Oscar predictions 2025: who is likely to win?

Film-lovers are getting the popcorn ready for next month's Oscars, as fierce competition and no clear front-runners have made this season "wild and wide-open", said The New York Times.

This year's nominations have had movie critics on the edge of their seats, with the "surprise" inclusion of actors from the "controversial" Donald Trump origin story "The Apprentice", while "big names" such as Angelina Jolie and Denzel Washington missed out, reported Variety.

After "Oppenheimer" dominated the Oscars in 2024, this year's Academy Awards have "a far more unpredictable playing field" with "a wide spread of possibilities", said Fader magazine. Here's who the critics are backing.

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Best picture

The nomination pundits at Entertainment Weekly were correct in predicting nods for "award-winning festival standouts" "Anora" and "Conclave", as well as "The Brutalist". But it is "Emilia Pérez" that has "come out on top", said Screen Rant. In addition to its Best Picture nomination, this "unique story" received a whopping 12 other nominations. Only 11 other films have won at least 13 nods and, of them, seven took home the Best Picture statue.

That doesn't mean it will triumph, of course. "Anora", for one, "still has a lot of support. Sean Baker's film about a sex worker from Brooklyn who marries the son of an oligarch "is not your typical awards-season contender", said Esquire but it could follow previous fellow Palme d'Or winners including "Parasite", "Triangle of Sadness" and "Anatomy of a Fall" in bagging the big one.

In contrast, "The Brutalist" seems "tailor-made" for a Best Picture Oscar, said Games Radar, even though there is a "spanner in the works" with the controversy over its use of AI to help the actors' Hungarian accents. The film is "mesmeric and compelling", but with a total of ten nominations, is "tellingly, neck-and-neck" with the musical "Wicked", wrote Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. And despite it "delivering a sugar rush similar to eating your bodyweight in M&Ms", "Wicked" just might "deprive" Oscar night of its usual "frowningly earnest seriousness".

Nominations
"Anora"
"The Brutalist"
"A Complete Unknown"
"Conclave"
"Dune: Part Two"
"Emilia Pérez"
"I'm Still Here"
"Nickel Boys"
"The Substance"
"Wicked"

Best director

The surprise news that "The Substance" director Coralie Fargeat had been nominated, while "Conclave" director Edward Berger had not made this "one of the most discussed categories", said IndieWire. Fargat has smashed "the horror ceiling" with her nomination.

"Conclave", by contrast, may have been "punished" for being a commercial success, said Vanity Fair: the Academy "can get a little snobby".

Variety continued its long-term support for "The Brutalist" director Brady Corbet, a prediction also backed by Games Radar, which said it was "Corbet's award to lose". The games-and-movies site would like to see Baker win for "Anora", but thought the film's "slightly frustrating" end may not be a hit with the Oscar voters.

Nominations
Sean Baker, "Anora"
Brady Corbet, "The Brutalist"
James Mangold, "A Complete Unknown"
Jacques Audiard, "Emilia Pérez
Coralie Fargeat, "The Substance"

Best actor in a leading role

Looking through the long list of previous actors who've bagged Best Actor for playing a music legend, you could "easily be persuaded" that this could be Timothée Chalamet's year, said Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Times. If his "convincing" portrayal of Bob Dylan in "A Complete Unknown" wins Chalamet the Oscar, he would be the youngest recipient of the Best Actor award.

And yet, a few months ago, Adrien Brody seemed to have this category "all wrapped up", said Games Radar. Brody may still be in the race, even with the AI controversy hanging over his performance, said Far Out: only the "naive" think "there are still film-makers out there who do not use AI".

The surprise nomination in this category is Sebastian Stan, who plays a young Trump in "The Apprentice". Although he is "the least likely to win", his performance was "amazing" and he has done some "outstanding work" over the last year, said Screen Rant.

Nominations
Adrien Brody, "The Brutalist"
Timothée Chalamet, "A Complete Unknown"
Colman Domingo, "Sing Sing"
Ralph Fiennes, "Conclave"
Sebastian Stan, "The Apprentice"

Best actress in a leading role

Once front-runners, neither Angelina "Maria" Jolie or Nicole "Babygirl" Kidman scored a nomination from the Academy voters. British actress Cynthia Erivo was shortlisted for her role as Elphaba in "Wicked", making her the second Black woman in history to earn two lead actress nominations.

Demi Moore justified Screen Rant's faith in her being "absolutely deserving" of a nomination for "The Substance", with Vanity Fair now calling her the "perceived front-runner".

Karla Sofía Gascón has made history with her shortlisting, becoming the first out transgender actor to be Oscar-nominated, said The Guardian, (Elliot Page had not transitioned when he was nominated for "Juno" in 2008). But a recent backlash over Gascón's past social-media comments may have put her out of contention.

