Want to watch the Oscars live online? This guide explains how to stream the Oscars online from anywhere. Using a VPN for Oscars, you can watch the Oscars for free in any country. So get ready to get your yearly fix of the red carpet – and watch all the biggest stars – as they vie for the most important prize in Hollywood.
The Academy Awards (aka the Oscars) is the hottest movie awards show of the season. The 97th Annual Academy Awards show will take place at LA’s Dolby Theatre on Sunday, March 2 at 19:00 ET (16:00 PT / 00:00 GMT), although the hotly-anticipated red carpet action starts much earlier. In this guide, we explain how you can stream the Oscars with a VPN. That way you don’t have to miss out if you are on vacation or living overseas.
In this post, we explain exactly where you can watch the Oscars 2025 online. We’ll also explain how to use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to access your usual broadcasts while traveling abroad. Note that we’ll only discuss official broadcasts. While there may be unofficial streams, these tend to be of poor quality and might even be taken down partway through the show. With a VPN you can watch an official stream!
Most sites showing the Oscars region lock their content. As such, if you’re traveling abroad when the show airs, you’ll need a VPN to access your usual services.
How to watch the Oscars 2025 free online with a VPN
Streaming services region-lock their online streams such that they can only be accessed by users located in the right country. A VPN can help by spoofing your location. It will mask your real IP address and replace it with one from a location of your choice.
Here’s how to watch the Oscars 2025 live stream online from anywhere:
- Sign up to a reputable VPN provider. We recommend NordVPN, but Surfshark and ExpressVPN are solid, tried and tested alternatives.
- Install and run the relevant app for your device.
- Choose a server in the streaming source location. For example, for 7plus, you’ll need to use an Australian server, and for ABC, you’ll use a US server.
- Open a web browser and find the Oscars live stream for the appropriate country.
- You should be able to watch without issue, but if you struggle, try clearing your browser’s cookies before trying again.
While these steps will hopefully work right away, it’s worth testing out a live stream on your source site before the awards show starts. This way, you’ll have time to contact customer service or troubleshoot any issues and won’t have to worry about missing any of the best bits.
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How to live stream the Oscars 2025 free on Australian TV
While viewers in other countries might have to log in to cable provider accounts or over-the-top services to watch the Oscars online, things are simpler for viewers in Australia. The whole event will be shown, free of charge, on Channel Seven (The Seven Network).
This means that you can stream the Oscars online for free via 7plus. Coverage begins at 5:30 AM AEDT on Monday, March 3, 2025, with “Sunrise” and “The Morning Show” providing extensive coverage. The “Oscars Red Carpet Show” follows at 10:30 AM AEDT, leading into the main ceremony at 11:00 AM AEDT. A repeat screening of the ceremony will air at 10:00 PM AEDT.
7plus is free to watch, but it’s region-locked. This means you will need an Australian IP address to tune in and watch all the Oscars coverage from down under.
If you’re traveling outside Australia, the workaround is simple. Just connect to an Australian VPN server as outlined in the steps above, and you’ll have unrestricted access.
Don’t have a VPN? NordVPN is our top choice for streaming. Setup is quick and simple, and this provider is known for being fast, reliable, and great at unblocking. A 30-day money-back guarantee makes it risk-free.
Where else to watch the 2025 Oscars
You can watch the Academy Awards show online via various international TV streaming services. Here, we’ll discuss some of the major broadcasters that have the right to air coverage of the Academy Awards show. You can use a VPN to get an IP address in any of these countries to watch the Oscars for free.
USA
In the US, ABC is showing the 2025 Oscars. This channel is easily accessible for anyone who has it as part of their cable plan. To watch ABC online or on the ABC Go mobile app, just sign in with your US cable provider credentials.
If you don’t have a cable plan but have a subscription to an over-the-top service, you may be in luck. YouTube TV, AT&T TV Now, fuboTV, and Hulu with Live TV all provide access to ABC. What’s more, most of these services come with a free trial period. This means you can sign up, watch the Oscars for free, and cancel before the trial ends. These services do require signup with a US billing address, so this won’t work for those who usually live outside the US.
It is also worth noting that for the first time, this year the Oscars will also be available to stream on Hulu. This means you can watch the Oscars even if you do not have Hulu with Live TV.
If you normally have access to ABC, but you’re traveling abroad, you can connect to a US VPN server to log in as normal. The same is truw if you have a Hulu subscription. Simply connect to a US server and then head over to Hulu to login and stream the Oscars.
Read more awards articles here:
How to watch the Oscars live online in the UK
As was the case last year, the Oscars will be available to stream for free on ITVX. Live coverage will begin at 22:45 GMT so we’d recommend creating an account ahead of time to make sure you don’t miss anything.
Just remember that ITVX is region-locked. If you are on vacation or living outside of the UK, you can use a VPN to get a British IP address and log in to watch the Oscars without paying a dime. Anybody can make an ITVX account when they are connected to a VPN server in the UK, so this is an easy way to watch the Oscars for free – from anywhere in the world.
Canada
For Canadian viewers, the simplest way to watch the Oscars ceremony is on CTV. This channel lets you stream its content live online, but you need to sign in with credentials from a Canadian cable provider. CTV provides mobile apps, so you can view the Academy Awards while on the go.
If you have a Canadian cable subscription but are traveling outside the country, you can use a VPN to connect to a Canadian server and log in to CTV as normal. This will let you watch the Oscars live online while abroad.
Watching the Oscars: FAQs
Will a VPN slow down my connection too much to live stream the Oscars?
While using a VPN will usually slow your connection to a degree, this doesn’t have to impact your live stream of the Oscars at all. Of course, some low-quality VPNs are known for their bandwidth throttling, and this would be an issue that would cause lag and buffering. However, we only recommend the fastest VPNs for streaming. All of them offer plenty of servers, fast protocols such as WireGuard, and unlimited bandwidth. As such, you probably won’t notice any slowdown in speed.
Who was nominated for the 2025 Academy Awards?
Leading the nominations is “Emilia Pérez” with 13 nominations in total. This makes it the most-nominated non-English-language film of all time. The film’s star, Karla SofÃa Gascón, is also the first openly transgender performer nominated for an acting Oscar.
Here are the nominees for some of the most prominent categories:
Best Picture
- “Anora”
- “The Brutalist”
- “Conclave”
- “Dune: Part Two”
- “Emilia Pérez”
- “I’m Still Here”
- “A Complete Unknown”
- “Nickel Boys”
- “The Substance”
- “Wicked”
Best Director
- Jacques Audiard for “Emilia Pérez”
- Sean Baker for “Anora”
- Brady Corbet for “The Brutalist”
- Coralie Fargeat for “The Substance”
- James Mangold for “A Complete Unknown”
Best Lead Actress
- Cynthia Erivo for “Wicked”
- Karla SofÃa Gascón for “Emilia Pérez”
- Mikey Madison for “Anora”
- Demi Moore for “The Substance”
- Fernanda Torres for “I’m Still Here”
Best Lead Actor
- Adrien Brody for “The Brutalist”
- Timothée Chalamet for “A Complete Unknown”
- Colman Domingo for “Sing Sing”
- Ralph Fiennes for “Conclave”
- Sebastian Stan for “The Apprentice”
“The Brutalist” and “Wicked” each received 10 nominations, while “A Complete Unknown” and “Conclave” garnered eight each.
