Having been delayed because of the calamitous wildfires that had raged through parts of California, the nominations for the 2025 Oscars have been announced, which means it's time for Cinema Paradiso users to make their annual predictions!
Each year, Cinema Paradiso invites members to use their film knowledge to predict the winners in the 23 competition categories at the Academy Awards.
So, why not cast your votes before Conan O'Brien hosts the 97th edition of world's oldest and most prestigious awards event at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday 2 March?
The person who correctly predicts the most winners will receive SIX MONTHS of free rentals from CinemaParadiso.co.uk. Cast your vote by clicking here!
Before you vote, though, we thought you might like to know a bit about the contenders in the six major categories, as well as past voting trends.
BEST PICTURE
You may already have cast your vote for Best Film in Cinema Paradiso's BAFTA predictions competition. But you have to work a bit harder when it comes to the Academy Awards, as there are 10 titles to consider before you make your choice for Best Picture. The switch from five contenders took place in time for the 82nd Oscars in 2010, although the 10-field format had also been used between 1932-44. The aim was to boost the takings of five more high-profile pictures each year, but the decision has also helped diversify the selection process.
Blockbusters are still a rarity in the Best Picture stakes, but this is the sixth consecutive year that at least one film nominated for the top prize has been directed by a woman. Moreover, with the final nomination credits for I'm Still Here yet to be decided, there is a chance that there will be a tie with the 2016 record of nine female producers being in the running for Best Picture.
Three features amassed 10 or more nominations, with Emilia Pérez's 13 putting it ahead of The Brutalist and Wicked on 10 each. This is the fifth time this has occurred, after 1964 ( Mary Poppins, 13 & My Fair Lady and Becket, 12 each), 1977 ( Julia, Star Wars & The Turning Point, 11 each), 2019 ( Joker, 11 & The Irishman, 1917, and Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood, 10 each), and 2023 ( Oppenheimer, 13; Poor Things, 11 & Killers of the Flower Moon, 10). Since the category expanded, however, the nomination leader has only won six times: The Hurt Locker (2009), The King's Speech (2010), Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), The Shape of Water (2017), Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), and Oppenheimer.
Given the furore of the last few weeks, however, Jacques Audiard's Narco-musical is
going to have its work cut out to equal the 11-strong hauls of Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), as it has two Best Song nominations and the wheels have come off the Best Actress campaign. History is not on its side, however, as the most Oscars won by a non-English-speaking film in one night is four with the record currently being shared by Fanny and Alexander (1982), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Parasite (2019); and All Quiet on the Western Front (2022).
Last year saw two subtitled films compete for Best Picture for the first time and the achievement of The Zone of Interest and Anatomy of a Fall has been matched by Emilia Pérez and I'm Still Here, which has become the first Brazilian and Portuguese-language title to go for the award. By contrast, France has racked up 39 nominations, although it hasn't won since Indochine (1992) and currently trails Italy in Oscars wins by 12-14. The Oscar campaign waged by Emilia Pérez will probably be remembered for all the wrong reasons. But it has carved its place in AMPAS history by receiving the most nominations for a non-English-language film, surpassing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Roma (2018), which have 10 each.
As only the 10th and 11th non-English language titles to be nominated for both Best Picture and Best International Feature Film in the same year, Emilia Pérez and I'm Still Here join a select group that also includes Costa-Gavras's Z (1969), Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful (1997), Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Michael Haneke's Amour (2012), Alfonso Cuarón's Roma, Bong Joon-ho's Parasite, Ryusuke Hamagachi's Drive My Car (2021), Edward Berger's All Quiet on the Western Front, and Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest. Intriguingly, Jan Troell's The Emigrants (1971) managed to be nominated for Best Foreign Film in 1972 and Best Picture in 1973, when its sequel, The New Land, was up for Best Foreign Film. The loophole has since been plugged.
In accumulating 13 nominations, Emilia Pérez joins Gone With the Wind (1939), From Here to Eternity (1953), Mary Poppins (1964), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Forrest Gump (1994), Shakespeare in Love (1998), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), and The Shape of Water. In matching Oppenheimer's haul Audiard's picture emulates the feat of consecutive 13-nod tallies achieved by The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and Chicago (2002).
By being chosen for Best Picture, Emilia Pérez and Wicked become the first musicals to compete against each other for 46 years. The tuneful match-ups of yesteryear were The Broadway Melody and Hollywood Revue (1929), One Hour With You and The Smiling Lieutenant (1932), Flirtation Walk, The Gay Divorcee, and One Night of Love (1934), Broadway Melody of 1936, Naughty Marietta, and Top Hat (1935), Mary Poppins and My Fair Lady (1964), and Oliver! and Funny Girl (1968).
Edmund Goulding's Grand Hotel (1932) is the only Best Picture winner with a single nomination. But since Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), the top prize winner has added at least a directing, acting, or writing victory to sweeten its triumph, which puts pressure on several 2025 contenders, as they are up against fancied runners in the other categories. It's never an open race, as there are always front markers. But they don't always prevail.
Taking the nominees in alphabetical order, we start with Sean Baker's Anora, which opens in the Brighton Beach neighbourhood of Brooklyn, where sex worker Anora Mikheeva (Mikey Madison) becomes involved with Russian student Ivan Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), who proposes marriage during a trip to Las Vegas so that he can get a green card and stay in the United States. His father, Nikolai (Aleksei Serebryakov), however, is a wealthy oligarch and he arranges for bodyguard Igor (Yura Borisov) to fetch his son home. If this sparky comedy (which has just a hint if the 1934 board-sweeper It Happened One Night about it) wins on the big night, it will join The Lost Weekend (1945), Marty (1955), and Parasite in being only the fourth film to do the Palme d'or/Best Picture double. We'll take a closer look at Oscar-feted films about prostitutes in the Best Actress section, but it's worth noting that only three other Best Picture nominees have had a Russian main character, Josef von Sternberg's The Patriot (1928), which was nominated at the second Academy Awards, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966) and Fiddler on the Roof (1971), which were both directed by a Canadian, Norman Jewison.
In Brady Corbet's The Brutalist, László Tóth (Adrien Brody) is a Hungarian Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor who settles on America's Eastern seaboard in the hope of starting a new life. After a while, he is hired by Philadelphia tycoon Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), to design an imposing community centre. But the strong-willed pair turn out to have very different ideas about the project.
