Scandals and twists and turns, oh my

My 2025 Oscars predictions: it’s better when nobody really knows a thing

Topsy turvy

Greetings from a recess of my cinema-addled mind, which has been fried today with a double header of The Apprentice and I’m Still Here which allowed me miraculously, sensationally, even heroically to continue my streak of watching every film nominated in the “big eight” Oscar categories prior to the ceremony for each of the past five years. Is that a flex or a sign of a deep and profound mental ill-health? Hard to say, really…

So where do things stand? I can pontificate on what the various races indicate at this point, how they encapsulate the state of cinema, et cetera, et cetera, but I already kind of did that (and my favorite working critic, the New York Times’ Wesley Morris, also already summed things up more exquisitely and sharply than I ever could have).

Instead I’ll just say that this is the least confident I have felt in many years about what the Academy Awards will hold. It ought to be fun, since for the first time in a while they have a host in Conan O’Brien who is worth the price of admission even for the marginal moviegoer. And that would be true even if he weren’t an astute student of cinema himself, as evidenced by his impeccable taste dropping a Letterboxd top four with some brilliant off-the-cuff analysis of Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. (Completely unrelated, but his podcast and recent HBO travel show are wall-to-wall gems.)

Beyond that, virtually every major race has a degree of uncertainty barring the Supporting Actor and Actress categories. Best Picture is as uncertain as it has been since 2017’s La La Land vs. Moonlight showdown, at the very least. Best Actor is a crapshoot. Best Director is a bloodbath. It’s all up in the air. And that, too, ought to make watching tonight far more fun that the previous few years, which involved death marches in the form of Oppenheimer and Everything Everywhere All At Once, each annihilating their opposition with an utter lack of mercy and perhaps even a degree of disdain.

It must be said that the source of this mystery and intrigue is grounded in the fact that there is a profound lack of “Oscar-y-ness” among the nominees. Nothing is conventional, aside from perhaps the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, but even that eschews the usual musical biopic formula of a downfall-to-resurgence arc — Dylan does not change one bit over the course of the film, just playing his tunes and treating pretty much everyone around him with callous disregard. Conclave is close on paper, but plays out as a somewhat preposterous political thriller with wicked (sometimes nonsensical) twists, rather than the conventional papal drama it could have been given its premise alone. The leading contender for Best Picture and Best Director is a fairy tale about a Russian-American sex worker that plays at times like a slapstick comedy!

The other side of the topsy-turviness of the race is the cascade of scandals that have rocked and rolled throughout the campaign. The most nominated film, Emilia Pérez, is dead in the water due to the discovery of some of the most heinously racist and xenophobic tweets I have ever seen from its star. So heinous, indeed, that they border on comedy — her review of the 2020 Oscars was: “I didn’t know if I was watching an Afro-Korean festival, a Black Lives Matter demonstration”??? Then there are stupider controversies, like Anora’s lack of an intimacy coordinator and The Brutalist’s (marginal, purposeful, innocent, at least in my eyes) use of AI for portions of its production. The cumulative effect of all this is just to confuse us all, and perhaps to wonder if everyone should take a Xanax and go and touch some grass a bit more often than we tend to.

I realize my pontificating was promised to be short or even nonexistent, and has instead once again become a diatribe. So my commentary has now ended. Here are my predictions for the 2025 Academy Awards which are starting in literally one minute!

Best Picture

Will Win: Anora
Could Win: Conclave (or perhaps The Brutalist if Brady Corbet’s suffocating pretension in his interviews hasn’t exhausted a critical mass of the Academy)
Should Win: The Brutalist or Nickel Boys, which exist in a completely different plane of quality relative to the other nominees.

Addendum: The Brutalist ≥ Nickel Boys > Dune: Part Two > Anora > A Complete Unknown > Conclave > I’m Still Here >Wicked > The Substance > Emilia Pérez

Best Director

Will Win: Sean Baker (Anora)
Could Win: Brady Corbet (The Brutalist)
Should Win: Brady Corbet (The Brutalist)

Best Actress

Will Win: Demi Moore (The Substance)
Could Win: Mikey Madison (Anora)
Should Win: Mikey Madison (Anora)

Best Actor

Will Win: Adrien Brody (The Brutalist)
Could Win: Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown)
Should Win: Adrien Brody (The Brutalist)

Best Supporting Actor

Will Win: Keiran Culkin (A Real Pain)
Could Win: Roman Roy has this smoked.
Should Win: Guy Pearce (The Brutalist)

Best Supporting Actress

Will Win: Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez)
Could Win: Also game over… no number of tweets can derail the Saldaña train.
Should Win: Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown)

Best Adapted Screenplay

Will Win: Conclave
Could Win: Nickel Boys (just kidding, this one’s also over. But one can dream.)
Should Win: Nickel Boys by such a vast margin that it’s absurd.

Best Original Screenplay

Will Win: A Real Pain
Could Win: Anora
Should Win: A Real Pain

And here are the rest of the categories, with only predicted winners.

Best International Feature: I’m Still Here
Best Animated Feature: The Wild Robot
Best Documentary Feature: No Other Land
Best Original Score: The Brutalist
Best Original Song: “El Mal” (Emilia Pérez)
Best Cinematography: The Brutalist
Best Costume Design: Wicked
Best Editing: Conclave
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: The Substance
Best Production Design: Wicked
Best Sound: Dune: Part Two
Best Visual Effects: Dune: Part Two
Best Animated Short: Yuck!
Best Live Action Short: A Lien
Best Documentary Short: I Am Ready, Warden