2025 Oscars Preview (and Ballot Prediction Contest)
Let's get you ready for Sunday night
One of the more unpredictable awards seasons in recent memory comes to an end at the 97th Academy Awards on Sunday night. Before the Oscars ceremony hosted by Conan O’Brien kicks off at 7pm ET, we’re here to do our annual preview where we break down the eight major categories with our prediction and who we think should win. Then, we’ll give you a few upsets to watch for and how we would rank the Best Picture nominees. (If you want to catch up on all the nominees, check out our streaming guide for where to watch them.)
Prediction Time
Make sure you join our Oscars Prediction Contest before Sunday night! The winners will receive a shoutout in next week’s newsletter and podcast!
BEST PICTURE
Drew: Anora
Who Should Win: The Brutalist
This is the most suspense for a Best Picture envelope reading in at least five years, when Jane Fonda announced that Parasite had upset 1917. The race this year has been twisty with no strong frontrunner. Anora won the Palme d’Or at Cannes. But then Emilia Perez received the most Oscar nominations (before getting derailed by a very modern controversy). But then Conclave won the highest honors at BAFTA and SAG. Anora and Conclave are the two films that have been able to find the most consensus among Academy voters, which is what you need to win on this award’s preferential ballot. I think the race has swung back around to crowning Anora, an unlikely winner, to be sure, but one that everyone seems to like.
Billy: Anora
Who Should Win: Nickel Boys
Based on my rankings below it should be Nickel Boys as the winner, but my heart is with The Brutalist of the realistic winners. Remember the ranked choice everyone. The Brutalist may have more #1 votes, but with the notorious Academy you can bet some of them didn’t watch this 3.5 hour wonderful film. It is not always necessary to fall in love with the process or story of a movie being made for it to have a deserved win. We even have examples of this hurting a movie as awards season goes along. But with The Brutalist that championing of itself is endearing for me and only enhances the experience. Anora or Conclave are good though! Not to disparage them, but this is one of those years that a consistent 2-5 ranking can vault it too #1 for the Best Picture.
BEST DIRECTOR
Drew: Sean Baker (Anora)
Who Should Win: Brady Corbet (The Brutalist)
It wouldn’t be shocking if there was a Picture-Director split this year. Brady Corbet has been awarded many times for his towering work on The Brutalist, but most notably not with the Directors Guild, which went with Anora’s Sean Baker. Corbet pulled off more impressive image-making and filmmaking scale in just his third feature, but Baker has more goodwill built up over a longer career.
Billy: Sean Baker (Anora)
Who Should Win: Brady Corbet (The Brutalist)
This feels like the weirdest slate of director nominees in a while. Sean Baker, a mainstay in the indie world, makes sense for having his time in the spotlight. When someone goes as hard as Brady Corbet does it only makes sense he is here. So it makes sense, but it all feels like uninspiring voting.
BEST ACTOR
Drew: Adrien Brody (The Brutalist)
Who Should Win: Adrien Brody (The Brutalist)
Adrien Brody was the assumed Best Actor winner all season until Timothee Chalamet swooped in with a late win at SAG last weekend. Now we have a real race between the youngest-ever winner of this award (Brody for The Pianist in 2003) and the actor that would be the youngest to ever win (Chalamet). It could be a toss-up, but I’m predicting Brody’s staggering performance in The Brutalist will get him a second Oscar. Like DiCaprio, Timmy might have to make his The Revenant before taking Oscar gold.
Billy: Adrien Brody (The Brutalist)
Who Should Win: Colman Domingo (Sing Sing)
Brody has one. He’s brilliant, but his second one for a period piece set around the fallout of World War II? I’m just not feeling it. Colman Domingo is a force that I feel will be here again. Everyone wants to work with him right now, but we could be creating a lighter version of the classic, “He probably should have one for that other role”, a scenario that plagues the likes of Al Pacino. And for other categories I like to see the bigger swings like The Brutalist win for their extreme efforts, but for performances it is just about what spoke to me. And a general clear goodness from a character always gets me (Willem Dafoe in The Florida Project is similar to me). So that is why Colman Domingo should win.
BEST ACTRESS
Drew: Demi Moore (The Substance)
Who Should Win: Mikey Madison (Anora)
This is another close race, but Demi Moore’s acceptance speech at the Golden Globes put her out in front. The Substance is one of the most insane movies to ever be nominated for Best Picture, but Moore’s deeply committed performance and comeback narrative seem to be strong enough to give her this award over Mikey Madison’s electric turn leading Anora.
