The 2025 Oscars’ favorites, deserved winners, and overlooked snubs

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While 2024 might not have been an elite cinematic year, it's always fun to do a bit of cinephile arguing when the Academy Awards roll around. This year's festivities should get a comedic shot in the arm thanks to Conan O'Brien taking over the hosting duties, but before the golden statuettes start being handed out (Sunday, March 2 at 4 pm on ABC), we'll share our annual look at who's likely to win and who should win, as well as spotlighting a few films and performances that the Oscars unfortunately overlooked.

KEY:
The Favorite: $
Who Should Win: #
Should’ve Been Nominated: %
Shouldn’t Have Been Nominated: X

Best Picture

• Anora $#
• The Brutalist X
• A Complete Unknown
• Conclave
• Dune: Part Two
• Emilia Pérez X
• I’m Still Here
• Nickel Boys
• The Substance
• Wicked
• ------
• Dìdi %
• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga %

It seems absolutely bizarre that a raw, dark Cinderella-esque stripper tale is the Best Picture favorite, but Anora is absolutely deserving of the top prize in a cinematic down year. The only other Best Picture nominee that rivals it is the one on the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of scope, the sci-fi epic, Dune: Part Two. Most of the rest of the pack is deserving, even if they are not films that demand to be rushed out to see in theaters. It's fun to see a body horror — a genre that's beyond a blindspot for the Academy — get a nomination here for The Substance, though its inclusion speaks to how weak the crop of considered films were this year.

There are two exceptions however: The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez. While the first half of The Brutalist is a stirring American epic, its second half completely goes off the rails and squanders all that came before the intermission (yes, there's an intermission). Emilia Pérez being nominated for anything remains baffling. For my money, it's the worst film of 2024 (Madame Web included), as absolutely nothing about the transgender Mexican cartel musical drama works. If the Oscars were trying to spotlight transgender stories, there were plenty of options (for example: I Saw the TV Glow or another actual nominee that, if identified, would be a huge spoiler) that weren't insultingly awful while also being actively regressive with their trans messaging.

The fact that a trashfire like Emilia Pérez was showered with 13 Oscar nominations, while George Miller turned out another high-octane cinematic spectacle in the form of Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, and Sean Wang served up a wonderfully awkward and warmhearted millennial coming-of-age story with Dìdi, only to get completely snubbed for any nominations makes me want to disassociate.

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Best Director

• Brady Corbet (The Brutalist) X
• Coralie Fargeat (The Substance) X
• James Mangold (A Complete Unknown) X
• Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez) X
• Sean Baker (Anora) $#
• ------
• Denis Villeneuve (Dune: Part Two) %
• Edward Berger (Conclave) %
• George Miller (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga) %
• Sean Wang (Dìdi) %

Here's the first of many categories where the nominees make no sense. Again, Emilia Pérez and The Brutalist aren't good movies, while A Complete Unknown is paint-by-numbers musical biopic. Fargeat's The Substance is fun, but is it better than the sci-fi grandeur of Villeneuve and Miller, the restrained tension of Berger's Conclave, or the lovingly cringe moments of Wang's Didi? That'd be a stretch.

The good news is that Baker looks poised to ascend into the top tier of revered directors. Not only is that well deserved after crafting films like Tangerine and The Florida Project, but rewarding a director who spotlights the underclasses via extremely handcrafted independent films is the type of move that truly inspires up-and-coming filmmakers.

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Best Actor

• Adrian Brody (The Brutalist) $
• Colman Domingo (Sing Sing)
• Ralph Fiennes (Conclave) #
• Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice) X
• Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown)
• ------
• Sebastian Stan (A Different Man) %

There's a strong case that the Oscars got all of the actors correct this year, but not all of them in the right roles. Giving Stan a nominee for his impression of a young Donald Trump feels like virtue signaling, especially considering the under-the-surface subtle boiling rage he conveys in A Different Man makes it his top performance of 2024. (There's also an argument to be made that Chalamet is better in Dune: Part Two than the Bob Dylan biopic, but I'll let that rest for now). While Brody is the favorite for The Brutalist, the contemplative intensity Ralph Fiennes displays throughout Conclave does more with less (including an hour and a half less screentime) and would be an apt performance to earn the Englishman his first Oscar.

