Your 2025 Oscar Nominations and Thoughts

The stars are out tonight, and so is 'Emilia Pérez.'

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It’s not as if I didn’t know they were coming, but I was about 92% of the way finished with This Week In Movie Posters when this year’s Oscars nominations dropped. So this one is jumping the line. Anyway, here are all the nominations, along with some of my thoughts, which I know you all couldn’t live without.

Emilia Pérez from the Top Rope!

The film receiving the most nominations is… Emilia Pérez? It’s true. 13 nominations! That’s three more than the next-closest films (The Brutalist and Wicked with ten each). Everyone sort of thought Emilia Pérez getting all those Golden Globes was kind of a fluke, considering it’s a movie that feels specifically engineered to appeal to the kind of foreign pseudo-entertainment journalists that vote on the Golden Globes. Remember when they gave three nominations to The Tourist? Foreigners love Johnnny Depp. Anyway, apparently it was no fluke.

Have you guys seen Emilia Pérez? You should, it’s on Netflix. It is, and no part of this is a joke, a Spanish language-musical about Mexican drug lord who gets a sex change. There is a song and full-on musical number called “La Vaginoplastia.” It’s been controversial for many reasons, like being about Mexico but not starring any actual Mexicans (it was directed by a Frenchman), and maybe perpetuating outdated notions about trans people. But I enjoyed it enough. At a certain point, it’s not problematic, it’s just French. It’s silly and fun, and feels exactly like a French person’s take on a telenovela. If you combine the sensibility of Serious Oscar Movies with the sensibility of the Eurovision Song Contest you get something like Emilia Pérez.

Best Picture

Anora (my review)
The Brutalist (review soon to come)
A Complete Unknown (my review)
Conclave
Dune: Part Two (my review)
Emilia Pérez
I’m Still Here
Nickel Boys
The Substance
Wicked

Betting Favorite, per Oddschecker: The Brutalist, -125.

Thoughts: I’ve seen all of these, minus Nickel Boys and I’m Still Here, but it’s not a terrible list. Nosferatu (my review) and A Real Pain (my review) belonged on there (Rebel Ridge too, but that was never happening), in my opinion. Maybe even Furiosa, which, gun to my head I think maybe I liked slightly better than Dune Two. Of these, I think my favorite was… Conclave? It was two hours of priests talking and I was riveted. Least favorite: Well, I got through an hour of Wicked, and there was still an hour 45 more to go and it didn’t feel like the point was even in sight yet. Maybe it got good after that, I don’t know! The songs were decent! Some things just aren’t for me and that’s fine!

Best Director

Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez
Sean Baker, Anora
Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
Coralie Fargeat, The Substance
James Mangold, A Complete Unknown

Betting Favorite, per Oddschecker: Corbet, -325.

Thoughts: Emilia Pérez! You’re crazy for this one, Academy! Also, no Eggers for Nosferatu or Miller for Furiosa or Villeneuve for Dune Two? James Mangold is great, but he’s mostly great at taking what should by all rights be dogshit and turning into a solid B. There should maybe be a separate category for “best director of a kinda bad movie.”

Actor in a Leading Role

Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice

Betting Favorite, per Oddschecker: Brody, -125.

Thoughts: All these performances were great. I’m between Fiennes and Stan for my favorite (the latter was certainly more surprisingly great, but Fiennes did shred), but I’m also a Brody-head and a Colman Domingo appreciator from way back. I thought Aaron Pierre deserved some love for Rebel Ridge. I don’t see many actors pulling that off. Ryan Gosling was also fantastic in The Fall Guy but I understand why that wasn’t nominated. And shit, why not, whatever else you could say about it, Josh Hartnett was great in Trap.

Actress in a Leading Role

Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez
Mikey Madison, Anora
Demi Moore, The Substance
Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here

Betting Favorite, per Oddschecker: Moore, -140.

Thoughts: Demi Moore was great in The Substance, definitely much better than I expected, but give it to Mikey Madison. Come on, she crushed that. I thought she was that character.

Actor in a Supporting Role

Yura Borisov, Anora
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice

Betting Favorite, per Oddschecker: Culkin, -700

Thoughts: I can’t fault the academy too much for this one, I would’ve died trying to come up with a list of just five this year. These nominees were all fantastic. But also: Dafoe in Nosferatu. Denzel in Gladiator II. Chris Hemsworth in Furiosa (he was so good!). Tom Hardy in Bikeriders. The Tooch from Conclave. Either of the twinks from Challengers (my review). Probably a bunch I’m forgetting. I want to be happy about Culkin being the heavy favorite since he really killed that, but so did Yura Borisov and Jeremy Strong.

Actress in a Supporting Role

Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown
Ariana Grande, Wicked
Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez

Betting Favorite, per Oddschecker: Saldaña, -470

Thoughts: Arianda Grande? For real? Are we giving points for commitment to a persona during a press tour now? How about Emily Blunt in Fall Guy or Tilda Swinton in Problemista? I mean I know that would never happen. As long as we’re dreaming, let’s go Dakota Johnson in Madame Web. She gave us a performance I’ll never forget in a movie that was engineered to be forgettable, which is pretty impressive.

