Quick Takeaways from the 2025 Oscar Nominations

 Plus - I grade my Oscar predictions.

The 2025 Oscar nominations are now out. It felt like a mostly chalk-heavy morning with a few minor surprises, until the grand finale of a shocker in the Best Picture lineup. The following are five quick takeaways I had from the nominations. I'm keeping my personal thoughts on films out of this - as I mentioned in my predictions post, I don't really get personally invested in the performance of films I like the way some people do. That said, I'll acknowledge that if you had told me a few years ago that Coralie Fargeat's next film would earn her Best Picture and Best Director nominations while still being as bold and bloody as her debut Revenge, I would have said you're living in a fantasy world for horror fans, so seeing her get recognized this year is pretty exciting.

5 Takeaways from the Nominations:

1) I'm Still Here IS STILL HERE!

Remember this moment - it's historic

Without a doubt, the biggest surprise of the morning was the appearance of I'm Still Here in the Best Picture lineup, taking that final slot over A Real Pain, Sing Sing, September 5, Challengers, and everything else. It's probably the biggest Best Picture surprise in some time, and kudos to anyone out there who called it correctly.

I haven't seen the film yet, but I'm even more excited to now, and congratulations to all of its fans in Brazil who never gave up hope. This may have been a case where the extended nomination period wound up altering the nomination race. It's possible that I'm Still Here makes it in during a normal nomination period, but considering the release of I'm Still Here countrywide is still being rolled out, those extra few days for the Sony Pictures Classics team to push the film were put to good use. And while I implied that it took the final slot, I'm Still Here actually wound up with a better nomination package than Nickel Boys, so it very well could have been the #9 film.

Also, between this and Emilia Pérez, we finally have multiple Best Picture nominees that are also nominated for Best International Film. While it's been assumed the international Oscar is Emilia Pérez's to lose, this could potentially make the race much more interesting.

2) A Complete Unknown is known, and Wicked is popular

Never deny the power of the music biopic

In the days between posting my predictions and nominations morning, the element I was second-guessing the most was if I predicted A Complete Unknown in enough spots. The answer was a resounding "no", as the film managed to not only secure its expected nominations but also sneak into Best Costume Design, earn a Best Supporting Actress nomination for Monica Barbaro, and (most notably and surprisingly) a Best Director nomination for James Mangold. Who knows if it can keep up this momentum, but A Complete Unknown peaked at the perfect time and the voters ate it up.

Emilia Pérez led the way in nominations as expected (13 total), but coming in second place was Wicked with 10 (tied with The Brutalist). It presumably knocked Challengers out of Best Score and came out of nowhere to snag an editing nomination over several other Best Picture nominees. That could breathe some life into its ability to turn nominations into wins in the next phase of the season.  

3) Conclave and Dune: Part Two underperform

Conclave fans may be demanding a recount

It wasn't a great morning for Conclave fans. While Conclave received 8 nominations, it missed a couple big ones it was expected to receive - Best Cinematography and Best Director for Edward Berger. It's not an awful haul by any means, but it may throw some water on the fire that was starting to burn regarding Conclave being a Best Picture winner.

It was an even rougher morning for fans of Dune: Part Two, especially those who thought the first Dune got snubbed in some categories. People were up in arms about Denis Villeneuve missing a Best Director nomination for Part One, but that film still won a whopping six Oscars. Dune: Part Two was only nominated for five! Forget Villeneuve missing in director once again, Part Two somehow missed all of the following: Adapted Screenplay, Costume Design, Film Editing, and Makeup and Hairstyling (plus its score was ineligible). The March release date didn't help things I'm sure, but for a film that was widely regarded as better than the 2021 Dune this is a pretty steep decline in Oscars performance.

4) Challengers and Hard Truths get goose-egged

An accurate description of the facial expressions of Challengers fans right now

I was surprised at the number of nominations I was predicting for Challengers, and it turns out I should have predicted it for the same number of nominations as you and I received on Oscar morning. Best Score, Song, Original Screenplay, and Editing all seemed like reasonable possibilities, but none of them materialized. There's probably a few factors at play here, including the April release date and Amazon MGM working overtime just to get Nickel Boys into Picture and Adapted Screenplay, but as a whole this is likely a film that was rooted in internet hype and played much better with general audiences than Oscar voters.

Hard Truths also got blanked - not super surprising, but it had legitimate shots at Best Actress and Original Screenplay. With the performance of I'm Still Here, Marianne Jean-Baptiste may have never really had a chance, but based purely on the critical support it still feels like a pretty big snub. Bleecker Street has not had much success with any previous Oscar campaigns - this felt like their best shot, but it wasn't enough.