For the first time since 1978, all five nominated actresses come from films that are also in the running for Best Film, said Kyle Buchanan in The New York Times. "This is the strongest best-actress lineup we’ve had in ages" and they each have a "solid shot".

Nominations
Cynthia Erivo, "Wicked"
Karla Sofía Gascón, "Emilia Pérez"
Mikey Madison, "Anora"
Demi Moore, "The Substance"
Fernanda Torres, "I’m Still Here"

Best actor in a supporting role

Despite Denzel Washington's widely praised performance in "Gladiator II" making him a "sure thing", according to Entertainment Weekly, his heavyweight name was missing from the final line-up. The site was right, though, to top the "long overdue" Guy Pearce for a nomination for his supporting role in "The Brutalist", as well as the "relative unknown" Yuriy Borisov, for his well-received performance in "Anora".

Kieran Culkin "is buzzing at the opportunity for an Oscar" for his role as Benji Kaplan in Jesse Eisenberg's Holocaust tour black comedy "A Real Pain", said Esquire. He is a "current front runner" for MovieWeb, with Pearce hot on his heels.

Nominations
Yura Borisov, "Anora"
Kieran Culkin, "A Real Pain"
Edward Norton, "A Complete Unknown"
Guy Pearce, "The Brutalist"
Jeremy Strong, "The Apprentice"

Best actress in a supporting role

Zoe Saldaña's turn as Rita, a lawyer entangled with a drug cartel boss in "Emilia Pérez", has caused quite a stir and, according to ScreenRant, many have long realised that the race in this category will be between Saldaña and Ariana Grande, who played Glinda, the future Good Witch of Oz, in "Wicked".

Saldaña is "seemingly now ahead", but Grande could pull off a shock win. If she did, she would be the Best Supporting Actress with the longest time onscreen in a film: a record 44.59% of the runtime.

Monica Barbaro's nomination, for her portrayal of Joan Baez in "A Complete Unknown", was one of the shocks in this category – not least to the actress herself. The 34-year-old star, who didn't make her feature film debut until 2021's "The Cathedral", was "literally floored upon receiving the news", she told fans on Instagram.

Nominations
Monica Barbaro, "A Complete Unknown"
Ariana Grande, "Wicked"
Felicity Jones, "The Brutalist"
Isabella Rossellini, "Conclave"
Zoe Saldaña, "Emilia Pérez"

Animated feature film

Screen Rant may be right in its prediction that "gorgeous" films "The Wild Robot" and "Flow" could create shockwaves at this year's ceremony, after they both were nominated. The Academy has previously preferred animations from Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios, but the "critical acclaim" for these two films could see that come to an end.

"The Wild Robot", DreamWorks Animation's adaptation of Peter Brown's novel about a service robot shipwrecked on an uninhabited island, received a "rapturous reception" at the Toronto Film Festival and is the LA Times' odds-on favourite to win. However, Gints Zilbalodis's "Flow", the tale of a cat whose home is devastated by a great flood, is "easily the year's best animated film".

It is a "tight race", but IndieWire has narrowly put its money on "The Wild Robot" to triumph, after news that its team were also nominated for Best Sound and Best Score.

Nominations
"Flow"
"Inside Out 2"
"Memoir of a Snail"
"Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl"
"The Wild Robot"

Documentary feature film

Each of the film-makers in this list are first-time nominees "and only one is American", noted Deadline. That is Brendan Bellomo from California, the man behind "Porcelain War", a film about the Ukraine war and a winner at the 2024 Sundance Festival.

There is one clear winner for the team at Next Best Picture, though: the Palestinian-Israeli documentary "No Other Land", about life in the rural West Bank area of Masafer Yatta, and the growing alliance between Palestinian activist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham. As well as winning critical acclaim, it has scooped several top awards around the world, including the Berlinale Documentary Award and this year's Bafta for Best Documentary.

Former favourites "Eternal Father", backed by The Hollywood Reporter, and "Daughters", which had the thumbs-up from the LA Times, failed to make it through to the final line-up.

Nominations
"Black Box Diaries"
"No Other Land"
"Porcelain War"
"Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat"
"Sugarcane"

Best Costume Design

This year's nominees took viewers on "voyages" to "the magical world of Oz, 19th-century Transylvania, early 1960s New York City, Vatican City and ancient Rome", said The New York Times. Paul Tazewell's nod for "Wicked" faces "some stiff competition", with "Gladiator II"'s Janty Yates having lifted the trophy in 2001. Whether Yates is victorious again or not, her costume design for this film has already left a legacy: the "leggy leather battle skirt" worn by Paul Mescal "went viral online" and sent his fans "into rhapsody".

Nominations
"A Complete Unknown"
"Conclave"
"Gladiator II"
"Nosferatu"
"Wicked"