On Sunday March 2, 2025, the great and the good of the film-making industry will descend on the Dolby Theatre in downtown Los Angeles for the 97th Academy Awards. Better known as the Oscars, they are the crown jewel in Hollywood’s awards season. Spanish-language musical crime drama Emilia Pérez leads the pack of nominees for this year’s Oscars. It has received 13 nominations, including for Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best International Feature Film.
This year’s Oscars have also seen drama away from the silver screen. There have been accusations of politicking and homophobia by several nominees, as well as controversy over one Best Picture nominee’s use of artificial intelligence. So let’s look at the nominees in several of the higher-profile categories, and speculate who might triumph come Sunday night?
Best Picture
Arguably the toughest category to predict at this year’s Oscars is the award for Best Picture. Unlike last year when Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer dominated awards season, several potential films have a strong case to win Best Picture this year. With its thirteen nominations, Emilia Pérez on paper seems like the obvious frontrunner. However, its Oscars campaign has been mired in accusations of homophobia and racism by its lead actress Karla Sofía Gascón. Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, a three-and-a-half-hour period melodrama, was initially considered the likely Best Picture winner although its momentum this season has seemingly ebbed away. That leaves Anora as the favourite to walk away with the Oacars’ most prestigious award. Sean Baker’s manic dramedy about a sex worker won the coveted Palm d’Or at Cannes last year. It has also won Best Picture at the Critics Choice Awards, and also the Film Independent Spirit Awards. If there is a potential upset in the Best Picture category, it could come from Conclave. The Papal political thriller won the top prize at the Screen and Actors Guild (SAG) Awards this past weekend.
Will Win: Anora
Should Win: I’m Still Here
Best Actor in a Leading Role
One of the categories where the outcome feels certain at this year’s Oscars is the Best Actor category. Adrien Brody’s portrayal of the fictional architect László Tóth in The Brutalist has seen him dominate this category this awards season. He has already picked up the Best Actor award at the BAFTAs earlier this month and this year’s Golden Globes. Despite the accolades Adrian Brody has received for this role, there has been minor controversy surrounding The Brutalist, and the film’s use of artificial intelligence (AI). The film’s director Brady Corbet utilised AI to enhance Brody’s Hungarian accent in the movie. Corbett has downplayed these criticisms, claiming the decision was made to enhance the film’s authenticity.
Should the Academy’s members decide not to give the Best Actor Oscar to Adrien Brody, Timothee Chalamet seems to be the likely beneficiary. Timothee Chalamet is oddsmakers’ second favourite to win for his portrayal of musician Bob Dylan in James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown. The Academy is known for its love of music biopics. Reese Witherspoon won an Oscar for Walk The Line (coincidentally also directed by James Mangold). And Timothee Chalamet’s chances at the Academy Awards may have received a last-minute boost this past weekend, as he won the Best Male Actor in a Leading Role award at SAG’s awards ceremony.
Will Win: Adrian Brody (The Brutalist)
Should Win: Adrian Brody (The Brutalist)
Best Actress in a Leading Role
Like the Best Actor category, it seems inevitable that Mikey Maddison will win the Oscar for Best Actress this Sunday. Maddison’s fiery performance as sex worker Anora “Ani” Mikheeva in Sean Baker’s Anora has received universal acclaim. Mikey Maddison has already won several awards for her performance. These include Best Actress in a Leading Role at the BAFTAs, and the Independent Spirit Awards on February 22, 2025.
If any actress can prevent Mickey Maddison from winning the Oscar for Best Actress, it’s likely Demi Moore. The veteran actress is nominated for the role of TV fitness instructor Lizzie Sparkles in Coralie Fargeat’s body horror satire The Substance. Demi Moore beat Maddison at the Golden Globes earlier this year. On that occasion, they were both nominated in the Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy category. Her campaign for the Best Actress Oscar received a last-minute shot in the arm when Demi Moore won Best Actress in a Leading Role at the SAG Awards this past Sunday
Will Win: Mickey Maddison (Anora)
Should Win: Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here)
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
The battle for the award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role at the 2025 Oscars is a two-horse race between former Succession actors Kieran Culkin and Jeremy Strong. Kieran Culkin is the likely winner for his performance in the Jesse Eisenberg-directed dramedy A Real Pain. In A Real Pain, Pain, Culkin plays Benji Kaplan. Benji travels to Poland with his American cousin David (Jesse Eisenberg) as part of a Jewish heritage tour to a Nazi concentration camp. Culkin has picked up wins in this category for his performance in A Real Pain at every major film awards ceremony this year, including the BAFTAs, Golden Gloves, and the SAG Awards.
Nonetheless, my preference would be for Jeremy Strong to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Apprentice. Jeremy Strong’s portrayal of Donald Trump’s former fixer Roy Cohn in The Apprentice is mesmerising. Strong imbues Cohn with a terrifying menace as we see him take a young Donald Trump under his wing. This relationship slowly takes a tragic turn, as Trump cruelly discards his former mentor as Cohn’s health gradually declines.
Will Win: Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain)
Should Win: Jeremy Strong (The Apprentice)
Best Actress in a Supporting Role
One of the more unpredictable categories at this year’s Oscars is Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Three of the nominees in the category have the misfortune of having delivered excellent performances in their movies, despite their characters being poorly developed and receiving somewhat limited screen time. Monica Barbaro has justifiably earned herself a nomination for her portrayal of Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown, despite getting relatively like screen time. Like Barbaro, Isabella Rossellini has utilised the most of her limited screentime in as Sister Agnes Coclave to get a nomination. While the second half of The Brutalist focuses on the relationship between Adrian Brody and Felcity Jones’ marriage, her character is largely forgettable.