With 10 nominations, this is one of the favourites to follow up some significant Award Season victories. Its inclusion means that at least one Best Picture nominee has been directed by a former actor for the 11th year in succession. Running 215 minutes, The Brutalist is the fifth-longest Best Picture nominee, behind The Ten Commandments (220 mins, 1956), Lawrence of Arabia (222 mins, 1962), Gone With the Wind (238 mins), and Cleopatra (248 mins, 1963). No film with an architect as the leading character has won Best Picture, despite the strong challenges mounted by 12 Angry Men (1957), The Towering Inferno (1974), and Inception (2010). Its 'man of destiny' vibe may be more helpful, as that places it alongside such fine films as Citizen Kane (1941), All the King's Men (1949), America America (1963), Chinatown (1974), Reds (1981), A Beautiful Mind (2001), There Will Be Blood (2008). The Social Network (2010), The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything (both 2014), and Oppenheimer.
Although László Tóth has been based on such luminaries as Marcel Breuer, Paul Rudolph, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, László Moholy-Nagy, Louis Kahn, and Erno Goldfinger, Corbet's epic drama is a film à clef rather than a biopic. James Mangold's A Complete Unknown, however, chronicles the early career of Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) and his relationships with fellow singers, Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro). For the first time in Oscar history, three performers from the same film have been nominated for playing musicians. The previous record of two actors from the same film receiving Oscar nods for portraying musicians was shared by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line (2005, which was also directed by James Mangold), Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne for What's Love Got to Do With It (1993), and Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham for Amadeus (1984). Other films about real and fictional musicians to vie for Best Picture include Bound For Glory (1976), Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), Tender Mercies (1983), Whiplash (2014), Sound of Metal (2019), La La Land (2016), Tár (2022), and Maestro (2023).
Doctrine, diplomacy, and duplicity combine in Edward Berger's adaptation of Robert Harris's bestselling thriller, Conclave. When the pope dies, Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is entrusted with organising the ballot for his successor. There are four credible candidates: liberal American Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci); Canadian moderate Joseph Tremblay (John Lithgow), Nigerian conservative Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), and Italian traditionalist, Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto). But tensions start to rise when Dean Lawrence allows Vincent Benitez (Carlos Diehz), a Mexican cardinal who has been working in Afghanistan, to join the college and speak some home truths..
Rex Harrison's Julius II in Carol Reed's The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) is the only pontiff to have featured prominently in a Best Picture nominee. However, clerics have been prevalent in films as different as Boys Town (1938), Going My Way (1944) and The Bells of St Mary's (1945), The Bishop's Wife (1946), A Man For All Seasons (1966), The Exorcist (1973), The Mission (1986), and Spotlight (2015).
Such are the complexities of Frank Herbert's scenarios that we shall content ourselves with stating that Denis Villeneuve's Dune: Part Two sees Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) fall in love with Chani (Zendaya) while immersing himself in Fremen culture while preparing to fight the corrupt Harkonnen, Baron (Stellan Skarsgård), for control over the precious mineral resource of Spice on the planet Arrakis. Following on from Dune (2021), this could become only the third sequel to win Best Picture after The Godfather Part II and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. The sequels that failed to snag the statuette are The Bells of St. Mary's, The Godfather Part III, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), Toy Story 3 (2010), Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Avatar: The Way of Water, and Top Gun: Maverick (both 2022).
Science fiction has a poor record when it comes to translating nominations into Oscars. Both The Shape of Water and Everything Everywhere All At Once took the top prize. But the genre police consider these to be fantasies rather than sci-fi. Consequently, they are hoping this saga won't find itself among the also-rans with A Clockwork Orange (1971), Star Wars (1977), E.T. the Extra Terrestrial (1982), Avatar and District 9 (both 2009), Inception, Gravity and Her (both 2013), Mad Max: Fury Road and The Martian (both 2015), Arrival (2016), Black Panther (2018), Dune, and Avatar: The Way of Water.
We've already said plenty about Emilia Pérez, but only All About Eve (1950), Titanic, and La La Land have surpassed its 13 nominations. The film's focus doesn't fall on the drug cartel that Juan 'Manitas' Del Monte operates before transitioning to become Emilia Pérez (Karla Sofía Gascón), but the gangland background connects the picture to such past nominees as The Racket (1928), Dead End (1937), The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part II (1974), The Godfather Part III, GoodFellas (both 1990), Bugsy (1991), Gangs of New York (2002), and The Irishman (2018). It should also be remembered that Sonny Wortzik (Al Pacino) robs the bank in Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon (1975) in order to pay for gender-affirming surgery for his lover, Leon (Chris Sarandon).
Based on a memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, Walter Salles's I'm Still Here reveals how Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres) cared for her five children after her dissident politician husband, Rubens (Selton Mello), was disappeared by the Brazilian dictatorship in 1971. A coda shows how the elderly Eunice (Fernanda Montenegro) testifies to the National Truth Commission despite living with advanced Alzheimer's.
The first film from South America ever to be nominated for Best Picture, this is also the first non-English language title to appear in the category without a writing nomination since Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion in 1938. It follows the Bob Fosse duo of Lenny (1974) and All That Jazz (1979), Stephen Frears's Dangerous Liaisons (1988), and John Lee Hancock's The Blind Side (2009) in being nominated for Best Picture without having made the shortlist at the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs or the Producers Guild Awards. Moreover, it failed to win at any of the seven major US critics ceremonies, which must make it the outsider in the field at Oscar 97.
That said, the odds are also pretty long for RaMell Ross's Nickel Boys, even though it has been adapted from a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead. Set in 1960s Florida, the drama accompanies promising Black student Elwood (Ethan Herisse), when he is wrongfully sent to a Nickel Academy reform school and comes to rely on the friendship of Turner (Brandon Wilson) to help him survive the harsh regime. Notwithstanding a fine performance by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Elwood's grandmother, the film only received this Best Picture nod and recognition for its Adapted Screenplay. In recent times, only A Serious Man (2009), Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011), and Women Talking (2022) have competed for the big prize with only one other nomination.
But Nickel Boys does make Oscar history, as, together with Greg Kweder's Sing Sing, it marks the third time that two Best Adapted Screenplay nominations were written in the same year by African Americans. The other two instances came in 2016 ( Moonlight and Fences ) and 2018 ( BlacKkKlansman and If Beale Street Could Talk ). Furthermore, producer Dede Gardner has joined Kathleen Kennedy as the most-nominated woman in the category's history. Their eight citations place them fourth in the overall standings.
A number of prison films have been up for Best Picture in the past, including The Big House (1930), I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang (1932), The Defiant Ones (1958), Midnight Express (1978), Kiss of the Spiderwoman (1985), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), and The Green Mile (1999). But the only one to take the statuette to date is Chicago (2002).
Coralie Fargeat's The Substancecentres on ageing actress, Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), who responds to being fired by her exercise show producer (Dennis Quaid) by purchasing a black market rejuvenating drug that transforms her into a younger version of herself, who takes the name Sue (Margaret Qualley). However, when Sue tries to take over, Elisabeth realises there is no going back.
