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Happy New Year! Yep, it is again that time when the culture wakes back to life, groggily wiping away the mist left by another long (and hopefully restful) holiday season. Yet if you’re in the awards season game, either as a voter, prognosticator, or (Thalberg help you) a hopeful for nomination, it’s been anything but quiet. In fact, Oscars buzz has been burning bright for months and is now about to grow into a roaring fire.
As miraculous as it sounds, the Golden Globes have survived their PR nightmares of a few years ago and are back to their weekend night perch as the first major televised awards show of the New Year—this Sunday night, actually. The Critics Choice Awards follow shortly thereafter next week, and then comes the deluge of all the others: SAGs, PGAs, DGAs, BAFTAs, and more! All of them of course are building, inevitably, to the big one. Oscar night, which this year falls on March 2, 2025.
And as ever, Oscar season comes with a whole new slate of films you might need to be reminded of—or encouraged to catch up on. So while it is still wildly early to make predictions about who will definitely win the big prizes, we at least have a decent idea of who is in contention, or even contending to become in contention. We have thus assembled 20 films for your perusal below. They’re ranked in order of those most likely to be nominated for Best Picture, although in each section we’ll note where else they might be most competitive for Oscar gold. In other words: Best Picture frontrunners are at the top, but most will have an opportunity somewhere else in the cycle…
A24
The Brutalist
It was difficult picking which movie to begin this list with because unlike last year’s Oppenheimer juggernaut, there is no clear cut frontrunner. In fact, we suspect this is the most open the Best Picture race has been since CODA took home the Oscars’ top prize three years ago (more on that comparison in a moment). Still, in a relatively wide open field, the best place to begin is probably with the presumed frontrunner for Best Picture: Brady Corbet’s pensive and mournful The Brutalist.
An epic that runs at three and a half hours in length when you tack on the intermission, The Brutalist is a throwback to type of monumental Hollywood moviemaking that filled roadshows back in the mid-20th century… which is all the more astonishing when you know Corbet made this for indie studio A24 on a budget of about $10 million (it turns out your dollar goes a lot further when you film in Hungary and just say it’s Connecticut!). That old-fashioned sense of scale and stately grandeur will appeal to the Academy, as will the subject matter. This is a Jewish American immigrant story following an architect (Adrien Brody), who attempts to start again in New York City and thereabouts after surviving the death camps of the Holocaust.
But while the concept might appeal to Academy of Motion Picture Art and Sciences, the movie’s fairly bleak and ultimately cynical view of America’s ability to assimilate and embrace immigrants will not. Admittedly, that sense of fatalism might appeal to the current political climate, but traditionally Oscar voters have preferred films that champion and seek to lift up the human experience, particularly when mythologizing America’s own contributions to it. Decrying the capitalistic lie in that myth might win over critics, with The Brutalist being already declared Best Picture by the New York Film Critics Circle, but the AMPAS is not the NYFCC.
The film’s ultimately romantic views on the power of artistic achievement and legacy will speak to the Academy, still we we think the film is too heavy (and long) to win the top prize. With that said, expect Brody to be the real frontrunner in Best Actor, as well as Brady Corbet being able to plausibly take home Best Director even while missing Picture. Guy Pearce should also land a Best Supporting Actor nod, Felicity Jones maybe also showing up in Best Supporting Actress, and the movie doing well in Best Cinematography and Film Editing nominations.
Focus Features
Conclave
If The Brutalist is the presumed Best Picture frontrunner on New Year’s Day 2025, then Conclave is the one I personally feel has, at this point, the momentum and narrative to triumph with Academy voters. A straight down the middle political thriller with the tantalizing wrinkle of being set during the highly secretive (and highly fictionalized) election of a new pope, Focus Features and director Edward Berger’s Conclave is a much more conventional drama—and an entertaining one.
Starring Ralph Fiennes as a priest wracked with doubt (is there any other kind at the movies?), his Father Lawrence is forced to oversee a conclave of cardinals as they select the next pontiff in Vatican City. Conclave is a movie about faith, but also raw power, and it’s easy to see any 21st century political struggle between progressivism and reactionary conservatism in this film’s depiction of squabbling white collars, egos, and, above all, men.