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

A Complete Unknown (Screenplay by James Mangold and Jay Cocks)
Conclave (Screenplay by Peter Straughan)
Emilia Pérez (Screenplay by Jacques Audiard; In collaboration with Thomas Bidegain, Léa Mysius and Nicolas Livecchi)
Nickel Boys (Screenplay by RaMell Ross & Joslyn Barnes)
Sing Sing (Screenplay by Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar; Story by Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin, John “Divine G” Whitfield)

Thoughts: No odds available, but Conclave or we riot.

Writing (Original Screenplay)

Anora (Written by Sean Baker)
The Brutalist (Written by Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold)
A Real Pain (Written by Jesse Eisenberg)
September 5 (Written by Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum; Co-Written by Alex David)
The Substance (Written by Coralie Fargeat)

Thoughts: Anora, but A Real Pain was also great. The Substance was really smart and ballsy, but for a lot of the second half I felt like I was waiting for what I already knew was going to happen to play out.

Animated Feature Film

Flow
Inside Out 2
Memoir of a Snail
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
The Wild Robot

Thoughts: I saw The Wild Robot. It was cute. It was my son’s first movie in a theater. He ate a whole box of Sour Patch Kids and drank an entire Icee and the second we got home he puked on the floor.

Animated Short Film

Beautiful Men (Nicolas Keppens and Brecht Van Elslande)
In the Shadow of the Cypress (Shirin Sohani and Hossein Molayemi)
Magic Candies (Daisuke Nishio and Takashi Washio)
Wander to Wonder (Nina Gantz and Stienette Bosklopper)
Yuck! (Loïc Espuche and Juliette Marquet)

Thoughts: Great job, everyone. Congrats on all the animating.

Cinematography

The Brutalist (Lol Crawley)
Dune: Part Two (Greig Fraser)
Emilia Pérez (Paul Guilhaume)
Maria (Ed Lachman)
Nosferatu (Jarin Blaschke)

Thoughts: I still can’t believe there’s a person called “Lol Crawley.” I hope he wins too. Oy dedicated dis Oscah to aw da lads at uni who gif me dis ridicuwus naime, yeah?

Costume Design

A Complete Unknown (Arianne Phillips)
Conclave (Lisy Christl)
Gladiator II (Janty Yates and Dave Crossman)
Nosferatu (Linda Muir)
Wicked (Paul Tazewell)

Thoughts: How do you not nominate Furiosa for this? Are there really people who think dressing characters like Bob Dylan is harder than what Furiosa did? We have pictures of Bob Dylan! (Nosferatu vs. Gladiator II is a real Sophie’s Choice here for me).

Editing

Anora (Sean Baker)
The Brutalist (David Jancso)
Conclave (Nick Emerson)
Emilia Pérez (Juliette Welfling)
Wicked (Myron Kerstein)

Thoughts: Hard to evaluate this category without seeing the dailies.

Makeup and Hairstyling

A Different Man (Mike Marino, David Presto and Crystal Jurado)
Emilia Pérez (Julia Floch Carbonel, Emmanuel Janvier and Jean-Christophe Spadaccini)
Nosferatu (David White, Traci Loader and Suzanne Stokes-Munton)
The Substance (Pierre-Olivier Persin, Stéphanie Guillon and Marilyne Scarselli)
Wicked (Frances Hannon, Laura Blount and Sarah Nuth)

Thoughts: Throw The Apprentice in there and make it a Sebastian Stan-vehicle twofer, imo.

Music (Original Score)

The Brutalist (Daniel Blumberg)
Conclave (Volker Bertelmann)
Emilia Pérez (Clément Ducol and Camille)
Wicked (John Powell and Stephen Schwartz)
The Wild Robot (Kris Bowers)

Thoughts: I remember The Brutalist’s score, ergo it’s The Brutalist.

Music (Original Song)

“El Mal” from Emilia Pérez (Music by Clément Ducol and Camille; Lyric by Clément Ducol, Camille and Jacques Audiard)
“The Journey” from The Six Triple Eight (Music and Lyric by Diane Warren)
“Like a Bird” from Sing Sing (Music and Lyric by Abraham Alexander and Adrian Quesada)
“Mi Camino” from Emilia Pérez (Music and Lyric by Camille and Clément Ducol)
“Never Too Late” from Elton John: Never Too Late (Music and Lyric by Elton John, Brandi Carlile, Andrew Watt and Bernie Taupin)

Thoughts: Elton John: Never Too Late — this was a movie? Can we confirm? Also, how are you going to give Emilia Pérez 13 noms and not acknowledge “La Vaginoplastia?”

Documentary Feature Film

Black Box Diaries (Shiori Ito, Eric Nyari and Hanna Aqvilin)
No Other Land (Basel Adra, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal and Yuval Abraham)
Porcelain War (Brendan Bellomo, Slava Leontyev, Aniela Sidorska and Paula DuPre’ Pesmen)
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Johan Grimonprez, Daan Milius and Rémi Grellety)
Sugarcane (Nominees to be determined)

Thoughts: I saw way too few documentaries this year. I did see The Curious Case of Bam Margera last night, and boy that might be the messiest doc I’ve ever seen. Messy story, messy characters, messy storytelling — just a spiraling disaster about spiraling disasters. It’s wild to me that someone saw the success of The Curious Case of Natalia Grace and thought, “You know what the best part of this was? Beth Karas, the TV lawyer who recaps what we just saw every eight minutes.”