Following The Exorcist, Jaws (1975), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), The Sixth Sense (1999), Black Swan (2010), and Get Out (2017), this is the seventh horror film to be nominated for Best Picture and the first to have been directed by a woman. Four other films, however, have explored the notion of physical or image transformation: Lost Horizon (1937), Pygmalion (1938), My Fair Lady (1964), and Poor Things (2023).
In receiving his seventh nomination in this category, Eric Fellner becomes the fifth-most recognised producer of all time. He would go second behind Kathleen Kennedy if he failed to win, as she is currently 0 for 8. If The Substance does succeed, it will become only the fourth Best Picture winner to have been directed by a woman after The Hurt Locker,
Nomadland, and CODA. But it does become the 23rd Best Picture nominee with a woman calling the shots after these three and Children of a Lesser God (1986), Awakenings (1990), The Prince of Tides (1991), The Piano (1993), Lost in Translation (2003), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), An Education (2009), The Kids Are All Right, Winter's Bone (both 2010), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Selma (2014), Lady Bird (2017), Little Women (2019), Promising Young Woman (2020), The Power of the Dog (2021), Women Talking (2022), Anatomy of a Fall, Barbie, and Past Lives (all 2023).
Rounding off the decet is John M. Chu's Wicked, which is set in the Land of Oz and traces the parting of the ways of the green-skinned Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo) and Galinda Upland (Ariane Grande) after they meet the Wonderful Wizard (Jeff Goldblum). Everyone knows that Stephen Schwartz's hit Broadway musical was influenced by Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz (1939), which was based on the books of L. Frank Baum. If it wins Best Picture,Wicked will be the first non-remake or sequel to have been inspired by an Oscar-nominated movie. Moreover, it will become the third fantasy to take the award after The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and The Shape of Water, after A Midsummer Night's Dream (1936), Mary Poppins, and Doctor Dolittle (1967) had all sprinkled a little magic and lost out. There would also be a chance that its forthcoming sequel (which covers the second act of the show) could double up.
In receiving 10 nominations, Wicked joins Dune in having the most nods without Best Director representation, while it joins The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Dreamgirls (2006) in earning more than eight nominations without director or writing recognition while becoming the first to reach 10 without scoring in either category. But it's not alone when it comes to musicals based on other sources, as Gigi (1959), West Side Story (1961), My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music (1965), Oliver!, and Chicago were all adaptations.
BEST DIRECTOR
Following on from our last category, Wicked has become the fourth film with 10 nominations to miss out on Best Director. John M. Chu, therefore, joins Charles Jarrott ( Anne of a Thousand Days, 1969), George Seaton ( Airport, 1970), and Denis Villeneuve (Dune) on the overlooked step. Villeneuve has also been passed over for Dune 2, although it only has five nominations and he always has the chance to make the cut with the final part of the trilogy, Dune Messiah. Spare a thought for Sam Wood (The Pride of the Yankees, 1942) and Steven Spielberg ( The Color Purple, 1985), who were snubbed for pictures with 11 nominations.
German Edward Berger must also be wondering what he's done wrong, as being spurned for both All Quiet on the Western Front and Conclave puts him on a par with Baz Luhrmann ( Moulin Rouge!, 2001 & Elvis, 2022) for being passed over for films with eight or more nominations. Berger's tale of woe continues, as the jilting of Conclave and Wicked makes this only the third time that two 8+ nominees have missed out on Best Director in the same year after Elvis and All Quiet on the Western Front and Cleopatra and the multi-authored How the West Was Won (both 1963).
Hope springs eternal for Berger, however, as Peter Farrelly's Green Book, Sian Heder's CODA, and Ben Affleck's Argo (2012) have all won Best Picture without a directing nod and, thus, continued the trend set by William Wellman's Wings (1927), Edmund Goulding's Grand Hotel (1932), and Bruce Beresford's Driving Miss Daisy (1989).
For the sixth time in Oscar history, all five contenders for Best Director are first-time nominees. Cinema Paradiso users are bound to be curious about the other occasions, which were: 1927/28 (at the inaugural awards), when Frank Borzage ( 7th Heaven ), Herbert Brenon (Sorrell and Son), King Vidor (The Crowd), Lewis Milestone (Two Arabian Knights), Ted Wilde ( Speedy ), and Charlie Chaplin ( The Circus ) were nominated; 1928-29 - Frank Lloyd (The Divine Lady, Drag, & Weary River), Lionel Barrymore (Madame X), Harry Beaumont (The Broadway Melody), Irving Cummings (In Old Arizona), and Ernst Lubitsch (The Patriot); 1948 - John Huston ( The Treasure of the Sierra Madre ), Anatole Litvak ( The Snake Pit ), Jean Negulesco (Johnny Belinda), Laurence Olivier ( Hamlet ), and Fred Zinnemann (The Search); 1995 - Mel Gibson ( Braveheart ), Mike Figgis ( Leaving Las Vegas ), Chris Noonan ( Babe ), Michael Radford ( Il Postino ), and Tim Robbins ( Dead Man Walking ); and 1997 - James Cameron (Titanic), Peter Cattaneo ( The Full Monty ), Atom Egoyan ( The Sweet Hereafter ), Curtis Hanson ( L.A. Confidential ), and Gus Van Sant ( Good Will Hunting ).
Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez) and Sean Baker (Anora) have set a new record by becoming the first pair to receive four nominations each in a single year. They join a band that includes screenwriter Elliott J. Clawson (The Cop, The Leatherneck, Sal of Singapore, and Skyscraper, 1928); composer Alan Menken for Beauty and the Beast (1991; three for Best Song and one for Best Score); Roberto Benigni for Life Is Beautiful (1997, producer, director, writer, actor); Joel and Ethan Coen for No Country For Old Men (2007, producers, directors, writers & editors under the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes); Alfonso Cuarón for Roma (2018, producer, director, picture, writer, cinematographer); and Chloé Zhao for Nomadland (2020, producer, direcctor, writer, editor).
As producer, director, writer, and actor, Warren Beatty is the only artist to hit four twice, for Heaven Can Wait (1978) and Reds (1981). Orson Welles should have been on the list for Citizen Kane (1941). But, even though he produced the film, the Best Picture nomination at the time went to the studio rather than the individual. However, the biggest haul on a single night remains the six amassed by Walt Disney in 1954, although Francis Ford Coppola came close in tallying five in 1974.
