Hulu subscribers watching the first-ever livestream of the Academy Awards were left without the night’s most anticipated moments when the stream cut off just before the final two awards. As Anora built momentum through major categories, viewers expecting to see the Best Actress and Best Picture announcements instead saw their screens go dark.
The outage meant that subscribers missed Anora star Mikey Madison winning Best Actress over The Substance’s Demi Moore, a result that had been one of the night’s biggest surprises. Moments later, Anora claimed Best Picture, securing Sean Baker his fourth Oscar of the night.
Social media quickly filled with frustrated posts from viewers who were cut off at the ceremony’s peak. Complaints poured in as users shared screenshots of their screens, questioning how a service owned by Disney— the same company broadcasting the show on ABC—could fail during the most critical part of the event.
Thanks so much for hanging in there! Our team took the necessary steps to resolve this, so you should be all set after rebooting your device. We appreciate your patience!
— Hulu Support (@hulu_support) March 3, 2025
Disney acknowledged the issue in a statement. “This evening, we experienced technical and live stream issues on Hulu which impacted some Oscars viewers. We apologize for the experience and will make a full replay of the event available as soon as possible,” a spokesperson said.
The length of the ceremony may have played a role. Running 3 hours and 47 minutes, it exceeded standard programming times, leading to speculation that Hulu had only scheduled coverage for around three and a half hours, leaving the final 15 minutes off the stream.
Okay so my stream of the Hulu broadcast cut off BEFORE it was finished. Missed Best Actress & Best Picture.
This is bad.
I’ve tried to be fair but I honestly think the Oscars broadcast has been a disaster for Hulu. pic.twitter.com/lBkTov96p8
— Matt Davis (@MattDavisTweets) March 3, 2025
This was not the first problem of the night for Hulu’s Oscars broadcast. Earlier in the evening, an outage prevented some viewers from logging in just as the ceremony was beginning. At 6:21 p.m., Hulu’s support team posted an update telling users to reboot their devices. An hour later, another message assured them that the issue had been identified and would soon be fixed.
Despite efforts to address those problems, the night ended with another disruption. What had been promoted as a way to reach a broader, digital audience instead left many subscribers without the show’s biggest moments.