It’s also a crowdpleaser that won over audiences at every festival it played at. Admittedly, it didn’t win the top prize in Venice, but now on the other side of a brutal U.S. election, we suspect Conclave’s highly implausible but entertaining melodrama now looks like wish fulfillment. That is important during moments of anxiety. Recall that the CODA won Best Picture at the tail end of the COVID crisis, triumphing over critical darling The Power of the Dog, another highly regarded but misanthropic film that won Best Picture with the NYFCC, the CCAs, and a slew of other critics groups, but got shut out at the Oscars beyond Jane Campion for Best Director. Meanwhile the Best Picture category rewards consensus on second or even third picks by way of the preferential ballot voting system. In other words, Conclave could win by being a lot of folks’ second choice.
Beyond Best Picture, expect Ralph Fiennes to be Brody’s biggest competition in Best Actor, and Peter Straughan’s adaptation of the Robert Harris novel to be a slam dunk in the Best Adapted Screenplay category. Isabella Rossellini will definitely be nominated for Best Supporting Actress, Stanley Tucci might be nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and the film should also pick up a number of technical nominations, including nods for cinematography and production design.
Netflix
Emilia Pérez
We suspect Film Twitter’s new sworn enemy will find plenty of friends come the morning of Oscar nominations. Aye, this daring, galaxy-brained swing of a musical about a Mexican drug cartel leader transitioning into a woman with a greater sense of hope and empathy transgresses a lot of lines. It’s also ticked off plenty of social media users. But it is still a genuinely one-of-a-kind original that lands its high emotions for viewers who tend to skew older, European, and/or not terminally online.
Emilia Pérez has already won the coveted Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as seen its quartet of lead female performances, including Karla Sofía Gascón as the renamed Emilia Pérez and Zoe Saldana as her lawyer of flexible morality, win Best Actress at that festival. We suspect the picture’s audacity and sentimentality will likewise win over Oscar voters… perhaps even enough for Best Picture, although the fact the film was released on Netflix (with a token theatrical window to qualify at the Oscars) will be a handicap, as might some cries of the film not being progressive in the right way. But then that hardly stopped the far more problematic and actually antiquated Green Book…
Also expect to see Gascón be nominated for Best Actress and Saldana to likely win for Best Supporting Actress, even though she definitely is giving a co-lead performance. Jacques Audiard will almost be certainly nominated for Best Director and probably for Best Adapted Screenplay, as well. It should dominate in the Original Songs category.
NEON
Anora
Some folks will tell you Anora is the real frontrunner this year. After all, it won the other, even more prestigious big prize at Cannes and became the first American movie to take home the Palme d’Or in over a decade. I’d like to believe them since I count Anora as my second favorite movie of the year. But the film’s frank and candid exploration of the life of a sex worker is always going to be a tough sell for a certain, aging segment of the Academy’s voting body.
Truly though, Anora is terrific. Writer-director Sean Baker crafts a unique character study that is also a stealth screwball comedy with untold depths beneath the laughs. It’s made a star out of Mikey Madison, who arguably gives the best performance of the year as Ani “Anora” Mikheeva, a sex worker from deep Brooklyn with the accent and attitude to match. So there’s a decent chance that I am not giving the Academy enough credit. Maybe they are hip enough to award Anora Best Picture—at this point in 2020, I was still skeptical about them getting past the foreign language thing with Parasite—but too many more conventional-minded viewers are likely to turn off their screeners in the first 20 minutes before getting to the much richer allegory at play about class and exploitation.
Still, Madison is the one to beat in the Best Actress race, and as with Corbet, Sean Baker could excel in the Best Director race where voting is not done by preferential ballot. Anora will also be neck and neck with another film further down on this list for Best Original Screenplay. And hopefully, Yura Borisov will surprise folks and fight his way into a Best Supporting Actor nomination.
Universal Pictures
Wicked
Finally rounding out the real Best Picture frontrunners that have a real shot at winning Best Picture is this year’s populist pick, and boy if it isn’t a high-flying one. Jon M. Chu’s Wicked has indeed exceeded nearly all expectations and become the biggest live-action hit of the holiday season and the highest grossing musical ever, with the film earning $644 million (and counting) as of press time. And as has become a common conversation the Academy has with itself, Wicked raises the question of whether this is the year they give Best Picture to a movie most audiences saw?
