OSCAR 2025 Picks and Preview
The ONLY online source for Academy Award predictions and analysis
Below are my Oscar picks for some of the “major” awards. For each, I’ll give betting advice (for entertainment purposes only) for those who want to clean up and impress their friends at their Oscar watch parties. Then I’ll imagine how it would go if I were the Emperor of the Academy. Then I’ll add a few comments.
Last year, I did pretty well, if I do say so myself. This year I’m not as confident going in, but we sally forth. As I did last year, I’ll point out if I think anything un-nominated was not just snubbed, but was better than everything in the field.
Enjoy!
Best Actor
If I had to bet: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
If I were in charge: Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Comments: Brody is always good, and does a fine job in an epic role. Domingo’s performance, though, is remarkable, and hits all the notes you would want from a Best Actor winner—and then some. Because what separates Domingo’s performance from all the other nominees this year is that about two-thirds into the film (for me, it’s the clemency hearing scene) you realize there have been layers to what he’s been doing that you didn’t notice. As a result, once the movie is over, you want to watch it again. It’s almost meta, and it’s special.
Best Actress
If I had to bet: Demi Moore, The Substance
If I were in charge: Mikey Madison, Anora
Comments: Looking at Demi Moore’s Oscar as a lifetime achievement award will help me sleep better, I think. Because I just don’t think her performance in The Substance is that special. And, to be fair: The Substance isn’t for me. I think what it does well, it does really well; and there are also a lot of glaring misses for me. And if you’re reading this and saying, “Well, you don’t get it.” You’re right: I don’t get it. Actually, I think I do get the message. I just don’t get why a lot of the choices used to convey that message were the best ones. And I don’t get the hype behind Moore’s performance; I think a lot of people are conflating respect for her taking the role with respect for what she does in the role. (For my money, I’ll say: when it comes to performances, Margaret Qualley was better.)
I didn’t love Anora, but Mikey Madison did more things well, and did them better, than Moore did.
Best Supporting Actor
If I had to bet: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
If I were in charge: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Comments: This is a tough one for me. For the second year in a row, the Best Supporting Actor field is a weak one. Culkin did a fine enough job; but so much of what I’ve read and heard recently suggests that he’s essentially playing himself.
What makes this especially tough for me is that I think I could come up with a much better field than the actual nominees, using four actors in Oscar-nominated films.
Since you asked: Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing; Paul Raci, Sing Sing; Will Sharpe, A Real Pain; Karren Karagulian, Anora.
I’ll make this point again later, but I’m telling you: Sing Sing is really good, and Clarence Maclin is just terrific in it. As you know, my general policy is not to get upset about snubs unless I think they could win. I’m reasonably upset about Maclin’s snub, because he was the best supporting performance I saw all year.
Best Supporting Actress
If I had to bet: Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Perez
If I were in charge: Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Perez
Comments: We’ve come to the point where I should say: I didn’t hate Emilia Perez. I didn’t love it, either; and, but for its nominations, it’s likely I wouldn’t have seen it. And I’m not here to dismiss the validity of its critics’ arguments, or excuse its problematic elements. But there are a lot of scenes that just work. (Of course I’m not talking about *that* scene, the one that earned the film universal ridicule.) And Saldaña is a big reason the scenes that work work.
(Incidentally, I do think the story would have worked much better as a one-season tv series than it does as a film.)
Best Adapted Screenplay
If I had to bet: Conclave
If I were in charge: Sing Sing
Comments: I don’t know Sing Sing’s backstory that well, but I know enough to know the screenplay is an achievement. The story rings true, and keeps itself grounded. Over and over, there are opportunities for the story to lapse into melodrama, and it just doesn’t. (If you haven’t guessed already, I’m just about *this* close to doing a standalone Sing Sing Pitch.)
Best Original Screenplay
If I had to bet: Anora
If I were in charge: A Real Pain
Comments: A Real Pain is really good. Like Sing Sing, it keeps the main thing the main thing, and actively avoids predictable story turns. It’s a love song to a lot of things: family, the Jewish-American experience, and Poland. Throughout, it keeps itself balanced. And I’ll tell you what: it really nails its most important and highest-degree-of-difficulty scenes. (It won’t spoil anything to tell you that yes, one of them is the concentration camp scene.)
Best Visual Effects
If I had to bet: Dune: Part Two
If I were in charge: Wicked
Comments: I don’t have a great feel for this field. I will say Wicked is a visual triumph and a delight to look at; its vision is ambitious and impressive. I really really wanted to say that Alien: Romulus had the best effects; but gosh, there are a few clunky elements.
Best Animated Feature
If I had to bet: Wild Robot
If I were in charge: Inside Out 2
Comments: Wild Robot is really good; and its animation is especially impressive. What I especially like about Inside Out 2 is how it balances humor with poignance, and how it grabs you from the beginning and keeps hold of you until the end. On the other hand, Wild Robot starts off a bit slowly for me.
Best Director
If I had to bet: Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
If I were in charge: Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
Comments: I know Sean Baker is the slight favorite here, for Anora. But my guy Justin Brown told me that The Brutalist and Anora had nearly identical budgets. And that makes this call not even close for me. Watching The Brutalist, over and over I found myself impressed with Corbet’s execution of very high-degree-of-difficulty elements.
Having said that, if we’re actually talking about *achievement* in direction, then we should talk about Nickel Boys. Now, the Oscar math gets tough for Nickel Boys; it made the list of ten nominees for Best Picture, but, in part because there are only five nominees for best director, RaMell Ross got (very!) snubbed. And that’s tough because there’s just no way that Nickel Boys is going to win best picture; but Ross very well could have won Best Director.
Nickel Boys presents as ambitious a vision as I can recall. It’s reminiscent of 1917 in the sense that Ross makes brave and beautiful decisions about how best to use the art form to present the film’s messages. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I wouldn’t bet that I ever will.
In any event, if Baker wins, I would, if I were either Corbet or Ross, roll my eyes.
Best Picture
If I had to bet: Anora
If I were in charge: Nickel Boys or The Brutalist
Comments: Most of what The Brutalist does is very good. Its last twenty minutes aren’t for me. Nickel Boys, meanwhile, is a very labor-intensive watch; I’ve only half-joked that I think more than half the voters didn’t finish it all the way through. But goodness, does it stick the landing.
I’ll close by saying that I’m disappointed Sing Sing wasn’t nominated. Of the Oscar-nominated films I watched, it’s the one I most eagerly look forward to seeing again. It was the most enjoyable to watch. It has important things to say. It executes well. It’s under two hours. (It, ahem, does not need an intermission.)
And, importantly, it fits right into a pocket, and could apply the Goldilocks theory to build a broad coalition of Academy voters. There are voters for whom Wicked and Dune: Part Two aren’t serious enough. And there are viewers for whom The Brutalist and Nickel Boys are too “arty.” Sing Sing is serious enough, but not too arty.
Enjoy the show, folks! Sound off in the comments with what I got wrong!
See you next time, when we discuss Jurassic Park (1993). (For real, this time.)
p.s. This one’s for you, Matt.