Billy: Mikey Madison (Anora)
Who Should Win: Mikey Madison (Anora)
I love that some of the supporting love is being given to Anora and even has a real chance at the big prize, but we are forgetting the titular performance throughout this awards run. This is where I think it ends. The Substance feels a bit too much for the Academy to give any wins. I’m still surprised at the nominations.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Drew: Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain)
Who Should Win: Guy Pearce (The Brutalist)
Sometimes an award gets decided early and there’s too much momentum to stop it. Even though A Real Pain didn’t receive a Best Picture nomination, Kieran Culkin will almost certainly cruise to a victory here. He’s very good in that movie, but Guy Pearce’s excellent work as the blustery benefactor in The Brutalist made this the perfect time to recognize an underappreciated actor like him.
Billy: Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain)
Who Should Win: Guy Pearce (The Brutalist)
Pearce is the best part of The Brutalist. And this is also my Oscar voter moment where I haven’t gotten to A Real Pain yet. Kieran will still win despite my laziness.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Drew: Zoe Saldana (Emilia Perez)
Who Should Win: Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown)
Not even her co-star’s bad tweets could sink Zoe Saldana’s Oscar chances; that’s how much she was always going to win this. Saldana is a super talented actress that has spent much of her career acting against a green screen in Avatar and Marvel movies, so the Academy is likely happy to reward her for the impressive singing, rapping, and dancing she shows off in the extremely messy Emilia Perez. I preferred Monica Barbaro’s astonishing singing of her own as Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown.
Billy: Zoe Saldana (Emilia Perez)
Who Should Win: Ariana Grande (Wicked)
Zoe Saldana is in a bad spot with all the controversy around her film, but she seems to be withstanding the backlash and riding to an easy victory. As for who should win, I know this is a competition… I did not particularly like Wicked, but found it charming from its two leads (she is a lead). Part of what the Oscars tries to get right is marking what was the best or at least most notable from the previous year. Wicked was a revelation and good enough to be a part of this conversation. Give Ariana the win!
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Drew: Conclave
Who Should Win: Conclave
When we were leaving the theater after seeing Conclave last fall, Billy and I immediately praised its crackling screenplay. It seems like voters have agreed, because Conclave has won just about every precursor award in the run-up to the Oscars.
Billy: Conclave
Who Should Win: Nickel Boys
I am writing this late and just saw Drew’s “who should win”… I am at a loss. Nickel Boys is the best movie of all the nominees and the screenplay is one of the main reasons. It is less dialogue and more organizing the form. What RaMell Ross, as writer and director, is able to frame comes from what I imagine is a meticulously crafted screenplay that had me in awe of one of the few true game-changing efforts from this year. RaMell Ross is staying around for a long time, let’s not let an early entrant into the industry be the reason he doesn’t get the award.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Drew: Anora
Who Should Win: Anora
This will be an early indicator of Anora’s Best Picture prospects. You could potentially see Best Picture nominees The Substance or The Brutalist winning here, or even Jesse Eisenberg for A Real Pain. I’m sticking with my prediction that it will be Anora and Sean Baker’s night.
Billy: Anora
Who Should Win: Anora
Should a writer-director win an Oscar because he is playing into a more Academy-friendly screenplay? Maybe not, but I think that is a weird sense of growth for someone like Baker. I feel like he equally wants to be the indie darling and have mainstream success from a prestigious group. Give him the win for this great, while not his best, screenplay and shed the need to impress. Be my little indie darling again, Sean. Don’t care about the others.
Upset Alert!
Here are a couple potential upsets that Drew and Billy were too scared to actually predict above. Look out for these dark horses on Oscar night!
Drew:
Fernanda Torres wins Best Actress for I’m Still Here
The Substance wins Best Original Screenplay
Billy:
Trent Reznor slaps the winner of Best Score. Such BS he isn’t even nominated.
Chalamet gets his Oscar
Ranking the Best Picture Nominees
Drew:
The Brutalist
Dune: Part Two
Anora
Conclave
Nickel Boys
A Complete Unknown
The Substance
Emilia Perez
Billy:
Nickel Boys
The Brutalist
Anora
Dune: Part Two
A Complete Unknown
The Substance
Conclave
Wicked