To be fair, they kind of did that last year with Oppenheimer, but that was also a brooding, three-hour historical drama about World War II and supposed great men doing terrible things. Wicked, by contrast, is a big earnest-hearted, goofy-grinning toe-tapper about the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. But not that long ago, musicals were winning Best Picture, and this one has an unintended but nonetheless potent political punch after last year’s election. Oscar winner and Academy favorite Adam McKay has even given permission to others to take the film’s messaging seriously by calling it “one of the most radical big studio Hollywood movies ever made.”
It also boasts a barn-burning performance by Cynthia Erivo, which should earn her a Best Actress nomination. Ariana Grande likewise looks like a lock in the Best Supporting Actress race, with the multi-talented pop star being the biggest threat to Saldana in winning the trophy. It will also do well in technical categories like Best Hair and Makeup, Costumes, and Production Design.
WB
Dune: Part Two
Timing is a strange thing. When Dune: Part One was nominated for Best Picture and Best Director, some quarters speculated it could be a covert dark horse. Most, however, favored the assumption that like with Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, the Academy would honor the achievement of conquering an “unadaptable” genre novel after the filmmaker stuck the landing. But here we are three years later, and Denis Villeneuve stuck the landing with a Part Two most consider even better than the first film (including us!)… but all the populist momentum has shifted to Wicked.
Part of that might be snobbery—with many Academy voters only wanting to allow one blockbuster as a serious contender for the top prize—and part of that is probably recency bias, with Dune: Part Two opening way back during the last Oscar season in March and Wicked debuting over the Thanksgiving holiday. Whatever the case, while Dune: Part Two will almost certainly be nominated for Best Picture, Villeneuve looks like a dark horse for even getting a Best Director nod, and Chalamet is going to be nominated for another movie (though personally, we think he was far better as Muad’Dib…). Also where’s the love for Austin Butler’s wicked work as an evil space albino Commodus? The movie should still at least do well in technical categories like Best Film Editing, Production Design, Costumes, Cinematography, and Visual Effects.
Searchlight Pictures
A Complete Unknown
While some critics, including this one, had issues with the formulaic qualities at work in the Bob Dylan biopic, it is still largely well-received by reviewers and celebrated by audiences. James Mangold’s ode to the “voice of a generation” earned the coveted “A” CinemaScore and is doing good business for a mid-budget prestige film from a studio’s speciality label, in this case Disney’s Searchlight Pictures.
All of which paints the picture of a successful crowdpleaser that honors a Boomer icon, aka an idol to the Academy’s largest generational voting bloc. It’s getting into Best Picture and possibly Best Adapted Screenplay, even if it won’t win either prize. Timothée Chalamet should also pick up another Best Actor nomination while Monica Barbaro has a decent chance of getting into the Best Supporting Actress race for her turn as Joan Biaz.
Searchlight Pictures
A Real Pain
Simply a very poignant dramedy and character study about two brothers on a fateful, if not necessarily life-altering, holiday in Europe, A Real Pain is the kind of quiet and sophisticated character work that appeals to the Academy. It makes you laugh, maybe cry, and is easily accessible for mainstream audiences, provided they ever give it a chance.
That poignancy makes it highly competitive in our estimation for getting into the “bottom five” of the Best Picture race. Jesse Eisenberg’s direction of longtime friend Kieran Culkin will also probably result in Culkin winning Best Supporting Actor. We also think Eisenberg’s work as a writer on A Real Pain is Anora’s biggest completion in the Best Original Screenplay category.
Paramount Pictures
September 5
Another smaller film that could theoretically play well to most audiences, and definitely the Academy, is Tim Fehlbaum’s breathless thriller September 5. Set during the 1972 Summer Olympics terrorist crisis in Munich, Germany, where Israeli athletes were taken hostage and ultimately murdered by a terrorist group, September 5 drops you into a narrow prism of the nightmare: the ABC Sports newsroom that inadvertently ended up covering the breaking news in real time.
