Let’s Look at the 2025 Oscars by Susan Granger
There’s an obvious disconnect between the movie-going public and the 97th Academy Awards, broadcast on Sunday, March 2nd by ABC, hosted by Conan O’Brien and scheduled to begin at 7 p.m., EST and streamed live on Hulu, YouTube TV, AT&T TV and Fubo TV.
Like the Independent Spirit Awards, many of the nominated films are relatively obscure while popular choices are almost ignored. The Independent Spirit Awards began in 1984, honoring edgy, low-budget (under $30 million) films but – in recent years – with the deliberate ‘diversity’ expansion of Academy membership, many of the 7,000 Independent Spirit voters have also become Oscar voters.
Politics definitely plays a role. The Academy Awards have a long history of reflecting or defying the nation’s political climate. The Oscar nominations and eventual winners inevitably mirror the creative community’s response to Donald Trump’s reelection – epitomized by the inclusion of “Emilia Perez” – starring Karla Sofia Gascon – sending a social justice message of inclusion in the cultural debate over transgender rights.
In a time of turmoil, especially among liberals, progressives and moderates, many vote for the underdog – the little movie that stood up for inclusion and compassion as a rebuke to the politics of division.
Best Picture: After winning at the Directors Guild, Producers Guild and Critics Choice, the obvious frontrunner is Sean Baker’s “Anora” about a Brooklyn sex worker who falls in love with and marries the son of a Russian oligarch.
There are two widely different musicals. Best known for its audacity, “Emilia Perez” revolves around a Mexican drug cartel kingpin who transitions to become a woman, while “Wicked” is a lavish adaptation of the Broadway musical based on the classic “Wizard of Oz” mythology about corrupt leaders, the dangers of authoritarianism and the power of resistance. Both contain deep political messages.
Also in contention are “The Brutalist,” a meandering study of immigrant trauma & anti-Semitism; the Bob Dylan-goes-electric biopic “A Complete Unknown”; the Vatican thriller “Conclave” that topped the SAG Awards; the action-filled sequel “Dune: Part Two”; the Brazilian family drama “I’m Still Here”; “Nickel Boys” dissecting the friendship of two Black teenagers at cruel racist reform school; and “The Substance” about the desperate quest for eternal youth.
My prediction: “Anora”
Best Actress: For the first time since 1978, all five actresses nominated in this category starred in Best Picture contenders.
Although her image has been tarnished by the scandal following her racist/bigoted inflammatory social media posts, Karla Sofia Gascon (“Emilia Perez”) is touted as the first ‘trans’ performer ever nominated. Actually, Gascon was preceded by Ellen – now Elliot – Page (“Juno”), who later revealed a gender identity change. And don’t forget Neil Jordan’s controversial “The Crying Game” (1992) featuring a transgender woman.
Other nominees include Cynthia Erivo (“Wicked), Mikey Madison (“Anora”), Demi Moore (“The Substance”) and Fernanda Torres (“I’m Still Here”).
Torres’ nomination shows how the Oscar race has become global; years ago, her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, was the first Brazilian nominated in this category.
The favorite is Demi Moore as the aging star desperate to recapture her youthful glory. When she won at the Golden Globes & Critics Choice, she said she felt she’d been dismissed as a ‘popcorn actress’: “I’ve been doing this a long time, like over 45 years, and this is the first time I’ve ever won anything as an actor.”
My prediction: Demi Moore for “The Substance”
Best Actor: Nominees are Adrien Brody (“The Brutalist”), Timothee Chalamet (“A Complete Unknown”), Colman Domingo (“Sing Sing”), Ralph Fiennes (“Conclave”) and Sebastian Stan (“The Apprentice”).
Winning an Oscar for playing a music legend is a tradition that goes back to Jimmy Cagney’s energetic portrayal of George M. Cohan in “Yankee Doodle Dandy” (1942), so it might be 29-year-old Timothee Chalamet’s year, having won top honors at the SAG Awards, making him the youngest ever to take the lead actor trophy.
Unlike SAG, however,, the Academy tends to make actors pay their dues, and Chalamet’s career is just beginning.