By snagging two Best Song nominations for 'El Mal' and 'Mi Camino', Emilia Pérez has ensured that this is an unprecedented fifth year in a row that a non-English language song has been nominated. Hoping to follow Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, 2000) by winning Best Director with a film with a Mexican drug cartel connection, Audiard has become the first person to be nominated for producing, directing, writing, and songwriting for a single film. He also becomes the 11th artist to be nominated for Best Song for a film they directed, after Leo McCarey ( An Affair To Remember, 1957), Jacques Demy ( The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964), Mel Brooks ( Blazing Saddles, 1974), Arne Glimcher ( The Mambo Kings, 1992), Barbra Streisand ( The Mirror Has Two Faces, 1996), Trey Parker ( South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, 1999), Lars Von Trier ( Dancer in the Dark, 2000), Julie Taymor ( Frida, 2002), Sylvain Chomet ( Belleville Rendezvous, 2003), and Ryan Coogler ( Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, 2022).
Audiard and Coralie Fargeat become the first French directors to be nominated in the same year. They will hope to emulate Michel Hazanavicius, who won for The Artist (2011), and surpass compatriot nominees, Jean Renoir ( The Southerner, 1945), Claude Lelouch (A Man and a Woman, 1966), François Truffaut ( Day For Night, 1973), Edouard Molinaro ( La Cage aux Folles, 1978), Louis Malle ( Atlantic City, 1980), and Justine Triet (Anatomy of a Fall), as well as those dual citizenship holders, Costa-Gavras ( Z, 1969), Roman Polanski ( Chinatown, 1974 & Tess, 1979), and Roland Joffé ( The Killing Fields, 1984 & The Mission, 1986). Polanski and Franco-American Damien Chazelle also won for The Pianist (2002) and La La Land (2016).
Sean Baker's Best Editing nod for Anora makes him the seventh Best Director contender to double up after David Lean ( A Passage to India, 1984), Joel and Ethan Coen ( Fargo, 1996 & No Country For Old Men, 2007), James Cameron (Titanic, 1997 & Avatar. 2009), Alfonso Cuarón ( Children of Men, 2006 & Gravity, 2013), Jean-Marc Vallée ( Dallas Buyers Club, 2013), and Chloé Zhao (Nomadland, 2020). No one has won Best Director for a film about Russians in America, despite the best efforts of Ernst Lubitsch (The Patriot). Baker is on safer ground with gangland, however, with The Godfather and The Departed (2006) both prevailing in the category, as did 7th Heaven, From Here to Eternity, Midnight Cowboy (1969), and Unforgiven (1992), which all feature a sex worker in a prominent role.
If Brady Corbet wins for The Brutalist, he will join the ranks of actors-turned-director who have taken the Oscar, including John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy), Woody Allen ( Annie Hall, 1977), Robert Redford ( Ordinary People, 1980), Warren Beatty (Reds), Richard Attenborough ( Gandhi, 1982), Kevin Costner ( Dances With Wolves, 1990), Clint Eastwood (Unforgiven & Million Dollar Baby, 2004), Mel Gibson (Braveheart), and Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind).
Given that the funding for this long-cherished project fell through on a number of occasions, Corbet has certainly earned his spot and the recent success of 'brainbox' films like A Beautiful Mind and Oppenheimer suggests he's in with a good chance after an excellent Awards Season following Corbet's Silver Lion win at the Venice Film Festival. If he adds the BAFTA to his Golden Globe, he should be the red-hot favourite.
Such has been the response to her body horror satire, The Substance, that Coralie Fargeat has become the ninth woman to be nominated for Best Director after Lina Wertmüller (Seven Beauties, 1975), Jane Campion (The Piano & The Power of the Dog), Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation), Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker), Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird), Chloé Zhao (Nomadland), and Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman). Only Bigelow, Zhao, and Campion have taken the prize and it would be a surprise if Fargeat won with her sophomore outing after Revenge (2017).
She is now the second Frenchwoman to be recognised in the category and her appearance alongside Jacques Audiard makes them the first Gallic duo to compete for Best Director since Francois Truffaut (Day For Night) and Roman Polanski (Chinatown) in 1974. Like Justine Triet last year. Fargeat earned her Oscar nomination without being listed by the Directors Guild of America and she can become the first to take the category with a horror movie since Jonathan Demme for The Silence of the Lambs.
Biopics have a decent track record when it comes to bring in home the Oscar for Best Director, as Frank Lloyd (The Divine Lady), Robert Wise (The Sound of Music), Fred Zinnemann (A Man For All Seasons), Franklin J. Schaffner ( Patton, 1970), Warren Beatty (Reds), Richard Attenborough (Gandhi), Miloš Forman (Amadeus), Sydney Pollack ( Out of Africa, 1985), Bernardo Bertolucci ( The Last Emperor, 1987), Oliver Stone ( Born on the Fourth of July, 1989), Steven Spielberg (Schindler's List), Mel Gibson (Braveheart), Ron Howard (A Beautiful Mind), Tom Hooper (The King's Speech), and Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer) could all testify. But James Mangold will note that only The Pianist, Roman Polanski's account of Wladyslaw Szpilman's wartime experiences was about a musician. Will his Bob Dylan tribute, A Complete Unknown, have what it takes to
sway the AMPAS electorate? That's for Cinema Paradiso users to decide, as they cast their own votes in the 2025 Oscar prediction competition.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
The Best Supporting categories didn't appear until the 9th Academy Awards in 1937 and they have often proved to be the most difficult to call. This year sees a rare instance of all five nominees for Best Supporting Actress pair up with contenders for both Best Actor (three) and Best Actress (two).
In the case of Best Actor, this has worked out well for the partnerships of Broderick Crawford and Mercedes McCambridge in All the King's Men (1949), Marlon Brando and Eva Marie Saint in On the Waterfront (1954), David Niven and Wendy Hiller in Separate Tables (1958), Burt Lancaster and Shirley Jones in Elmer Gantry (1960), Peter Finch and Beatrice Straight in Network (1976), Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep in
Kramer vs Kramer (1979), and Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker in My Left Foot (1989). But it's not happened for 36 years, which may be bad news for the co-stars of The Brutalist, Conclave, and A Complete Unknown.
Might things work out better for the co-stars of Emilia Pérez and Wicked, who stand a chance of following in the footsteps of Bette Davis and Fay Bainter in Jezebel (1938), Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind (1939), Greer Garson and Teresa Wright in Mrs Miniver (1942), Vivien Leigh and Kim Hunter in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker (1962), Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Faye Dunaway and Beatrice Straight in Network, Cher and Olympia Dukakis in Moonstruck (1987), Holly Hunter and Anna Paquin in The Piano (1993), Gwyneth Paltrow and Judi Dench in Shakespeare in Love (1998), and Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis in Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022).