This leaves the Academy with a likely choice between Zoe Saldana and popstar Arianna Grande. Arianna Grande winning the Best Supporting Actress for her performances as Glinda in the musical Wicked would be a popular decision amongst casual viewers tuning in for the glitz and glamour of the Oscars. However if Emilia Pérez is going to convert any of its thirteen nominations into a win, Zoe Saldana may very well have the best chance of doing so
Will Win: Zoe Saldana (Emilia Pérez)
Should Win: Isabella Rossellini (Conclave)
Best Director
One of the most interesting and harder-to-predict categories at this year’s Oscars is the Best Director category. James Mangold has earned a nomination for his crowd-pleasing Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown. As I mentioned earlier, Academy members tend to gravitate towards voting for music biopics. However, I feel that A Complete Unknown is perhaps too functional to justify a win for Best Director. Jacques Audiard meanwhile feels unlikely to win Best Director, in part due to the baggage surrounding Emilia Pérez. French director Coralie Fargeat would make for a deserving, and arguably the most interesting, winner for The Substance. Her candy-coloured satirical horror focusing on Hollywood’s obsession with youth and beauty is the boldest, if most uneven of the films to be nominated at this year’s Oscars. However, Academy members traditionally tend to shy away from voting for genre movies. This will likely hurt The Substance’s chance of winning anything come Sunday night.
By process of elimination, this leaves us with two likely winners: Sean Baker for Anora, and Brady Corbet for The Brutalist. Despite Anora being one of my favourite films of 2024, I feel Brady Corbet is the more deserving winner for Best Director. The Brutalist may be a flawed throwback to a bygone era of film-making. Its first half is one of the most thrilling cinematic experiences of the last few years. And you have to admire a film-maker who’s prepared to buck popular trends to direct the sort of films they want to make.
Will Win: Brady Corbet (The Brutalist)
Should Win: Brady Corbet (The Brutalist)
Best International Feature Film
The Best International Feature Film category is always one of the more unpredictable categories at the Oscars. This year is no different. Of the five nominees for Best International Feature Film, I believe we can rule out Flow as a potential winner. Latvia’s entry for Best International Feature Film. Flow is also nominated in the Best Animated Film category, and will likely leave with that award. Denmark’s submission – The Girl With the Needle – is an incredibly dark crime drama, but it has sadly failed to build any buzz during awards season.
There is some thematic overlap between The Seed of the Sacred Fig and I’m Still Here. Both films examine family life under totalitarian regimes, with The Seed of the Sacred Fig set in modern-day Iran. I‘m Still Here meanwhile is a period drama recounting the real-life story of Eunice Paiva, and her pursuit of the truth surrounding the abduction and murder of her husband by Brazil’s military dictatorship. While I enjoyed both films, I’m Still Here is the more tonally consistent and satisfying movie. It also features an Oscar-worthy lead performance from Fernanda Torres. For that reason, it is currently my highest-rated film release of 2025, and it would be my pick for Best International Feature Film.
Unfortunately, I don’t see this outcome happening as it is nominated in the same category as Emilia Perez. With either Anora or The Brutalist likely to beat Emelia Perez in the Best Picture category, I expect Academy voters to vote for Emelia Perez in the Best International Feature Film category.
Will Win: Emilia Perez
Should Win: I’m Still Here
Best Writing (Original Screenplay)
A tough category to predict the outcome of as all five nominees are more than deserving of the Oscar. The Brutalist and The Substance are two of the more interesting films to emerge from Hollywood in the last decade. Either film leaving with an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay would be justified. September 5 meanwhile is a fantastic taut thriller about the Munich massacre that has been unfairly overlooked this awards season. Sean Baker’s Anora in my opinion is the favourite to win in this category as a consolation prize for losing out to Brady Corbet in the Best Director category. Despite this Jesse Eisenberg leaving this year’s Oscars with an award for his screenplay for A Real Pain would be the ideal scenario.
Will Win: Anora (Sean Baker)
Should Win: A Real Pain (Jesse Eisenberg)
Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay)
There’s a strong literary influence on this year’s nominees in the category for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Three of the nominees – Nickel Boys, A Complete Unknown, and Conclave are all adapted from fiction books. Nickel Boys has been one of the more overlooked films of this year’s awards season, despite providing a harrowing and thought-provoking account of the American juvenile justice system in Jim Crowe-era Florida. However, its greatest strengths lie in its unique POV cinematography rather than its script. So I don’t see a win being on the cards for Nickel Boys in this category. A Complete Unkown is an enjoyable and extremely watchable movie. However, its screenplay is littered with factual inaccuracies. It also sadly features some of the worst-written female characters out of all of this year’s Oscar contenders. In particular, it does a complete disservice to Bob Dylan’s former artist and activist girlfriend, Suze Rotolo (Elle Fanning).
Conclave on the other hand is a twisty and slightly camp take on the political thriller. Based on a 2016 novel of the same name, Conclave chronicles the political manoeuvring between various cardinals during the election of a new Pope. Conclave ranks among my favourite experiences in a cinema from 2024, and Peter Straughan’s screenplay was a huge contributor to my enjoyment of the film. For that reason, I feel it should walk away with the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay
Will Win: Conclave (Peter Straughan)
Should Win: Conclave (Peter Struaghan)