Oscar Predictions 2025 For Every Category

While the March 2, 2025, Academy Awards seem so far away, as we have yet to hit the holidays or see what the new year brings, film fans have already felt the buzz for the upcoming award ceremony. Potential titles have emerged from the Cannes Film Festival, with Anora and Emilia Pérez positioning themselves as early front-runners. The prestigious Venice Film Festival also put The Brutalist and Conclave at the front of many people’s minds as contenders. September 5 and A Completed Unknown have also been considered part of the mix.

Of course, the one title at the front of many people’s minds now is Jon M. Chu‘s adaptation of Wicked, which will likely be up for several categories, including Best Picture. This would be an impressive feat, with the last musical to take the award being 2003’s Chicago (the only one in 50 years). Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II is another late entry that may appear in several categories.

It would certainly be great to see Wicked break some records. Horror fans also deserve some love; Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance certainly has a chance to pick up some awards and even potentially a nod for Best Picture (a pipe dream from a horror fan, perhaps), yet even in the other categories, it may see stiff competition. This has also been a great year for animated features, with The Wild Robot and Inside Out 2 crafting heartwarming stories of self-discovery. We will examine and re-examine the 2025 Oscar contenders with our early predictions and updates as more information becomes available.

Updated on December 16, 2024: With the announcement of the Golden Globe nominees, we now have a better idea of how the Academy Awards may start to shape up. While a win at the Golden Globes does not guarantee an Oscar, since introducing the preferential ballot in 2009, seven Golden Globe winners for Best Picture (Drama or Musical/Comedy) have won the Academy Award for Best Picture. Emilia Pérez gained the most nominations at the Golden Globes. Meanwhile, The Substance, earning five nominations, gives credence to the idea that the body horror masterpiece might have a surprise showing this year. We have also seen a few surprises and snubs at the Golden Globes, all of which have mixed up our picks.

Minor Update December 23rd, 2024: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the shortlisted titles in 10 categories. While this has no bearing on the categories we’re most focused on, our quick picks section below did see some changes now that we know the potential nominees.

Minor Update January 3rd, 2025: A new year means a new chance to look at the Oscar lineups now that the Golden Globes are days away. Once the ceremony passes and the winners are announced, it will drastically shake up the front-runners, especially as we are holding out for a few personal favorites to take home the win and push them into Oscar contention.

Here are some categories to keep a close eye on:

• Best Actor in a Motion Picture—Drama: This has been a tight run from early predictions, with each actor considered for the Oscar pick for Best Actor early in the online discourse. The winner here could easily pull ahead as a front-runner.
• Best Actress in a Motion Picture—Drama: The announcement of the Golden Globes was perhaps the most surprising, adding names like Pamela Anderson, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Kate Winslet, Tilda Swinton, and Fernanda Torres into contention. A win here could be an early indicator of getting an Oscar nod where others had previously not had them in contention.
• Best Motion Picture—Drama & Comedy: These two categories seem to be leaning towards The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez by most to take home a Golden Globe. However, an upset here could set the tone for the Academy Awards.

Major Update January 6th, 2025: The Golden Globes have now come and gone, and while there were no major surprises (both The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez came up on top), there were enough changes to shake up our Oscar predictions and solidify others. A few of our early choices for Oscar wins, Zoe Saldaña for Supporting Actress and Demi Moore for Best Actress, were reflected in the Golden Globes. At the same time, certain films first hyped up, like Wicked Part One, may have been wishful thinking; consider it being caught up in the magic of the theatrical experience.

Minor update January 15th, 2025: The entire country and beyond has been captivated by the LA Wildfires and the tragic loss of life and property surrounding the catastrophe. While there have been victories in containing the fires, the National Post reported a loss between $135 billion and $150 billion on January 11th. The New York Post has reported ongoing challenges that make it difficult to pinpoint when the catastrophe will be entirely under control.

LA is a prominent entertainment industry hub, and the fires have significantly affected plans. Both the Academy Awards and the Grammys are likely to face delays. The nominations were initially set to be announced on January 17, 2025, but they were pushed back to the 19th and then the 23rd. Given the situation is still developing, it is not unreasonable to assume that these dates may be pushed back even further. It is also not unreasonable to assume that the event may see slight delays, as Sunday, March 2, 2025, is quickly approaching.

The ongoing disaster does not affect Oscar’s predictions; however, further updates will likely delay additional information. Those interested in helping those affected by the LA wildfires can check out this NBC LA piece for more details.

Major update January 23rd, 2025: The nominees have been announced! Now, we don’t have to speculate about who will or will not get a nod and can focus on who is nominated and who we think will take it home. Some of our early predictions stand firm, and we were also shocked by a few choices — a normal Academy Award reaction. Below, we have updated all categories.