Jamie Lee Curtis missed out this year, in spite of picking up a BAFTA nomination for The Last Showgirl. Even more unlucky is Margaret Qualley, whose work brought out the best in Demi Moore in The Substance. The latter would have been a first-time nominee, although 13 of the 20 performers are Oscar newcomers. The presence of the Hispanic and Lusophonic performers in the four acting categories also means that this is the eight year in the past decade in which at least one nominee has been for a non-English language role.
In joining Best Supporting nominees Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown) and Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing) and Fernanda Torres (I'm Still Here) form a unique Latin-language quartet in the acting categories. Saldaña and Domingo become the first two-time Afro-Latino performers to be nominated in the same year, while Saldaña becomes the third Afro-Latina nominee for Best Supporting Actress after Rosie Perez ( Fearless, 1993) and Ariana DeBose ( West Side Story, 2021), with the latter being a winner.
Barbaro plays folk singer Joan Baez and is only the second woman to be nominated for Best Supporting Actress for playing a living musician after Rachel Griffiths for Hilary and Jackie (1998). Two more nods went to à clef characters, with Effie White (Jennifer Hudson) in Dreamgirls (2006) being modelled on Supremes singer Florence Ballard, while Jude Quinn (Cate Blanchett) in I'm Not There (2007) was based on Bob Dylan, who is, of course, the subject of A Complete Unknown. In being selected, Barbaro is the first to get an Oscar nod in this category with only Screen Actors Guild recognition during Awards Season since Ruby Dee in American Gangster (2007).
Galinda Upland (Ariana Grande) is on screen in Wicked for so long that she racks up the second-longest Best Supporting Actress performance behind Jennifer Jones in Since You Went Away (1944). If she wins, Grande will pip Tatum O'Neal in Paper Moon (1974) for the longest winning turn in the category. When it comes to precedents, however, Meryl Streep is the only other actress to be nominated for playing a witch, in Into the Woods, 2014). But both Grande and Zoe Saldaña can take solace in the fact that five women have won for musical roles: Catherine Zeta-Jones for Chicago, Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls, Anne Hathaway for Les Misérables (2012), and Rita Moreno and Ariana DaBose for West Side Story (1960 and 2021), in which they both played Anita.
Saldaña will follow this pair in becoming the third Latina winner if her performance as Rita Mora Castro can survive the maelstrom blowing around Emilia Pérez. Both Emma Thompson (In the Name of the Father) and Tilda Swinton ( Michael Clayton, 2007) have won Best Supporting Actress for playing lawyers.
Saldaña and co-stars Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, and Adriana Paz shared the Best Actress prize at Cannes, but much has changed since Saldaña won the Golden Globe and the field feels wide open.
If Felicity Jones wins for her work as Erzsébet Tóth in The Brutalist, she will become the first Brit to win Best Supporting Actress for 17 years. A victory will place her alongside Wendy Hiller (Separate Tables), Margaret Rutherford (The V.I.P.s, 1963), Vanessa Redgrave (Julia), Maggie Smith ( California Suite, 1978), Peggy Ashcroft (A Passage to India), Judi Dench (Shakespeare in Love), Catherine Zeta-Jones (Chicago, 2002), Rachel Weisz ( The Constant Gardener, 2005), and Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton). No character in a wheelchair has won this category, although Jones could follow Kim Hunter (A Streetcar Named Desire), Jo Van Fleet ( East of Eden, 1955), Sandy Dennis (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), Cloris Leachman ( The Last Picture Show, 1971), Beatrice Straight (Network), Marcia Gay Harden ( Pollock, 2000), and Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) for playing a wife coping with a difficult spouse.
Having already garnered Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations, Isabella Rosselini will be hoping that her performance as Sister Agnes in Conclave will enable her and Ingrid Bergman ( Murder on the Orient Express, 1974) to become the first mother-daughter winners of Best Supporting Actress. The Rome-born Rossellini would also become the first Italian to take the category and the first daughter of a major director, as her father was the neo-realist pioneer, Roberto Rossellini. Completing the litany of potential firsts is that Rossellini could succeed where previously nominated nuns had failed, including Gladys Cooper ( The Song of Bernadette, 1943), Celeste Holm ( Come to the Stable, 1949), Lilia Skala ( Lilies of the Field, 1963), Peggy Wood (The Sound of Music), Meg Tilly ( Agnes of God, 1985), and Amy Adams ( Doubt, 2008).
The Constant Nymph ), J. Carroll Naish ( Sahara ), and Paulette Goddard (So Proudly We Hail) - came from top prize contenders. Perhaps this bunching is why there was no room for Denzel Washington (Gladiator II) or Clarence Maclin (Sing Sing), who managed a BAFTA nod for playing himself. But he gets the consolation prize of a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination and can cheer on co-star Colman Domingo.
Edward Norton, Guy Pearce, and Jeremy Strong also have colleagues in the Best Actor stakes. Past dual wins have included Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald (Going My Way, 1944), Fredric March and Harold Russell (The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946), Charlton Heston and Hugh Griffith (Ben-Hur, 1959), Sean Penn and Tim Robbins (Mystic River, 2003), Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto (Dallas Buyers Club, 2013), and Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey, Jr. (Oppenheimer).
Yura Borisov is alone with a co-star up for Best Actress. So, can he and Mikey Madison emulate Vivien Leigh and Karl Malden (A Streetcar Named Desire), Patricia Neal and Melvyn Douglas ( Hud, 1963), Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey (Cabaret), Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson ( Terms of Endearment, 1983), Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby, 2004), Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), and Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All At Once) ?
In the same way, Pearce and Norton will be rooting for Best Supporting Actress co-stars in the hope of twinning up like Karl Malden and Kim Hunter (A Streetcar Named Desire), Frank Sinatra and Donna Reed (From Here to Eternity), Red Buttons and Miyoshi Umeki ( Sayonara, 1957), George Chakiris and Rita Moreno (West Side Story), Ben Johnson and Cloris Leachman (The Last Picture Show), Jason Robards and Vanessa Redgrave (Julia), Michael Caine and Dianne Wiest ( Hannah and Her Sisters, 1986), Christian Bale and Melissa Leo ( The Fighter, 2010), and Ke Huy Quan and Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All At Once).
