2025 Golden Globe Winner Predictions – Motion Picture

The 82nd Golden Globe Awards are almost upon us, giving us the first major televised awards show of the season and possibly setting the pace for what we’ll see over the next two months.

On the drama side, it’s hard to ignore the run The Brutalist has had with critics so far and, at the end of the day, the members of the Golden Globes are largely journalists. It should be able to triumph here with Brady Corbet pulling a Best Director win (also the critics leader). It’s a tougher battle in Best Actor between Adrien Brody and Timothée Chalamet for A Complete Unknown but I expect Brody to eke it out. There’s an outside chance that Conclave comes in for an upset but it would be a twist worthy of that film’s own ending.

With a record-setting 10 nominations, Emilia Pérez is unlikely to go home empty-handed and I see the film picking up wins for song (“El Mal”), Non-English Language Film and Best Supporting Actress for Zoe Saldaña. The original musical remains competitive in several other categories though, including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and Best Director for Jacques Audiard. But I think the Musical/Comedy awards will split for Anora, the current critics’ favorite with over a dozen wins for Best Picture so far. The real fight is for Best Actress though, as lead Mikey Madison, Demi Moore (The Substance) and Emilia‘s Karla Sofía Gascón could all stake a claim here.

The drama Best Actress category is another worthy battle with two Oscar and Golden Globe-winning titans going head to head. Nicole Kidman (Babygirl) enters the ring with a stunning 20 career Globe nominations and six wins that span from film to television, lead to supporting, most recently in this category for Being the Ricardos. Then we have Angelina Jolie in Maria, her first Globe nomination since 2011’s much-derided and controversially categorized The Tourist. A three-time Globe winner for both film and television, this is a comeback for the actress on multiple levels but is it enough to secure a win? Both nods here are the sole nominations for their films but so are all of their competitors save one; Fernanda Torres in I’m Still Here, which is also nominated for Non-English Language Film. Is she the secret spoiler for these two A-listers? I’m thinking Jolie can pull it out in the end but it’s going to be close.

Actor in a Musical or Comedy is kind of a fun race. With only a single nominee in a film with more than one nomination, Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain) seems to have an easy road to a win, right? His film is nominated for Best Motion Picture and he’s also got a Screenplay nod but it’s his co-star Kieran Culkin who has all the acting spotlight. And he’s got some surprisingly stiff competition from sole nominees: 5-time Golden Globe nominee and previous winner Hugh Grant (Heretic) and Sebastian Stan in A Different Man, a double nominee this year with a nod in drama as well (for The Apprentice). But then there’s Glen Powell in Hit Man, a comically diverse performance and one of 2024’s biggest stars with the summer hit Twisters, a nominee in the Globes’ silly Cinematic Box Office Achievement category. A really up in the air race that is almost anyone’s to win or lose among those four.

Elsewhere, I think the Challengers score is highly competitive for a win and so is “Compress/Repress” for song. Expect The Brutalist or “El Mal” from Emilia Pérez to give them chase, respectively. The Wild Robot besting Flow for animated film makes sense at the Globes but with an even more international membership, a Flow win wouldn’t be an upset as The Boy and the Heron besting blockbusters like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and The Super Mario Bros Movie last year proved.

EGOT-winning actress, producer and Golden Globe winner Viola Davis is the Cecil B. DeMille Award honoree for 2025 and 14-time Golden Globe nominee and three-time winner Ted Danson is the Carol Burnett Award honoree.

For the first time, the Golden Globes will host a separate event to honor the recipients of the Cecil B. DeMille and Carol Burnett Award winners at a gala dinner on Friday, January 3, two days before the main telecast.

Nikki Glaser is set to host the 82nd Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton on Sunday, January 5, 2025 (8:00-11:00 PM, live ET/5:00-8:00 PM, live PT) on the CBS Television Network, and streaming on Paramount+ in the U.S.

Here is my list of predicted winners and who could upset.

Best Motion Picture – Drama

Will win: The Brutalist

Could win: Conclave

Other nominees: A Complete Unknown, Dune: Part Two, Nickel Boys, September 5

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Will win: Anora

Could win: Emilia Pérez

Other nominees: Challengers, A Real Pain, The Substance, Wicked

Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama

Will win: Adrien Brody – The Brutalist

Could win: Timothée Chalamet – A Complete Unknown

Other nominees: Daniel Craig – Queer, Colman Domingo – Sing Sing, Ralph Fiennes – Conclave, Sebastian Stan – The Apprentice

Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Will win: Glen Powell – Hit Man

Could win: Sebastian Stan – A Different Man

Other nominees: Jesse Eisenberg – A Real Pain, Hugh Grant – Heretic, Gabriel LaBelle – Saturday Night, Jesse Plemons – Kinds of Kindness

Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama

Will win: Angelina Jolie – Maria

Could win: Nicole Kidman – Babygirl

Other nominees: Pamela Anderson – The Last Showgirl,  Marianne Jean-Baptiste – Hard Truths, Tilda Swinton – The Room Next Door, Fernanda Torres – I’m Still Here, Kate Winslet – Lee

Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy

Will win: Mikey Madison – Anora

Could win: Demi Moore – The Substance

Other nominees: Amy Adams – Nightbitch, Cynthia Erivo – Wicked, Karla Sofía Gascón – Emilia Pérez, Zendaya – Challengers

Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture

Will win: Kieran Culkin – A Real Pain

Could win: Denzel Washington – Gladiator II

Other nominees: Yura Borisov – Anora, Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown, Guy Pearce – The Brutalist, Jeremy Strong – The Apprentice

Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture

Will win: Zoe Saldaña – Emilia Pérez

Could win: Ariana Grande-Butera – Wicked

Other nominees: Selena Gomez – Emilia Pérez, Felicity Jones – The Brutalist, Margaret Qualley – The Substance – Isabella Rossellini, Conclave

Best Director

Will win: Brady Corbet – The Brutalist

Could win: Jacques Audiard – Emilia Pérez

Other nominees: Payal Kapadia – All We Imagine as Light, Sean Baker – Anora, Edward Berger – Conclave, Coralie Fargeat – The Substance

Best Screenplay

Will win: Anora

Could win: The Brutalist

Other nominees: Conclave, Emilia Pérez, A Real Pain, The Substance

Best Motion Picture – Animated

Will win: The Wild Robot

Could win: Flow

Other nominees: Memoir of a Snail, Moana 2, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

Best Motion Picture –  Non-English Language

Will win: Emilia Pérez (France)

Could win: All We Imagine as Light (India)

Other nominees: The Girl with the Needle (Denmark), I’m Still Here (Brazil), The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Germany), Vermiglio (Italy)

Best Original Score

Will win: Challengers

Could win: The Brutalist

Other nominees: Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Pérez, The Wild Robot

Best Original Song

Will win: “El Mal” – Emilia Pérez

Could win: “Compress/Repress” – Challengers

Other nominees: “Forbidden Road” – Better Man, “Mi Camino” – Emilia Pérez, “Beautiful That Way” – The Last Showgirl,  “Kiss the Sky” – The Wild Robot

Cinematic Box Office Achievement

Will win: Wicked

Could win: Deadpool & Wolverine

Other nominees: Alien: Romulus, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Gladiator II, Inside Out 2, Twisters, The Wild Robot