Major updated February 4th, 2024: Ever since the nominees were announced, there has been controversy against one notable pick, Emilia Perez. While we had this movie championed to take a lot of awards before the announcement, this came in part because the movie seems perfectly tailored to what the Oscars would look for, particularly in a time of political uncertainty around LGBTQ+ issues under the current administration.

Despite Emilia Perez’s success at the Golden Globes, earning four wins, including Best Motion Picture—Musical or Comedy, fans and critics have begun to question the film’s validity in representing the Spanish and LGBTQ+ communities. Feeding into dislike of the film’s 13 Oscar nominations were the recent tweets that resurfaced from Karla Sofía Gascón that had people accusing her of racist remarks. The film has even now been outed for its use of AI, which had us marking The Brutalist down when that controversy came to light.

We will be watching to see how other award ceremonies, like the SAG and Critics’ Choice Awards, treat Emilia Perez leading up to the Oscars. Still, the arguments against AI in film and the recent controversies have us giving the movie less favorable chances in most categories.

Minor Update: February 10th, 2025: We had two prestigious ceremonies over the weekend, the Critics’ Choice Awards and the Directors Guild Awards. These ceremonies did not mix up too much of our predictions, but there are some notable highlights. After the controversy around Emilia Pérez came out, we were waiting to see how other awards acted in kind, and the movie saw no love at all. That is, except for Zoe Saldaña winning best supporting actress for Emilia Pérez, who we already highlighted in the last update as still deserving of an Oscar. Karla Sofía Gascón did not even appear at the award shows, backing up the idea that she is entirely out of contention.

With the previous shake-up, we had made Anora our top choice now to take the best feature and director. This is further solidified by Anora winning Best Film at the Critics’ Choice Awards and Best Theatrical Film at the Directors Guild Awards. Other wins further cemented our top choices, including Kieran Culkin winning Best Supporting Actor for A Real Pain and Demi Moore winning Best Actress for The Substance at the Critics’ Choice Awards.

BEST PICTURE

Current Frontrunner: ‘Anora’

The Critics Choice Awards and Directors Guild Awards solidified our previous thoughts in the last update, so our top choices do not change. However, Emilia Pérez continues to fall now that we see two other award ceremonies not giving the film recognition beyond Zoe Saldaña’s performance. Best Director going to Jon M. Chu for Wicked and the best screenplay going to Coralie Fargeat for The Substance give the two films a bit of a bump in our predictions.

BEST DIRECTOR

Current Frontrunner: Sean Baker for ‘Anora’

BEST ACTRESS

Current Frontrunner: Demi Moore for ‘The Substance’

Related

7 Horror Movie References You May Have Missed in The Substance

Coralie Fargeat’s body horror film The Substance has caused quite a buzz. Fargeat sprinkled multiple movie references throughout, did you catch them?

BEST ACTOR

Current Frontrunner: Colman Domingo for ‘Sing Sing’

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Current Frontrunner: Zoe Saldaña for ‘Emilia Pérez’

Zoe Saldaña’s win for Best Supporting Actress at the Critics Choice Awards suggests she will avoid the controversy surrounding Emilia Pérez.

Related

What ‘Wicked’ Does Better Than ‘Dune’

Both ‘Wicked’ and “Dune’ split their story into two parts, but ‘Wicked’ tells a complete story while ‘Dune’ feels like set up.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Current Frontrunner: Kieran Culkin for ‘A Real Pain’

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

Current Frontrunner: ‘Flow’

While The Wild Robot won Best Animated Feature at the Critics Choice Awards, we don’t think this is considerable enough to favor the masterpiece that is Flow from winning here. Either The Wild Robot or Flow will win this one (or should); both movies are phenomenal, with us just giving a slight edge to Flow.

Quick Takes

We look closer at some of the other anticipated categories and our prediction for who will emerge as the frontrunner. As The Substance won some technical awards at the Critics Choice Awards, we have it now predicted in two categories we previously did not pick.

• Best Cinematography — Dune Part II
• Best Costume Design — Wicked
• Best Original Screenplay — The Substance (new)
• Best Adapted Screenplay — Conclave
• Best Original Score — Kris Bowers for The Wild Robot
• Best Original Song — Like a Bird from Sing Sing
• Best Sound — Wicked: Part One
• Best Documentary Feature — No Other Land
• Best International Feature Film — I’m Still Here
• Best Makeup and Hairstyling — The Substance (new)
• Best Production Design — Nosferatu
• Best Film Editing — Anora
• Best Visual Effects — Wicked: Part One