Ultimately as much as parable for all the ethical, moral, and legal challenges that would confront (and some might say cloud) news organizations in the 50 years that followed, September 5 is a brutally effective 95-minute teeth-gnasher which emulates the fly-on-the-wall quality of some of the 1970s’ best films, many of them directed by Sidney Lumet and William Friedkin. We’re willing to wager it gets into Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and perhaps Best Film Editing.
A24
Sing Sing
If you are keeping count, you might notice we have reached the 10th entry on this list. Only 10 films can be nominated for Best Picture, which means we suspect this one (as well as probably the one or two above it) are on the bubble. And in the case of Sing Sing that is a shame, because it really is one of the three best movies of the year in my estimation, and an absolutely ebullient film.
Inspired by the real theater program enacted at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility, and populated with former inmates now acting in this movie, Greg Kwedar’s Sing Sing is a tribute to the resilience of the soul, as well as the power of the arts to feed and even heal it. It treats its characters with empathy, honesty, and humanity, and also provides star Colman Domingo with the opportunity to create one of the most textured and beautiful performances of this decade. He should win Best Actor. He’ll at least be nominated in that race though, and perhaps could still upset Brody and/or Fiennes. Meanwhile Clarence Maclin could get into the Best Supporting Actor shortlist.
MUBI
The Substance
Another of my personal top five films on the bubble is The Substance, writer-director Coralie Fargeat’s blistering and delightful body horror satire of the expectations placed on women—especially those of a certain age and in certain industries. Say, for instance, Demi Moore, who in The Substance plays Elisabeth Sparkle, a former Oscar winner and current daytime television personality who cannot even hang onto that gig when her boss (Dennis Quaid) finds out she just turned 50. But salvation (or damnation?) might arrive in the mail and at the bottom of a magic bottle containing a substance that allows Elisabeth to birth H.R. Giger-style a younger, more nubile version of herself (Margaret Qualley).
The metaphor is not subtle, nor does it need to be. It is however perversely amusing as Moore’s Elisabeth and Qualley’s Sue slowly vie for dominance while time-sharing the same life, and both quickly see things descend into a queasy, blood-soaked fantasia. It’s one of the best movies of the year, and one of the bigger indie hits to boot. Alas, it is also a horror movie, so count us among those skeptical about the Academy giving The Substance its due in the Best Picture race. Even so, Fargeat will be nominated for Best Original Screenplay, and Moore and Qualley hold outside chances of getting in to Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively. And it’s definitely the frontrunner for Best Makeup and Hairstyling.
Amazon MGM Studios
Nickel Boys
And here is yet another bubble film I consider one of the best—or in this case the best—movie of the year. RaMell Ross’ Nickel Boys is a groundbreaking masterpiece that tackles perception, race, and even how to use the camera in American cinema. You probably have heard about the premise of the movie being told mostly from the POV of two Black teenagers in at Nickel Academy, a fictionalized reform school based on the real-life horror show of the Dozier School for Boys in Florida. But this technique is more than just a gimmick. In Nickel Boys, switching between the eyes of young Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson) becomes an immersive innovation that places you in the characters’ shoes and limited brushes with grace and injustice in 1960s America. The narrative becomes as slippery and haunting as childhood memories 40 years after the fact.
It is a beautiful film that should be a frontrunner for Best Picture and Best Director. And to be fair, it could get into both races, but we suspect it will just miss out. Still, it’s definitely getting into Best Adapted Screenplay and, if there’s any justice, Best Cinematography.
NEON
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Another bubble film, and one we’re pretty confident will just miss out, is Mohammad Rasoulof’s gripping political thriller, The Seed of the Sacred Fig. Set in Tehran and following an investigating judge and member of the Revolutionary Court who is tasked with facing political unrest and protests after the death of a young woman in the custody of the government’s morality police, Seed stares into the abyss of real-life repression and the tools abused by authority. We imagine it will be a frontrunner in the Best International Film category as well, although it will be facing off Emilia Pérez there. It also has a dark horse chance at getting into that coveted fifth spot for Best Original Screenplay.