5) The Best Picture race is still wide open

There you have it - this year's Best Picture lineup

The fun isn't done! There's still numerous contenders for Best Picture and it's way too early to even call a favorite. Emilia Pérez has the most nominations, but that hasn't always correlated with Best Picture success. Anora quietly got pretty much everything it needed and is right in the thick of things. The Brutalist is a distinct possibility. Conclave took a hit missing some nominations but is certainly still in the mix. That editing nomination may prove Wicked stronger than many were anticipating. A Complete Unknown is the hot commodity right now, but can that momentum last for another month? And what about the big wild card, I'm Still Here - does it have a realistic chance at making some noise? Who knows - we'll find out in the next few weeks.

---

Grading My Predictions:

Best Picture: 8/10 - Oof. Not only did I underestimate Nickel Boys, I also failed to consider I'm Still Here even as a long shot contender (although in my defense, almost nobody did). The surprises were fun and I'm not complaining. But from a predicting standpoint, 9/10 was doable and I didn't quite get there.

Best Director: 4/5 - Not too mad about missing Berger for Mangold here, I did not anticipate that the directors' branch would go for a more mainstream pick to complete their lineup. In retrospect, looking at it as a career achievement and seeing A Complete Unknown's surge in all categories, it makes complete sense.

Best Actress: 4/5 - Stubbornly keeping Jean-Baptiste and predicting an unlikely snub didn't seem smart at the time, and that was proven to be true, but I was committed to taking a risk here. Sometimes they pay off, sometimes they don't.

Best Actor: 4/5 - Stan vs. Craig seemed like a toss-up here, but The Apprentice receiving more love throughout the season than Queer should've been something I considered a little more than I did.

Best Supporting Actress: 4/5 - In a category as topsy-turvy as this one, I'll take 4/5 every time.

Best Supporting Actor: 5/5 - No surprises here, and my 50/50 call with Strong vs. Maclin proved to be right.

Best Adapted Screenplay: 5/5 - Very pleased to nail this category. If I were to guess, I imagine I'm Still Here finished in sixth.

Best Original Screenplay: 4/5 - Note to self: Until proven otherwise, do not predict anything from Bleecker Street.

Best Cinematography: 4/5 - Happy I correctly called the Maria nomination after ASC (and the Nickel Boys miss), but Emilia Pérez over Conclave is still surprising to me.

Best Costume Design: 4/5 - Dune: Part Two missing here was quietly one of the biggest snubs of the morning; it was #2 in the odds for a nomination. Kudos to those who went all in on A Complete Unknown.

Best Film Editing: 3/5 - Dune: Part Two missing editing while Wicked (#9 in the odds) made the lineup was one of the biggest surprises of the morning. My logic regarding The Brutalist proved to be flawed - good to know for the future.

Best Makeup and Hairstyling: 4/5 - I completely forgot about the prosthetics in the first few minutes of Emilia Pérez. Had I remembered, I may have leaned there over Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and gone perfect here.

Best Production Design: 5/5 - Nailed this category, but so did a lot of people - it was the top five in the odds that got in.

Best Score: 4/5 - As soon as Challengers missed here, I knew the rest of my Challengers predictions were screwed. I thought the Reznor/Ross name recognition and previous success would outweigh the less-than-Academy-friendly style of music. That proved to be incorrect.

Best Song: 3/5 - Not sure why I was so low on Elton John getting in - definitely should have seen that as a more realistic possibility - but I don't think there's any shame in missing "Kiss the Sky" here.

Best Sound: 4/5 - Never would I have expected The Wild Robot to get in here but not in song. It's a pretty fun surprise, and I'm happy that if I had to miss one here it's for one I wasn't considering predicting instead of Blitz or Alien: Romulus.

Best Visual Effects: 4/5 - Calling Alien: Romulus here may have been my best prediction of the morning. Too bad I whiffed on Better Man.

Best Animated Feature: 5/5 - The most locked-in category went as expected. No surprises here.

Best Documentary Feature: 3/5 - Not great. Missed Daughters (which I thought was safe) and Dahomey (which was a riskier pick that was a toss-up for me with Soundtrack for a Coup d'État and I backed the wrong horse). Porcelain War proves I should never doubt documentaries about the war in Ukraine. 

Best International Feature: 4/5 - So much for the BAFTA Kneecap love - that did not transfer over as I had expected. In theory, The Girl with the Needle probably makes more sense as the type of film that typically gets nominated here. Happy I correctly called Flow despite the lack of dialogue.

Best Animated Short: 2/5 - Flush it and move on.

Best Documentary Short: 2/5 - Probably would have done just as well if I had my dog predict the nominees.

Best Live Action Short: 3/5 - The only category where my "interesting title" approach paid off, as I somehow correctly predicted I'm Not a Robot and A Lien despite both being pretty low on GoldDerby.

Overall, pretty good for my first year posting predictions anywhere publicly. Definitely some room for improvement, but my total score is 76.7%, and it goes up to 80.9% if you remove the shorts. That's in C+/B- range and I'm perfectly content there for the time being.