Man plans, and God laughs. When I wrapped up my predictions for last season’s Oscars race, I said I’d hold off on making any early calls for the new season until the fall. Well, it’s only been two months since, and I’m already itching to get some “way too early” predictions on the record; if only so I can look back and see just how much I got right at this “way too early” early stage.
For those keeping score, my initial Best Picture boards, posted roughly a year out from the ceremony, have a decent track record at looking at the possibilities. I correctly predicted seven of the eventual ten nominees in 2021, nine in 2022, seven in 2023, and five last year. And every single year, the eventual winner showed up somewhere on that early list. So odds are, a decent chunk of this year’s nominees, and very possibly the winner, are listed down below.
That said, I’ve yet to nail the eventual winner at #1 this early in the game. I had CODA at #20, Everything Everywhere All At Once at #11, Oppenheimer at #4, and Anora way down at #28. Two of my past #1 picks didn’t even get nominated (though they both still walked away Oscar nominated films in other categories), and the other two walked away with a combined total of just two wins. So, this far out, placement only means so much when it comes to actually predicting the winner. And let’s not forget, there are always films I don’t even know exist yet at this moment, or ones currently off the radar, that will surge into the conversation as the year unfolds. If I had written this a month ago, for instance, Sinners wouldn’t be nearly as high on the board as it is now. At this absurdly early point in the race, it’s more about identifying possibilities than pretending I know the final field. My accuracy in the top ten tends to sharpen as we inch closer to nominations morning, landing eight to ten correct picks by the end, and even my misses have reliably shown up listed as “on the bubble” contenders.
At this point last year, I warned that the race for the top prize would be far more chaotic and unpredictable than the Oppenheimer cruise-control to victory from the year before, and that ended up being one of my most accurate early calls. The season saw critics more divided on their top pick than they’d been since 2017, and the race ultimately came down to Anora and Conclave, with each trading major wins right up until Oscar night. In the wake of Trump’s second election victory and the wildfire crisis, the Academy eventually gravitated toward a screwball comedy that poked fun at Russian oligarchy and almost gave the win to a film about an election.
This year, my sense is we’ll likely end up with a winner that engages even more directly with our current political and cultural landscape. I also expect stronger consensus among critics on their top film, and I wouldn’t be surprised if SAG tries to reassert itself after missing the mark on most acting categories and Best Picture last time around.
Will it be another competitive race? I’m not ready to rule it out completely, but I don’t foresee the kind of chaos we saw last season, like when the Critics Choice Awards scattered wins across multiple films, gave Best Director to a non-Oscar-nominated Jon M. Chu, and handed Anora a Best Picture win without awarding it anything else. In short, I expect a very different timeline of events this time. Exactly how different? That’ll take some time to play out.
As we head into the Cannes Film Festival with hopes of early awards buzz and some international contenders breaking into the race, the current frontrunner status seems to hinge on whether you believe Paul Thomas Anderson’s political and cultural dark comedy One Battle After Another will finally be his Oscar moment, or if breakout horror hit Sinners can go the distance as the movie to beat. Personally, I’m starting to suspect that neither will end up taking the top prize. Given the Academy’s long-standing discomfort with horror though, I’m leaning toward PTA’s latest as the safer bet this far out.
Other films I currently have slotted into the projected slate of ten include another offbeat satire, Bugonia, from the director of Poor Things, which arguably came in second place two seasons ago; Hamnet, a tragic drama about how William Shakespeare and his wife coped with the death of their son, directed by Best Picture winner Nomadland’s Chloé Zhao; the comedy-drama Sentimental Value; an adaptation of the Stephen King short story The Life Of Chuck; a grown-up coming-of-age story in Jay Kelly; a biopic on Bruce Springsteen in Deliver Me From Nowhere; the aforementioned Sinners; and two early contenders positioned to be the season’s biggest populist hits in Wicked: For Good and Avatar: Fire and Ash. I do have some reservations about those last two, sequels historically don’t fare as well as their predecessors, and both are arriving too soon after their previous installments to really feel fresh.
Among the many potential nominees I’m keeping an eye on, there’s no shortage of films from directors who’ve previously helmed Best Picture nominees, and even a few past winners. The slate includes everything from remakes and biopics to satires, dramas, and more than a couple of sports films. Once Cannes starts up next week, a lot of these titles will likely fall off the board to make room for a few standouts from the festival. But we’re still a long way from having a clear sense of the full field and what the 2025 Best Picture lineup might ultimately actually look like.
For now, the best move is to sit tight and see how the board shifts a month from now, once the dust from Cannes settles. In the meantime, here’s a list of 50 potential contenders, grouped into five tiers, that are currently on my radar.
Tier 1: The Predicted Ten
1. One Battle For Another
2. Bugonia
3. Hamnet
4. Sentimental Value
5. The Life Of Chuck
6. Deliver Me From Nowhere
7. Jay Kelly
8. Sinners
9. Wicked: For Good
10. Avatar: Fire And Ash
Tier 2: The “On The Bubble” Contenders
11. The Rivals Of Amziah King
12. After The Hunt
13. Ella McCay
14. Marty Supreme
15. The Smashing Machine
16. Highest 2 Lowest
17. Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein
18. Ballad Of A Small Player
19. Untitled Kathryn Bigelow Political Thriller
20. F1
Tier 3: The Dark Horses On The Verge Of Being Taken Serious
21. Kiss Of The Spider Woman
22. Die, My Love
23. Ann Lee
24. Hedda
25. Alpha
26. The History Of Sound
27. No Other Choice
28. Eddington
29. Is This Thing On?
30. The Roses
Tier 4: The Long Shots With A Slim Path
31. Long Days Journey Into Night
32. Train Dreams
33. Caught Stealing
34. Blue Moon
35. Eleanor The Great
36. Mother Mary
37. Sorry, Baby
38. If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
39. The Lost Bus
40. The Wizard Of The Kremlin
Tier 5: The Long Shots Looking For A Path
41. Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
42. The Phoenician Scheme
43. Black Bag
44. Materialist
45. The Wedding Banquet
46. Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning
47. The Running Man
48. Tron: Ares
49. Superman
50. Mickey 17
Others To Potentially Keep An Eye On: A Big Bold Beautiful Journey; Anemone; Bring Her Back; Elio; HIM; Late Fame; Jurassic World: Rebirth; Sound Of Falling; The Fantastic Four: First Steps; Michael; Nouvelle Vague; Omaha; Preparation For The Next Life; Rental Family; Resurrection; Roofman; The Entertainment System Is Down; The Housemaid; The Mastermind; The Secret Agent; The Way Of The Wind; Thunderbolts*; Twinless; Warfare; Weapons
