Oscar Predicions 2025

Seeing the Oscar nominations prompted me to check back on last year to see how I did.  I got 7 out of 10, which is pretty consistent with years past. Let's see if I can do any better!

This has been a banner year for seeing Oscar-nominated films, as I've actually seen three - Conclave, Wicked, and A Complete Unknown. This is the first year in a while where I've not actually seen any of the best animated feature nominees. Yes, the kids are getting older.

I don't have too many comments about the other categories this time around, but I do have a couple:

* I'm already unofficial 0 for 1, as Conclave did not pick up the cinematography nod I mentioned in my post about that film. 

* Sticking with Conclave, I expect Edward Berger not getting nominated for director will be one of the more notable snubs. He's the only DGA Award nominee not nominated, with The Substance's Coralie Fargeat replacing him. Other snubs apparently include Pamela Anderson for The Last Showgirl and Trent Reznor for score and song for Challengers, the tennis movie I only know about because parts of it were filmed in the Boston area.

Finally, my usual disclaimer. While I've seen an unprecedented number of nominees (for me), you should not rely on these picks for your Oscar pool. Or anything else, for that matter.

On to the predictions!

Best International Feature Film - my usual rule of picking the movie that's also been nominated for Best Picture has hit a snag. Two films in this category are also nominated for the big prize (Emelia Perez and the Brazilian film I'm Still Here. A third film, Flow, is nominated for best animated feature. 

I'm not going to try to logic this out and will go with the buzz and pick Emelia Perez. If I had to explain it, I'm thinking Flow will win in the animated category and I'm Still Here doesn't have Netflix to throw its weight around.

Best Animated Feature - So based on my previous comments I'm going to go with Flow here, though it would not surprise me if The Wild Robot won (it did pick up the Critics' Choice Award, while both picked up Annie Awards). The Pixar losing streak continues.

Best Original Screenplay - I'm going with The Substance here, on my (often incorrect) theory that a film nominated for Best Picture that is unlikely to win will get rewarded here. My theory gets a chance to double down as a potential reward for Coralie Fargeat not winning the directing prize. This theory does not explain why it would not apply to The Brutalist or Anora, both written (or co-written) by their directors.

Best Adapted Screenplay - I'm going to jettison the theory used above and go with Conclave, mostly based on how much I liked the book. Which, honestly, makes no sense.

Acting in rapid fire as always:

Best Actor - Adrien Brody in The Brutalist

Best Actress - Demi Moore, The Substance

Best Supporting Actor - Guy Pearce, The Brutalist

Best Supporting Actress - Zoe Saldana, Emelia Perez

This year seems a little more wide open than previous years, with only Demi Moore feeling like a prohibitive favorite. Three of these won a Golden Globe for their performance, though Moore won for lead in a comedy/musical. I opted to go with Pearce over Golden Globe winner Kieran Culkin as if there's any year to win an Oscar for playing a rich white asshole, it's this one.

The most likely second place for each of these, I think, would be Timothee Chalamet for A Complete Unknown, Fernanda Torres for I'm Still Here, Culkin for A Real Pain, and Isabella Rossellini for Conclave (fulfilling the semi-regular supporting award WTF moment).

Best Director - If you can put together a 3.5 hour movie nominally about architecture and screen it with a planned intermission, and still get abundant praise and 10 Oscar nominations, I think you're likely to win this. So I'm going with Brady Corbet for The Brutalist.

Best Film - Early on it looked like Emelia Perez was going to walk away with this, but there's been some predictable backlash (it's a musical, not in English, and may be a bit too odd) and some less so (star Karla Sofia Gascon getting busted for some highly bigoted tweets). This opens up just enough of a hole for an Important Movie like The Brutalist.

Rather than add updates to each category, I've put them all into one spreadsheet, which I think helps demonstrate how things are going more clearly:

The guilds have thrown a bit of a wrench into things, with Anora and Timothee Chalamet the main recipients. SAG further muddied the waters by giving Conclave the outstanding cast award. It's not particularly predictive of who will win the Best Picture Oscar (the same film wins both awards about half the time), but the last three winners (and four of the last five) won both. 

For what it's worth the Independent Spirit Awards were the night before the SAG Award, and Anora won best picture, Sean Baker best director, and Mikey Madison best actor (the ISAs no longer separate acting awards by gender). Hard to say what this means for all of their chances at the Oscars, given that most of the nominees there weren't eligible for ISAs.

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