Sean Baker created the role of Igor in Anora after he saw Yura Borisov in Juho Kuosmanen's Compartment No.6 (2021) at Cannes. He is the first Russian male to be nominated since the exiled Mikhail Baryshnikov was cited for Best Actor for The Turning Point (1977) and the first to appear in the Best Supporting listings since Lila Kedrova in Zorba the Greek (1964). There has been disquiet in Ukraine that Borisov has been recognised by the Academy, as they insist he has headlined 'Russian propaganda films', such as Konstantin Buslov's AK-47 Kalashnikov (2020), which was partially filmed in occupied Crimea
Kieran Culkin has made the Best Supporting ranks for his work as Benji Kaplan in Jesse Eisenberg's A Real Pain. This road movie has rather gone under the radar since debuting at Sundance last January. However, Culkin has been nominated by BAFTA and the Screen Actors Guild and could still add to his wins at the Critics' Choice Movie Awards and the Golden Globes.
Culkin finds himself alongside Jeremy Strong in the race after they had each won Emmys for playing brothers in Succession (2018-23). Just to tip the balance in Culkin's favour, Alan Arkin (Little Miss Sunshine, 2006) and Mahershala Ali (Green Book, 2018) have both won Best Supporting Actor for their displays in road movies. Ali also played a real-life musician, Don Shirley, and Edward Norton will have to hope that is a good omen, as he has been selected for portraying folk singer Pete Seeger in A Complete Unknown. Daniel Massey as Noël Coward in Star! (1968) and Leslie Odom, Jr. as Sam Cooke in One Night in Miami... (2020) were also nommed for essaying musical types. Other winners for biopics include Anthony Quinn ( Viva Zapata! 1952 & Lust For Life, 1956), Jason Robards, Jr. ( All the President's Men, 1976 & Julia, 1977), Haing S. Ngor ( The Killing Fields, 1984), Martin Landau ( Ed Wood, 1994), Jim Broadbent ( Iris, 2001), and Mark Rylance ( Bridge of Spies, 2015).
Norton is the only Oscar veteran in the field, having been up for Best Supporting for Primal Fear (1996) and Birdman (2014) and for Best Actor for American History X (1998). Should he fail to win, he will remain in good company in the 0-4 Club with Warren Beatty, Charles Boyer, Montgomery Clift, Willem Dafoe, Ed Harris, Claude Rains, Mickey Rooney, and Mark Ruffalo.
Guy Pearce could become the first living Australian to win this award, as, sadly, Heath Ledger's was a posthumous victory for his turn as The Joker in The Dark Knight (2008). Pearce plays Harrison Lee Van Buren, Sr. in The Brutalistand will hope that he can join Charles Coburn ( The More the Merrier, 1943), Ed Begley ( Sweet Bird of Youth, 1962), and Melvyn Douglas ( Being There, 1979) by winning the Oscar for playing a wealthy patron.
By contrast, Jeremy Strong will want another legal eagle to prevail after Walter Brennan ( The Westerner, 1940), Walter Matthau ( The Fortune Cookie, 1966), and John Houseman ( The Paper Chase, 1973). In The Apprentice, Roy Cohn is presented teaching the ropes to a young Donald Trump (Sebastian Stan). But this onetime confederate of Senator Joseph McCarthy (who was a prime mover in the postwar Hollywood Witch-Hunt against Communists in show business), Cohn has previously been more gloweringly played by James Woods in Frank Pierson's Citizen Cohn (1992) and Al Pacino in Mike Nichols's Angels in America (2003). Strong has been in contention at the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the BAFTAs. But with some movers and shakers hoping that President Trump will make Hollywood great again, it seems unlikely that the Oscar voters will throw their weight behind a film that the 47th POTUS is known to dislike.
BEST ACTRESS
With only five places up for grabs, it's inevitable that some will get left behind when it comes to Best Actress. This year, Nicole Kidman can perhaps feel most hard done by after having won the Volpi Cup at the Venice Film Festival for Babygirl. But BAFTA nominee Marianne Jean-Baptiste might have expected to land her second Oscar nod for Mike Leigh's Hard Truths after Secrets & Lies (1997). Similarly, there was support for Kate Winslet (Lee) and Pamela Anderson (The Last Showgirl), with the latter having made the shortlist at the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Angelina Jolie (Maria) might also be disappointed, especially after director Pablo Larraín had previously guided Natalie Portman ( Jackie, 2017) and Kristen Stewart ( Spencer, 2022) to nominations in his biopics.
The quintet under consideration have made history by becoming the first Best Actress nominees since 1977 to have been chosen for Best Picture turns. Forty-six years ago, it was Anne Bancroft, Shirley MacLaine (both The Turning Point), Jane Fonda (Julia), Diane Keaton (Annie Hall), and Marsha Mason ( The Goodbye Girl ) who were making all the headlines, as they matched the achievements of the Classes of 1940 - Ginger Rogers (Kitty Foyle), Bette Davis ( The Letter ), Joan Fontaine (Rebecca), Katharine Hepburn ( The Philadelphia Story ), and Martha Scott ( Our Town ) - and 1941 - Joan Fontaine ( Suspicion ), Bette Davis (The Little Foxes), Olivia De Havilland ( Hold Back the Dawn ), Greer Garson (Blossoms in the Dust), and Barbara Stanwyck ( Ball of Fire ).
With Colman Domingo being up for Best Actor and Karla Sofía Gascón and Cynthia Erivo competing for Best Actress, this is the first time that three out queer performers have been nominated for acting Oscars in the same year. Gascón, who plays Juan Del Monte/Emilia in Emilia Pérez, is also the first openly transgender performer to be nominated for an acting award. Overall, however, she follows Angela Morley (Best Music Original Song Score or Adaptation, 1974 & 1977), Anohni (Best Original Song, 2016), and Yance Ford (Best Documentary Feature, 2017), who have been nominated in other categories.
In another piece of Oscar history, Gascón has become the fifth openly queer person nominated for portraying a queer character. She follows on from Ian McKellen ( Gods and Monsters, 1998), Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All At Once), Jodie Foster (Nyad), and Colman Domingo (Rustin). Revelations about her social media history make it unlikely that Gascón will become the first to win Best Actress or match Best Supporting winner Penélope Cruz ( Vicky Cristina Barcelona, 2008) by becoming the second victorious Spanish woman or by becoming the fifth to win Best Actress by playing a character with blood on her hands after Joan Crawford ( Mildred Pierce, 1945), Susan Hayward ( I Want to Live!, 1958), Charlize Theron ( Monster, 2003), and Kate Winslet ( The Reader, 2008)
Although Julie Andrews had a trick up her sleeve in Mary Poppins, Cynthia Erivo would be the first to win Best Actress for playing a witch for her turn as Elphaba Thropp in Wicked. Over two decades ago, the role brought Idina Menzel a Tony Award and Erivo could become the first EGOT winner to complete the set with an Oscar if her name is called. Come what may, she has become the first Black British actress to receive more than one Oscar nomination (after Harriet, 2019) and only the fifth Black actress to receive multiple acting nominations, after Whoopi Goldberg, Angela Bassett, Octavia Spencer, and Viola Davis, who had pipped Erivo to becoming the first Black woman to be nominated twice for Best Actress.
