Movie Fans Fume After Hulu Glitch Cuts Off Oscars Livestream At Worst Possible Moment

Viewers watching Conan O'Brien host the 97th Academy Awards from home on Hulu were enraged after a glitch during the livestream occurred at the worst possible time.

The feed cut off right before last year's Best Actress Oscar winner, Emma Stone, revealed this year's winner in the category and before the announcement of the Best Picture winner.

Instead of seeing the winners announced, the audience at home saw the screen go blank, and Hulu informed them that the program had concluded.

The message on television screens read:

"Thank you for watching! This live event has now ended. You may exit playback and select something else to watch."

Bluesky user Daniel Radosh posted a picture of his screen and quipped, "Congratulations Hulu. No notes."

For those glitched out of the livestream, Mikey Madison beat out Best Actress frontrunner Demi Moore for playing the titular escort in Anora, which also won Best Picture.

Viewers at home sounded off over being left in the dark.

Anora swept with five statuettes, including four for its director, Sean Baker, who broke a record to become the first to personally win four Academy Awards for a single film, including for directing, editing, writing, and producing Anora.

When accepting the award for Best Original Screenplay, Baker stressed the importance of experiencing movies in theaters.

"Where did we fall in love with movies? At the movie theatres," said Baker. "Watching a film in a theatre with an audience is an experience.

He said going to the cinema now instead of watching movies at home was "more important than ever," especially "at a time when the world can feel very divided."

"It's a communal experience you just don't get at home," he maintained, adding:

"Right now, the theatre-going experience is under threat; independently owned theatres are struggling, and it's up to us to support them."

Yet another reason why going to the movie theater was not only more enjoyable but also more reliable.

Hulu continued getting flak for a series of other errors throughout the program, including log-in issues.

While the streaming platform informed subscribers on X (formerly Twitter) that its tech team made "some backend changes to get things back up and running," several users were still unable to run playback, and others reported that the event completely disappeared from Hulu's page.