Paramount Pictures
Gladiator II
Ridley Scott is a legend with definitely his share of boosters in the Academy—Christopher Nolan prominently among them—but while Gladiator II was a solid hit and expansion on Scott’s Best Picture Oscar winner from 25 years ago, it is generally recognized as a step down from that 2000 film’s grandeur and heavy-hitting emotionality. Even so, Denzel Washington is a shoo-in for a Best Supporting Actor nomination. He might even be a dark horse candidate to beat Culkin. The film will also likely be nominated for Production Design, Costumes, and Visual Effects.
Focus Features
Nosferatu
Robert Eggers’ formidable and foreboding films are an acquired taste. Their deliberate pacing and obsession with historical fidelity creates unique feats of period immersion, but they’re not for everyone. It seems this perhaps includes the Academy, which snubbed even the obvious technical achievements in The Lighthouse and The Northman.
Thus the element probably most in Nosferatu’s favor is that it turned out to be an over-performing mega hit for a middle-budgeted, adult-oriented Christmas release. The film is doing amazing business. That could move the needle, and personally we’d love to see it. But alas, we don’t think that will push Nosferatu out of the technical categories due to a continued snobbery toward the horror genre—especially in a year where the Academy is already considering lowering itself to nominate The Substance. To date, there have only been six horror films nominated for Best Picture, the last in 2018 (Get Out), and never two in a single year. In that vein, serious considerations for Picture, Directing, and Best Actress are probably out. Sigh. Still, expect the film to have a good chance of being nominated for Best Costume Design, Production Design, Makeup and Hairstyling, Sound, and Cinematography. Of course it should win Cinematography, but that is a whole other discussion…
Netflix
Maria
Pablo Larraín’s heartfelt if reserved Maria—a biographical film about legendary opera singer Maria Callas—also has little chance of getting a Best Picture nomination, but star Angelina Jolie is a strong contender to be nominated for Best Actress (although it is not guaranteed). The film will also probably be nominated for Best Costume Design and maybe Best Cinematography.
Amazon MGM Studios
Challengers
About 25 or 30 years ago, Challengers would have been the type of movie that would be a lock for a Best Picture nod. It’s a thrilling, propulsive middle-brow drama with charismatic, good looking people getting meaty lines to chew on in a genuine crowdpleaser that made money. It’s inability to even be on the bubble is perhaps an indictment of modern Academy instincts. Luca Guadagnino’s frothy spectacle should at least possibly be nominated for Best Film Editing and Best Score, two categories where in a better world it’d be a frontrunner. It also has an outside, if remote, chance of snagging a Best Original Screenplay nomination.
StudioCanal
Hard Truths
Mike Leigh’s bittersweet character study of a depressed, middle-aged woman navigating (or sinking) her relationships with family and friends can be a hard if rewarding watch. It also is built entirely around a haymaker performance by Marianne Jean-Baptiste as the woman in question. Some critics are calling it the best performance of the year, but she’s on the bubble of getting in for Best Actress, with the fourth and fifth spots in that category coming down to Jean-Baptiste, Jolie, Moore, and Nicole Kidman for a film further down on this list. Hard Truths is similarly on the bubble for a Best Original Screenplay nod.
A24
Babygirl
Halina Reijn’s throwback to 1980s erotic thrillers turned out to be probably too earnest in its desire of mimicking the lurid thrills of its influences, albeit from a distinctly feminine point-of-view. Still, Nicole Kidman gives a fearless performance as a successful and happily married CEO who… still finds herself drawn into a sordid affair with an intern only too eager to play her dominant (Harris Dickinson). Kidman is also a favorite of the acting wing of the Academy (and everyone else, really), so she might get into the fifth Best Actress spot.
A24
Queer
Luca Guadagnino’s other frothy 2024 film is a lot less mainstream and easy-to-please as Challengers. It is, after all, based on a William S. Burroughs novel. The film, however, does feature a gregarious performance by Daniel Craig as William S. Burroughs in all but name. He plays an American ex-pat writer in Mexico who is bored, bitter, and all too ready to become enamored with a much younger man. Craig will likely get nominated for Best Actor, but probably not much else for this one.
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