In contrast, Adrien Brody embodies the Holocaust survivor/visionary architect in “The Brutalist,” Ralph Fiennes strives for Papal truth in “Conclave,” Sebastian Stan plays Donald Trump in “The Apprentice,” while Colman Domingo is incarcerated at “Sing Sing” when he discovers the transformative power of art.
My prediction: Timothee Chalamet for “A Complete Unknown”
Best Director: Nominees are Jacques Audiard (“Emilia Perez”), Sean Baker (“Anora”), Brady Corbet (“The Brutalist”), Coralie Fargeat (” The Substance”), and James Mangold (“A Complete Unknown.”)
While Coralie Fargeat escalates the story of an older woman combatting social, professional and physical obsolescence into a gruesome body-horror spectacle, Sean Baker captures the chaos of a Russian fixer’s intervention into a quickie marriage, James Mangold re-creates Bob Dylan’s switch to electric, and Brady Corbet delves into disillusionment with the American immigrant experience.
My prediction: Sean Baker for “Anora”
Best Supporting Actress: Nominees are Monica Barbaro (“A Complete Unknown”), Ariana Grande (“Wicked”), Felicity Jones (“The Brutalist”), Isabella Rossellini (“Conclave”), and Zoe Saldana (“Emilia Perez”).
Although she only shows up in the second half of the film, Felicity Jones is riveting as the defiant, disabled Hungarian Holocaust survivor, while scene-stealing Monica Barbaro was sensational as Joan Baez. Isabella Rossellini would get my vote as Sister Agnes, the conscience of “Conclave,” but Zoe Saldana has not only emerged from the “Emilia Perez” transgender scandal unscathed but she’s also scoring on TV as a fierce “Lioness.”
My prediction: Zoe Saldana for “Emilia Perez”
Best Supporting Actor: Nominees are Yura Borisov (“Anora”), Kieran Culkin (“A Real Pain”), Edward Norton (“A Complete Unknown”), Guy Pearce (“The Brutalist”), and Jeremy Strong (“The Apprentice”).
While three-time nominee Edward Norton completely transforms into musician/activist Pete Seeger and Emmy/Tony winner Jeremy Strong is convincing as Roy Cohn, SAG winner Kieran Culkin seems unbeatable as an endearing goofball celebrating his first Oscar nomination.
My prediction: Kieran Culkin for “A Real Pain”
Best Adapted Screenplay: Nominees are “A Complete Unknown,” “Conclave,” “Emilia Perez,” “Nickel Boys,” and “Sing Sing.”
My prediction: Peter Straughan for adapting Robert Harris’ 2016 novel “Conclave”
Best Original Screenplay: Nominees are “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” “A Real Pain,” “September 5,” and “The Substance.”
My prediction: “Anora”
Best International Film: There’s one undeniable frontrunner and a diverse quartet of contenders. The one to beat is France’s “Emilia Perez,” Jacques Audiard’s transgender crime/drama musical, streaming on Netflix.
Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here” (Brazil) and Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” are deeply personal stories about life under authoritarian regimes. “The Girl With the Needle” (Denmark) revolves around abortion rights and women’s bodily autonomy. And the dialogue-free CGI cat adventure “Flow” (Latvia) marks a rare animated entry in this category.
My prediction: “I’m Still Here”
Best Documentary Feature: Once again, nominees in this rarefied category have excluded the year’s most popular crowd-pleasers, like recent BAFTA-winner “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story,” “Will & Harper,” “Martha,” and “I Am: Celine Dion.”
Instead, there’s “Black Box Diaries” about sexual assault; “No Other Land,” an Israeli-Palestinian collaboration about Israeli actions in the West Bank; “Porcelain War” about three steadfast Ukrainian artists resisting the Russian invasion; “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” examines the 1961 assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba; and “Sugarcane” reveals systematic abuse/deaths at an Indian residential school in Canada.
My prediction: “No Other Land”
Best Animated Feature: “Memoirs of a Snail,” the 1970s-set Australian Claymation feature about a mollusk-obsessed hoarder, cost $4.5 million and “Flow,” Riga’s cat-based CGI feature, cost $3.8 million. Yet they’re facing off against studio tentpoles like Pixar’s “Inside Out 2,” DreamWorks’ “The Wild Robot,” and Aardman’s “Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl.”
