Ahead of the 97th Academy Awards on Sunday, it’s time to predict who will take home Hollywood’s biggest prizes to close out an exciting — and often unpredictable — awards season. Take a look at this year’s nominees, and then read on to see the Daily’s predictions in all 23 categories.
Best Picture: Over the last few years, Best Picture has been a fairly predictable race, with a favorite emerging in January and winning all of the big precursors leading up to the Oscars. Not so in 2025. The top prizes at the Golden Globes went to “The Brutalist,” Brady Corbet’s 215-minute epic about the American dream, and “Emilia Pérez,” Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical about a transgender drug kingpin (which currently has an abysmal 2.1 stars on Letterboxd). However, both films have been embroiled in recent controversy — “The Brutalist” for its use of artificial intelligence and “Emilia Pérez” for a series of past racist comments made by the film’s star, Karla Sofia Gascón. It’s now a close race between two completely different films: Edward Berger’s thrilling papal drama “Conclave,” which triumphed at the British Academy Film Awards and the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Sean Baker’s dark comedy “Anora,” which won the top prizes at the Producers’ Guild Awards and Critics’ Choice Awards. “Conclave” is the better film but expect “Anora” to come out on top.
Best Actress in a Leading Role: The race for Best Actress began with no clear leader — before Gascón’s scandal, it seemed like every star in this category had a reasonable chance at victory. As the breakout star in “Wicked,” some voters may be holding space for Cynthia Erivo, while many others are rooting for Fernanda Torres, who won a Golden Globe for “I’m Still Here.” “Anora” star Mikey Madison has a shot after her victory at the BAFTAs, but the frontrunner is Demi Moore, who triumphed at the Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice Awards and SAGs for playing aging film star Elisabeth Sparkle in the body horror film “The Substance.”
Best Actor in a Leading Role: All five actors in this category are awards-worthy, especially Timothée Chalamet, who made an impressive transformation into Bob Dylan in “A Complete Unknown.” Chalamet could pull off an upset after his victory at the SAGs this past weekend, but it looks like this award is going to Adrien Brody for his starring role as architect László Tóth in “The Brutalist.”
Best Actress in a Supporting Role: There are lots of good musical performances here — “Wicked” fans would rejoicify if Ariana Grande won for her take on Glinda, but it would also be a pleasant surprise to see Monica Barbaro win for her spot-on portrayal of Joan Baez in “A Complete Unknown.” However, this award is Zoe Saldaña’s to lose after her parade of recent victories for “Emilia Pérez.”
Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Start writing your acceptance speech now, Kieran Culkin. Culkin has won every major precursor for his powerful performance in Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain,” taking down some stiff competition — including his former “Succession” co-star, eldest boy Jeremy Strong, who’s nominated here for playing Roy Cohn in “The Apprentice.”
Best Directing: While Corbet triumphed at the Golden Globes for “The Brutalist” and Jon M. Chu (sadly not nominated here) won the Critics’ Choice Award for “Wicked,” expect this award to go to Director’s Guild Award winner Sean Baker for his wonderful direction of “Anora.”
Best Original Screenplay: Baker is also expected to win for writing “Anora,” although he faces some serious competition from Jesse Eisenberg’s heartfelt BAFTA-winning screenplay for “A Real Pain” and Coralie Fargeat’s wildly inventive Critics’ Choice-winning script for “The Substance.”
Best Adapted Screenplay: There’s only one film in this category that features turtles, explosions, a vape-hitting cardinal and multiple jaw-dropping twists, all set amid the backdrop of an intense papal election. That’s “Conclave.” It certainly helps that screenwriter Peter Straughan has picked up most of the major precursors on the way to the Oscars.
Best Animated Feature Film: There are plenty of great movies in this category, including new installments of “Inside Out” and “Wallace and Gromit,” as well as “Flow,” a beautiful Latvian film about a cat surviving a flood. But here’s hoping the award goes to “The Wild Robot,” a stunning DreamWorks film about a big-hearted robot that adopts an orphaned bird. Go watch it. It will make you cry.
Best Original Song: Breaking with tradition, producers have decided to cut the performances of nominated songs from the Oscars ceremony. This is unrelated to the controversy surrounding “Emilia Pérez,” which has two songs in the race — expect Zoe Saldaña’s “El Mal” to win. Not nominated here is the widely ridiculed “La Vaginoplastia,” featuring such timeless lyrics as “Hello very nice to meet you / I’d like to know about sex change operations.”
Best International Feature Film: With 13 nominations, “Emilia Pérez” entered this race as an obvious frontrunner, but the film’s recent controversy, along with a surge of excitement for Fernanda Torres, means this race might go to “I’m Still Here” instead.
Best Costume Design, Best Production Design and Best Sound: Expect all three of these awards to go to the visually and sonically impressive “Wicked.”
And here’s who we think is going to win in the remaining categories:
Best Cinematography: “The Brutalist”
Best Film Editing: “Conclave”
Best Makeup and Hairstyling: “The Substance”
Best Original Score: “The Brutalist”
Best Visual Effects: “Dune: Part Two”
Best Documentary Feature Film: “No Other Land”
Best Animated Short Film: “Wander to Wonder”
Best Live Action Short Film: “The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent”
Best Documentary Short Film: “I Am Ready, Warden”