It would be absolutely wild if Anora won Best Picture and Mikey Madison didn't take home Best Actress, as the movie is almost entirely her performance. She's in a neck-and-neck race with Demi Moore, but Moore was literally hidden away in a room and unseen for almost half of The Substance. If she wins it'd be another bad case in career achievement outweighing the actual performances given this year.

Two performances missing from this category but are worth seeking out are Pamela Anderson's wonderfully complicated (and fitting) portrayal of an aging Vegas showgirl in The Last Showgirl and Anya Taylor-Joy's portrayal of a young Furiosa, which is low on lines, but she more than makes up for with her facial cues. (Also, no knock on Cynthia Erivo, who's a totally deserving nominee.)

Best Supporting Actor

• Edward Norton (A Complete Unknown) #
• Guy Pearce (The Brutalist) X
• Jeremy Strong (The Apprentice) X
• Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain) $X
• Yura Borisov (Anora)
• ------
• Adam Peason (A Different Man) %
• Chris Hemsworth (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga) %
• Javier Bardem (Dune: Part Two) %

While Kieran Culkin is the favorite to win the Oscar, his hyper-grating performance in A Real Pain never got me to empathize with his character in the way the film obviously desires. While Mikey Madison's Anora gave me a headache (complimentary), Culkin gave me a migraine (derogatory).

The three best supporting performances of the year didn't even make it to the Oscars. Javier Bardem's zealot Stilgar gave Dune: Part Two a sense of both fanaticism and meme-able levity, Chris Hemsworth's Dr. Dementus was a dose of sugary over-the-top sadism that worked, and A Different Man wouldn't have worked at all without Adam Pearson's Oswald dealing with neurofibromatosis with an authentic and chipper zeal.

Best Supporting Actress

• Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown) X
• Ariana Grande (Wicked) #
• Felicity Jones (The Brutalist) X
• Isabella Rossellini (Conclave) X
• Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez) $X
• ------
• Brigette Lundy-Paine (I Saw the TV Glow)
• Joan Chen (Dìdi)
• Margaret Qualley (The Substance)
• Rebecca Ferguson (Dune: Part Two)

 Well this category is a mess. The only truly deserving nominee is Ariana Grande, whose bubbly pep gave Wicked a spark. The idea that The Substance would get a Best Picture nomination and Moore would be the Best Actress favorite but Margaret Qualley would be shut out of contention feels more bizarre than the movie itself. Ferguson is another victim of the Oscars overlooking the acting chops in Dune: Part Two. And while Dìdi and I Saw the TV Glow didn't catch on with a large enough audience to garner Oscars consideration, both Lundy-Paine and Chen were gripping presences whenever they were on screen.

Best Cinematography

While there are many deserving films that could’ve been nominated (Wicked, Furiosa, Conclave), the fact that Nickel Boys is up for Best Picture but not Best Cinematography makes zero sense. The film’s gorgeous first-person POV cinematography is the whole draw of the (very good) movie!

Best Production Design

For my money the most underrated Oscar is production design, which spotlights the true cinematic world builders. The wonderfully colorful land of Oz depicted in Wicked makes it a deserved favorite in a very solid field, but this seems like another spot where the Academy missed the boat on Furiosa's post-apocalyptic pizzazz and also where the cartoonishly macabre delights of the smash hit Beetlejuice Beetlejuice could've and should've received some love.

Best Original Screenplay

Another likely deserved win for Sean Baker and Anora. The Brutalist and A Real Pain misfire at humanity’s dark sides and discomforts in ways that A Different Man and Dìdi actually succeed.

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Best Adapted Screenplay

Have you read Dune? The fact that Denis Villeneuve and Jon Spaihts transformed such a lore-heavy text into two great blockbuster fare remains remarkable. Conclave will likely win despite its final swerve playing out a bit too abruptly.

Best Animated Feature

The Wild Robot is the most paint-by-numbers movie that I’ve ever watched while crying the whole time. For that, it has my vote.