Erivo would also join the cabal of British winners in the category, placing her alongside Vivien Leigh (Gone With the Wind & A Streetcar Named Desire), Greer Garson (Mrs Miniver), Julie Andrews (Mary Poppins), Julie Christie ( Darling, 1965), Maggie Smith ( The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, 1969), Glenda Jackson ( Women in Love, 1969 & A Touch of Class, 1973), Jessica Tandy (Driving Miss Daisy), Emma Thompson ( Howards End, 1992), Helen Mirren ( The Queen, 2006), Kate Winslet (The Reader), and Olivia Colman ( The Favourite, 2018), as well as those winners with British affiliations, Joan Fontaine (Suspicion), Olivia De Havilland ( To Each His Own, 1946 & The Heiress, 1949), Audrey Hepburn ( Roman Holiday, 1953), Elizabeth Taylor (BUtterfield 8 & Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), and Julianne Moore (Still Alice),
Being able to hold a tune helps when it comes to winning Best Actress and Erivo will be hoping to strike a chord with Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins, Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, Liza Minnelli in Cabaret, Sissy Spacek in Coal Miner's Daughter, Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line, Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose (2007), Emma Stone in La La Land, and Renée Zellwegger in Judy, who all won the Oscar.
First-timer Mikey Madison has already received Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Screen Actors Guild nominations for her work as Anora Mikheeva in Sean Baker's Anora. She's far from the first to gain Academy recognition for playing a prostitute. Indeed, Madison now joins such fabled names as Janet Gaynor in Street Angel, Gloria Swanson in Sadie Thompson (both 1928), Helen Hayes in The Sin of Madelon Claudet (1931), Gladys Cooper in Valiant Is the Word for Carrie (1936), Susan Hayward in I Want to Live!, Elizabeth Taylor in BUtterfield 8, Melina Mercouri in Never on Sunday (both 1960), Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast At Tiffany's (1961), Shirley MacLaine in Irma la Douce (1963), Jane Fonda in Klute (1971), Marsha Mason in Cinderella Liberty (1973), Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman (1990), Elisabeth Shue in Leaving Las Vegas, Sharon Stone in Casino (both 1995), and Charlize Theron in Monster
With a Golden Globe on her mantelpiece, momentum could well be behind Demi Moore for her bold portrayal of Elisabeth Sparkle in The Substance. No one has won the Best Actress Oscar for her performance in a horror film, although Ingrid Bergman was terrified en route to her success in George Cukor's Gaslight (1944) and Emma Stone went through a Frankensteinian transformation in winning for Yorgos Lanthimos's Poor Things (2023).
Moore will be the first to win Best Actress for playing a Best Actress-winning film star. But there are precedents for nods to go to those starring as real-life and fictional actresses, among them Bessie Love (The Broadway Melody), Katharine Hepburn ( Morning Glory, 1933), Luise Rainer ( The Great Ziegfeld, 1936), Janet Gaynor ( A Star Is Born, 1937), Susan Hayward ( Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman, 1947), Bette Davis and Anne Baxter ( All About Eve ), Gloria Swanson ( Sunset Boulevard, both 1950), Bette Davis (The Star, 1952), Leslie Caron ( Lili, 1953), Judy Garland ( A Star Is Born, 1954), Susan Hayward (I'll Cry Tomorrow, 1955), Bette Davis ( Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, Geraldine Page (Sweet Bird of Youth, both 1962), Julie Christie (Darling), Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl), Marsha Mason ( Chapter Two, 1979 & Only When I Laugh, 1981), Jessica Lange ( Frances, 1982), Meryl Streep ( Postcards From the Edge, 1990), Annette Bening ( Being Julia, 2004), Michelle Williams ( My Week With Marilyn, 2011), Emma Stone (La La Land), Renée Zellwegger (Judy), Nicole Kidman (Being the Ricardos, 2021), and Ana De Armas (Blonde, 2022).
Having surprised some by winning the Golden Globe for depicting Eunice Paiva in I'm Still Here, Fernanda Torres is definitely in the Oscar conversation. She joins mother Fernanda Montenegro ( Central Station, 1998) in being nominated in the category for a film directed by Walter Salles. This is the first time that this has ever happened with a parent/child combination, although Montenegro and Torres are following Judy Garland and Liza Minnelli in becoming only the second mother-daughter pair to have been nominated in the category.
Montenegro (who plays the older Eunice) was the first Latin American to be nominated for Best Actress. She has since been joined by Mexican Salma Hayek for Frida (2002), Colombian Catalina Sandino for Maria Full of Grace (2004), Mexican Yalitza Aparicio for Roma (2018), and Cuban Ana De Armas for Blonde. This is the first time two non-English-language performances have been listed for Best Actress and, if Torres wins, she will be the first to win any acting Oscar for speaking Portuguese.
BEST ACTOR
The Best Actor contest hasn't been accompanied by too many grumpy voices off complaining about the snubs and omissions. Hugh Grant was overlooked after snagging a Golden Globe nomination for Heretic, while compatriot Daniel Craig's Globe nod and National Board of Review win were not enough for him to sway the electorate with his performance in Queer. There is one Brit in the field, though, after the 96th Academy Awards had ended a 14-year run of at least one British actor being up for the top prize.
Adrien Brody. who plays László Tóth in The Brutalist, is the only nominee with a statuette at home. Indeed, he could land a second and join a clique that currently includes Spencer Tracy ( Captains Courageous, 1937 & Boys Town, 1938), Fredric March ( Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 1931 & The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946), Gary Cooper (Sergeant York, 1941 & High Noon, 1952), Marlon Brando (On the Waterfront, 1954 & The Godfather, 1972), Dustin Hoffman (Kramer vs Kramer, 1979 & Rain Man, 1988), Tom Hanks ( Philadelphia, 1993 & Forrest Gump, 1994), Jack Nicholson (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975 & As Good As It Gets, 1997), Sean Penn (Mystic River, 2003 & Milk, 2008), and Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs, 1991 & The Father, 2020).
As Brady plays an architect, he could also become a member of what we might call the 'Grey Cell Society', along with Paul Muni (The Story of Louis Pasteur, 1936), Rex Harrison (My Fair Lady), Paul Scofield (A Man For All Seasons), Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything, 2014), and Cillian Murphy (Oppenheimer). Also eligible would be those performers who, like Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown, have been nominated for essaying Nobel Prize laureates. Along with Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon as Marie and Pierre Curie in Madame Curie (1943), the list includes Alexander Knox as Woodrow Wilson in Wilson (1944), Jack Nicholson as Eugene O'Neill in Reds, Russell Crowe as John Nash, Jr. in A Beautiful Mind, Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in Invictus (2009), and Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour (2017).
