It’s always refreshing when a show learns from its own mistakes. While 2024’s SAG Awards ceremony was a mishmash of tonally dissonant scripting and segments in the show’s first year on Netflix, 2025’s SAG Awards showed a marked improvement rooted in what makes the Screen Actors Guild tick.
The ceremony opened with a pre-taped segment featuring “Hacks” — basically bonus “Hacks” for everyone missing the show since its spring 2024 premiere. Right away this worked better than the kind of opening that arbitrarily forces film and TV crossovers, instead focusing on a show that is about the industry, and a character with a successful performance career, Deborah Vance (Jean Smart).
Like the rest of Hollywood’s awards season since the Golden Globes, the SAG Awards carried the emotional weight of January’s Los Angeles wildfires, from videos dedicated to L.A. on film and the SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s aid for members in need, to first responders present in the audience. It gave the ceremony two driving themes: empathy and community.
For as insular and targeted as Hollywood awards shows are, there has always been the drive to find a wide audience and high ratings. Just one week after “SNL50,” where it “felt like the folks swept up on stage were having way more fun than those of us stuck watching from the couch,” the SAG Awards felt similarly disinclined to perform for those outside of the institution it celebrated.
And since SAG is a union of colleagues and not an audience-focused production like “SNL,” that ethos actually infused the ceremony with a stronger voice. This reviewer loves a good montage, and these ones brought it back to acting instead of fixating too much on the year’s films and TV (which still had plenty of opportunity to shine). Sure, they could have used more depth, but the “Scream Queens” concept paid tribute to horror and the art of the on-screen scream, while the “Law & Order” and soap opera montages stressed the importance of being a day player or guest star while building a performance career.
Kristen Bell handled her hosting duties with ease and charm, providing some of the strongest interstitials in the entire show; opening the show with a “Frozen” parody (“Do You Wanna Be An Actor?”), reuniting with her costars from “The Good Place” for a perfect “Challengers” setup, dishing about the guests “Gossip Girl”-style with Leighton Meester, hanging out backstage with “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” costar Jason Segel, and of course a little Netflix synergy with “Nobody Wants This” costar Adam Brody (a show in the mere infancy of its awards campaign!). What could be viewed as flashing a resume instead strengthened the show; why not play to the host’s specific strengths and connections? These segments satisfied fans of Bell’s extensive body of work while also fitting seamlessly into the rest of the evening.
As respected leaders in the room, both SAG President Fran Drescher and Life Achievement Award recipient Jane Fonda advocated for sensitivity and activism, leaving out specific political movements, parties, or people in favor of galvanizing language about waking up, protecting each other, and how to “give a damn about other people.”
For an awards ceremony mostly honoring the usual suspects of the season (with welcome surprises — Martin Short! Colin Farrell! “Conclave!”), the SAG Awards reflected its voting body and a shared desire to level up year-after-year — chasing greatness, in the words of winner Timothée Chalamet, even if there’s still room to improve.
Grade: B-
The 31st Annual SAG Awards are now streaming on Netflix. Click here for the full list of nominees and winners.