“Flow” by Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis has strong international support but “The Wild Robot” dominated the Annie Awards.
My prediction: “The Wild Robot”
Best Editing: Nominees are “Anora,” “The Brutalist,” “Conclave,” “Emilia Perez” and “Wicked.”
My prediction: “Conclave”
Best Cinematography: Nominees are “The Brutalist,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Emilia Perez,” “Maria,” and “Nosferatu.”
“Brutalist” cinematographer Lol Crawley filmed the entire epic for under $10 million using the high-resolution VistaVision format with its rotated image that allowed for 70 mm prints to be created for film festivals/screenings although he never shot a larger format than 35 mm.
My prediction: “The Brutalist”
Best Costume Design: Nominees are “A Complete Unknown,” “Conclave,” “Gladiator II,” “Nosferatu,” and “Wicked.”
Paul Tazewell was previously nominated for creating period costumes for “West Side Story,” and he outdid himself with the bold, colorful garb for “Wicked.”
My prediction: Paul Tazewell for “Wicked”
Best Makeup & Hairstyling: Nominees are “A Different Man,” “Emilia Perez,” “Nosferatu,” “The Substance,” and “Wicked.”
Prosthetics turned actor Sebastian Stan into a man with genetic neurofibromatosis in “A Different Man,” trans-actress Karla Sofia Gascon back into her pre-transition masculine self in “Emilia Perez,” Bill Skarsgard into a vampire in “Nosferatu” and Demi Moore from gorgeous to ghastly in “The Substance.” The “Wicked” makeup challenge was dyeing Cynthia Erivo green as Elphaba, using a discontinued eyeshadow line mixed with shades of neon yellow.
My prediction: “The Substance”
Best Production Design: Nominees are “The Brutalist,” “Conclave,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Nosferatu,” and “Wicked.”
My prediction: “Wicked”
Best Visual Effects: Nominees are “Alien: Romulus,” “Better Man,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,” and “Wicked.”
In “Alien: Romulus,” VFX was used to superimpose the face of the late actor Ian Holm onto another actor to revive his “Alien” character, and with “Apes,” the challenge was to pay homage to the franchise without rehashing original films. But it’s hard to beat the VFX sandworm-riding sequences of “Dune: Part Two.”
My prediction: “Dune: Part Two”
Best Sound: Nominees are “A Complete Uknown,” “Dune: Part Two,” “Emilia Perez,” “Wicked,” and “The Wild Robot.” Not surprisingly, it’s a music-heavy season with many familiar names, like “Wicked” rerecording mixer and two-time Oscar-winner Andy Nelson and Oscar-winner rerecording mixer Paul Massey for “A Complete Unknown.”
My prediction: “Wicked”
Best Score: Nominees are “The Brutalist,” “Conclave,” “Emilia Perez,” “Wicked” and “The Wild Robot.”
My prediction: “The Brutalist”
Best Song: Nominees are “El Mal” (“Emilia Perez”), “The Journey” (“The Six Triple Eight”), “Like a Bird” (“Sing Sing”), “Mi Camino” (“Emilia Perez” and “Never Too Late” (“Elton John: Never Too Late”).
Unlike previous years, the original song nominees will not be performed, although you may hear music from Broadway’s “Wicked.”
My prediction: “El Mal” from “Emilia Perez”
Best Animated Short: Nominees are “Beautiful Men,” “In the Shadow of the Cypress,” “Magic Candles,” “Wander to Wonder,” and “Yuck!”
My prediction: “Wander to Wonder”
Best Documentary Short: Nominees ae “Death by Numbers,” “I Am Ready, Warden,” “Incident,” “Instruments of a Beating Heart” and “The Only Girl in the Orchestra.”
My prediction: “I Am Ready, Warden”
Best Live Action Short: Nominees are “A Lien,” “Anuja,” “I Am Not a Robot,” “The Last Ranger” and “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent.”
My prediction: “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent”