Thanks to 'Things Have Changed' from Wonder Boys (2001), Bob Dylan also has Best Song Oscar victory on his CV. This makes Chalamet the 12th person to be recognised for portraying a real-life Oscar winner or nominee. The others are Daniel Massey as Noël Coward in Star! (1968). Jane Fonda and Jason Robards as Lillian Hellman and Dashiell Hammett in Julia, Robert Downey, Jr. as Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin (1992), Nicolas Cage as Charlie Kaufman in Adaptation (2002), Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn in The Aviator (2004), Kenneth Branagh as Laurence Olivier in My Week With Marilyn, Bryan Cranston as Dalton Trumbo in Trumbo (2015), Renée Zellweger as Judy Garland in Judy (2019), Gary Oldman as Herman J. Mankiewicz in Mank (2020), and Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein in Maestro (2023).
Cooper is one of several actors to have been nominated for playing a celebrated musician or singer. Tuning up alongside him are James Cagney as George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Cornel Wilde as Frédéric Chopin in A Song to Remember (1945), Larry Parks as Al Jolson in The Jolson Story (1946), Gary Busey as Buddy Holly in The Buddy Holly Story (1978), Geoffrey Rush as David Helfgott in Shine (1996), Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles in Ray (2004), Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz in Being the Ricardos, Andrew Garfield as Jonathan Larson in Tick, Tick…BOOM! (both 2021), and Austin Butler as Elvis Presley in Elvis (2022). Robert Duvall and Jeff Bridges were also named Best Actor for playing fictional singers in Tender Mercies (1983) and Crazy Heart (2009).
If he wins, Chalamet will become the youngest winner of the Academy Award for Best Actor, as he will be nine months younger than Adrien Brody (29 years and 11 months) was when he triumphed for The Pianist. Following his citation for Call Me By Your Name (2017), Chalamet also becomes the third youngest to receive two nominations after Mickey Rooney for Babes in Arms (1939) and The Human Comedy (1943) and James Dean for East of Eden (1955) and Giant (1956), by which time he had been killed in a car crash. The French-American actor would also become only the second Frenchmen to win the award after Jean Dujardin for The Artist, although Maurice Chevalier (2), Charles Boyer (4), and Gérard Depardieu (1) have also been nominated.
As mentioned above, Colman Domingo, who plays John 'Divine G' Whitfield in Sing Sing, is only the second out gay man to be nominated for Best Actor after Ian McKellen. He is also the second Black actor to be selected in consecutive years after Denzel Washington for Fences (2016) and Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017). The only African American actress to achieve the feat is Octavia Spencer for her Best Supporting turns in Hidden Figures (2016) and The Shape of Water (2017).
Domingo joins the roll call of those Best Actor nominees who have been incarcerated on screen, alongside Ronald Colman (Condemned, 1929), Wallace Beery (The Big House, 1930), Paul Muni (I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang, 1932), William Holden ( Stalag 17, 1953), Alec Guinness (The Bridge on the River Kwai, 1957), Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier ( The Defiant Ones, 1958), Burt Lancaster ( Birdman of Alcatraz, 1962), Paul Newman ( Cool Hand Luke, 1967), Jack Nicholson (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, 1975), William Hurt ( Kiss of the Spiderwoman, 1985), Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs), Daniel Day Lewis (In the Name of the Father), Morgan Freeman ( The Shawshank Redemption, 1994), Sean Penn (Dead Man Walking, 1995), Roberto Benigni (Life Is Beautiful), Denzel Washington ( The Hurricane, 1999), and Geoffrey Rush ( Quills, 2000).
By being feted for his performance as Cardinal Thomas Lawrence in Conclave, Ralph Fiennes collects a second Best Actor nomination 28 years after his first, for The English Patient. Only Henry Fonda waited longer between The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and On Golden Pond (1981). In between times, however, Fiennes was shortlisted for Best Supporting Actor for his chilling turn as Amon Göth in Schindler's List. Like The English Patient, this won Oscar's top award and Fiennes would break a 19-way tie (after his appearance in The Hurt Locker) if Conclave prevails by featuring in four Best Picture winners.
Dog collars have brought Oscar nominations for Spencer Tracy (San Francisco, 1936 & Boys Town, 1938), Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald (Going My Way, 1944), Gregory Peck ( The Keys of the Kingdom, 1944), and Crosby again for reprising the winning role of Fr Chuck O'Malley in The Bells of St Mary's (1945). More recently, Jonathan Pryce was nominated for his depiction of Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio (who was elected Pope Francis) in The Two Popes (2019). Maybe someone is looking over Fiennes from on high, as he seeks to improve on his nominations from the European Film Awards, the Golden Globes, and the BAFTAs?
Finally, the delaying of the nomination announcement by the California wildfires meant that Sebastian Stan became the first actor to be nominated for portraying a sitting President of the United States, courtesy of his work as Donald Trump in Ali Abbasi's The Apprentice. Eight others have been nominated for playing previous occupants of the Oval Office, namely Raymond Massey as Abraham Lincoln in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940), Alexander Knox as Woodrow Wilson in Wilson (1944), James Whitmore as Harry S. Truman in Give 'Em Hell, Harry! (1976), Anthony Hopkins as Richard Nixon in Nixon (1996) and as John Quincy Adams in Amistad (1997), Frank Langella as Richard Nixon in Frost/Nixon (2008), Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln in Lincoln (2012), and Sam Rockwell as George W. Bush in Vice (2018).
Stan is the only first-time nominee in the category, so Cinema Paradiso members are going to have to gauge whether he will be squeezed out by the two other real-life characters in the reckoning (who are also still going strong) or by the fictional twosome from the category's weightier scenarios. We hope we've given you some food for thought to help you cast your votes. But, now, it's all up to you.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
That concludes our round-up of the major categories on the Oscar ballot. In all, 35 features and 15 shorts have been nominated across the 23 categories. But you're on your own for the other 17!
To take part in this competition, all you have to do is tell us who you think will win each category at the 97th Academy Awards.
Whoever correctly predicts the highest number of winners will receive SIX MONTHS of free rentals from CinemaParadiso.co.uk.
In the result of a tie, the top predictors will be entered in a draw to find ONE lucky winner.
The competition will close at 12:00 on Sunday 2 March 2025 and the winner will be announced on Monday 3 March.
One entry per customer and everyone with a Cinema Paradiso account is welcome to take part. Good luck!
