter around the Dolby Theater and that even the air around the awards is monitored for “potential hazards, including radiation.”

In a statement to Vanity Fair, an LAPD spokesperson said preparations included “layered security perimeters, traffic management plans, and a highly visible police presence throughout the Hollywood area.” They urged attendees to “remain aware of their surroundings, and promptly report any suspicious activity to law enforcement.”

The LAPD’s Oscars army calmed nerves at the event, which were a bit frayed after some viral reporting on a vague statement from authorities warned against the possibility of Iranian drone attacks on Los Angeles from boats in the Pacific.

Thankfully, the ceremony seems to have gone off without a hitch. O’Brien made an apparent reference to the heightened security, shrouding anxieties with a joke at Timothée Chalamet’s expense. “Security is extremely tight tonight,” he said. “I'm told there's concern about attacks from both the opera and ballet community.”