Let’s be honest: with the film industry still reeling from the knock-on effects of last year’s WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, it’s been a difficult year for cinema. Several high-profile projects have been pushed to 2025 and many of those which were released—and were once viewed as future awards frontrunners in the vein of Barbenheimer (Joker: Folie à Deux, Megalopolis, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga)—ended up being major disappointments. As a result, the Oscar race is still wide open and, thrillingly, a string of brilliant, often smaller and sometimes stranger releases—a touchingly intimate prison drama, the madcap tale of a stripper and the son of a Russian oligarch, an experimentally-shot literary adaptation, a mob musical centred on a trans cartel head—are emerging from the sidelines in a bid to claim the top prizes.
Ahead of the 2025 Academy Awards ceremony on 2 March, these are the 11 you need to have on your radar.
Sing Sing
Greg Kwedar’s sweeping, sublime account of the titular New York prison’s transformative Rehabilitation Through the Arts programme, which features a number of the real-life initiative’s actual alumni playing versions of themselves, highly deserves every plaudit it receives. Colman Domingo, who made the Best Actor shortlist earlier this year for Rustin, certainly has a shot of taking home that statuette this time around for his extraordinary embodiment of theatre group veteran John “Divine G” Whitfield, while the real Divine G, a co-author on the moving script, could be up for Best Adapted Screenplay alongside his fellow writer and former inmate Clarence Maclin. The latter also gives a star-making supporting performance which ought to be recognised, too. This is life-affirming, tear-jerking movie making with purpose, reframing our perceptions of incarcerated populations without overtly politicising the issue. It’d be my personal pick for Best Picture and, while that seems highly unlikely, it should at least be in the mix.
Conclave
All Quiet on the Western Front’s Edward Berger staged an impressive late-breaking Oscar campaign back in 2023 which saw his anti-war epic land nine Academy Award nominations and four wins. His follow-up, a twisty, fast-paced, crowd-pleasing thriller tracking the fraught election of a new pope, should rack up the nods too: Ralph Fiennes, who has famously never won an Oscar despite two nominations, is deliciously steely as the cardinal tasked with overseeing proceedings; the likes of Stanley Tucci, Isabella Rossellini and John Lithgow are jostling for position in the supporting categories; and the slick direction, zippy adapted screenplay, sumptuous production design, snappy editing and campy score are all in contention for prizes, too. In a year of seismic elections which have had us grappling with notions of power and corruption on both sides of the pond, it feels undeniably timely.
Anora
Since winning the Palme d’Or back in the spring, Sean Baker’s raucous romp about a effervescent exotic dancer (a shimmering Mikey Madison) who falls for the charming but hapless son of a Russian oligarch (a scene-stealing Mark Eydelshteyn) has only gone from strength to strength. Its heroine feels like a lock in the Best Actress shortlist and her bumbling on-screen paramour definitely has a chance of sneaking into the Best Supporting Actor race. Meanwhile, the film’s accomplished writer, director and editor, an industry favourite who’s previously helmed gems like Tangerine and The Florida Project and, remarkably, never been nominated for an Oscar, is overdue some recognition in the Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Editing categories.
Nickel Boys
In adapting Colson Whitehead’s heart-breaking, Pulitzer Prize-winning, seemingly unadaptable The Nickel Boys, lauded documentarian RaMell Ross, a previous Academy Award nominee for Hale County This Morning, This Evening, has taken a wonderfully unorthodox approach: shooting from a first-person point of view, he allows us to see through the eyes of his two leads, Elwood (the sensitive Ethan Herisse) and Turner (the magnetic Brandon Wilson), a pair of boys serving time at a brutal reform school in ’60s Florida. The result is simply ravishing. Ross’s deft, gorgeously observant direction should be celebrated, along with the lyrical script, skilful editing, achingly beautiful cinematography and the brief but incredibly touching supporting turn from Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, a recent Oscar contender for King Richard, as Elwood’s warm and relentlessly hopeful grandmother.
The Brutalist
If the second half of Brady Corbet’s staggering historical saga—the more-than-three-and-a-half-hour-long (with a built-in 15 minute interval, no less) portrait of a fictional Jewish-Hungarian architect (an excellent Adrien Brody) who flees the Holocaust and settles on the East Coast with his powerhouse of a wife (a razor-sharp Felicity Jones)—was as awe-inspiring as the first half, I’d hand it the Best Picture Oscar now, no questions asked. In reality, though, this is an imperfect film—but, still, its sheer scale, scope and unwavering ambition could see it go very far indeed. Look out for its leading man in the Best Actor race (after all, he’s already won an Academy Award for a lesser performance in The Pianist), as well as Jones and Guy Pearce in the supporting acting categories—the latter, in particular, is chilling as our hero’s influential benefactor, and has, somehow, never been nominated for an Oscar, even though he was a fixture on screens in the ’90s and Noughties in everything from LA Confidential to Memento. Nods should follow, too, for its virtuosic direction, taut original screenplay, breathless editing, stunning production design, spine-tingling score and dazzling cinematography.
Emilia Pérez
Once Jacques Audiard’s outrageous, divisive, head-spinning, multilingual, bonkers-original-music-filled crime drama hits Netflix, it’s guaranteed to spark internet discourse and spirited in-person debates—but, love it or loathe it, it’s likely to have a major presence at the Oscars. It’s difficult to deny the power of its central performances: Spanish stalwart Karla Sofía Gascón looks poised to make history as the first openly trans Best Actress nominee, for her part as the titular Mexican drug kingpin looking to undergo gender-confirmation surgery and begin life anew, while the beloved Zoe Saldaña, who had become mired in interchangeable blockbuster franchises of late, is a total knockout as the wily lawyer who must make her fearsome client’s dreams come true. The latter could feasibly be facing off against co-star Selena Gomez, in the role of Emilia’s loyal former wife, in the Best Supporting Actress category (the trio, along with Adriana Paz, jointly won Cannes’ Best Actress award back in May). The bold direction, wild script, rapid-fire editing and ingenious songs should get a look-in, too—and if it can stay ahead of Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig and Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here, it could take home the Best International Feature prize as well.
Dune: Part Two
Given that Denis Villeneuve’s hair-raising sci-fi sequel is even better than (and grossed almost twice as much as) its predecessor—the same predecessor which soared with 10 nods and six wins at the 2022 Oscars—it should, in theory, be just as successful, if not more. The performances from Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson et al, though strong, are likely to be overlooked, but the auteur’s commanding direction, masterful adaptation, the jaw-dropping production design, incredible cinematography, intricate costuming, booming sound design, eye-popping visual effects, snappy editing and inventive make-up and hairstyling could very well be rewarded.
The Substance
It would be a gross injustice if Coralie Fargeat’s gonzo body horror—a day-glo nightmare which sees a career-best Demi Moore’s washed-up movie star inject her body with a mysterious green liquid that causes a “more perfect” version of herself (a scintillating Margaret Qualley) to emerge from inside her skin—didn’t get at least one Oscar nomination, for its mind-blowing prosthetics, but I’d love to see it go even further: the central pair could both make the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress shortlists, respectively; the film’s immersive, visceral soundscape and nifty visual effects deserve a shout-out; and it wouldn’t be entirely inconceivable to see the director’s utterly mad original script—which, lest we forget, won Cannes’ Best Screenplay prize—in the running, too.
The Piano Lesson
All of the recent Denzel Washington-produced August Wilson adaptations have been acknowledged by the Oscars (Fences secured four nods and one win in 2017, while Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom had two wins from five nods in 2021), so it seems a safe bet that this latest retelling— a fascinating ’30s-set family drama which examines the legacy of slavery, asking if we should hold on to and honour our personal histories or emancipate ourselves from them—will be no different. Washington’s youngest son, Malcolm, makes his feature debut here, and his poetic script, co-authored by the Oscar-nominated screenwriter of Mudbound, Virgil Williams, could find its way onto the shortlist. There’s also Washington’s eldest son, John David, who gives a swaggering lead turn that could be recognised, and the exceptional Danielle Deadwyler who, barring disaster, should be on the Best Supporting Actress line-up. With her frosty poise and then devastating bursts of emotion, she dominates the film—and, after her last-minute Best Actress snub for Till in 2023, following the insurgent campaign for To Leslie’s Andrea Riseborough, the Academy at least owes her this.
Maria
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that when Pablo Larraín enlists a Hollywood power player to transform into a pop-cultural icon for one of his hallucinatory, thoroughly unconventional biopics, they jump straight onto the Best Actress line-up. Granted, the response to his sun-dappled take on the final days of opera diva Maria Callas has been more muted than the reactions to Jackie or Spencer, but it’d be a wonder if Angelina Jolie didn’t follow in Natalie Portman and Kristen Stewart’s footsteps after giving what is surely the performance of her career. (She, of course, won a Best Supporting Actress statuette more than two decades ago for Girl, Interrupted, but has never received this particular prize.) The film is also a visual feast, and its lavish production design, dreamy cinematography and luxurious costumes should propel it forward in those races as well.
A Complete Unknown
James Mangold’s Timothée Chalamet-fronted rendering of Bob Dylan’s rise in ’60s New York is still, er, a complete unknown, but I suspect this might be the wild card of the 2025 Oscar race: the director’s last ode to a music legend, the Johnny Cash-focused Walk the Line, earned five nods and one win back in 2006, and his latest lead’s chameleonic turn could be catnip for Academy voters who can’t resist a movie star’s embodiment of an era-defining performer (just see: Rami Malek in Bohemian Rhapsody, Renée Zellweger in Judy, Jamie Foxx in Ray, Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose). Supporting players Edward Norton, Elle Fanning and newcomer Monica Barbaro could show up in the acting races, too, as could the adapted screenplay and authentic production design, make-up and hair, and costuming, the latter from three-time Oscar nominee Arianne Phillips, in their respective categories.
