2025 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR (June)

I know it’s just June but does Best Actor feel a bit…barren?

Where the Best Actress race this year feels rich with possibility, their lead counterparts are a bit more of a grab bag with just one previous winner likely returning (maybe two, depending on release) and a handful of previous nominees in the running.

Let’s look at those that has some bonafides coming into this season’s race. Cillian Murphy is hot off his Best Actor win for Oppenheimer, which also nabbed Best Picture, and he has Small Things Like These in the tank. The film had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in March where Emily Watson won the Silver Bear for Best Acting in a Supporting Role (Sebastian Stan won lead for A24’s A Different Man). The film, on the Booker Prize-nominated book by Claire Keegan and directed by Tim Mielants, was picked by Lionsgate earlier this month for U.S. and U.K. distribution and will be released in the States by Roadside Attractions. No word yet on if it will be a 2024 release or not but I think the smart bet is that it will be and that puts Murphy back in contention.

The other only previous winner that stands a shot (in June anyway) is Joaquin Phoenix in Joker: Folie à Deux, the sequel to the film that won him Best Actor five years ago. That film was a box office and Oscar juggernaut, earning over a billion dollars worldwide and leading the 92nd Academy Awards nominations with 11 and winning two. Those are pretty big hills to re-climb, sequel success on a scale like this (or two scales, as it were) won’t be easy.

Remember when Ralph Fiennes was nominated for 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel? No, because he wasn’t. Fiennes hasn’t been nominated since 1996’s The English Patient but should find himself the closest he’s been since (or most definitely the closest since 2014) with Conclave, from Edward Berger. I have the film, sight unseen, at #1 for Best Picture and Best Director right now so a Best Actor nomination is practically inevitable. The papal drama from Focus Features will hit theaters in early November, after what will likely be a healthy fall festival run.

Colman Domingo, earning his first nomination last season for the Netflix biopic Rustin, should see afterglow love this year with Sing Sing from A24. The film, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in the midst of the actor’s strike, finds Colman a prisoner of the titular incarceration facility who leads an acting troupe comprised of inmates. He received the TIFF Tribute Performer Award (the A24 film was not subject to the promotion limitations of other SAG projects) for his performance and body of work. The film will be released this summer after a brief spring 2024 festival run at SXSW and SFFILM (as well as Dallas, Chicago and more) so A24 will have to prioritize Domingo throughout the fall and winter to keep him and the film in the conversation.

More previous nominees looking for their second (or third) go-round include Paul Mescal in Gladiator II (Paramount Pictures), Austin Butler in The Bikeriders (Focus Features), Andrew Garfield in We Live in Time (A24), Barry Keoghan in Bird (MUBI), Adam Driver – Megalopolis (still no U.S. distributor), and Jesse Plemons in Kinds of Kindness (Searchlight Pictures), who won Best Actor at Cannes last month. There’s also four-time nominee Ed Harris in Long Day’s Journey Into Night (MGM) but is this movie ever coming out?

The biggest first time top contender is Daniel Craig in Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, adapted from the William S. Burroughs novel of the same name and written by Challengers scribe Justin Kuritzkes. A likely Venice bow, the buzz around the film is growing but it’s going to need a good distributor pick up soon. Amazon MGM just picked up Guadagnino’s next film, After the Hunt with Julia Roberts, Ayo Edebiri, Andrew Garfield and Chloë Sevigny, so it’s a bit odd they haven’t snapped this up yet. Granted, they have a bountiful slate this year but it remains to be seen where this will find a home. Sony Pictures Classics? Netflix? Lots of potential for the right distributor.

Academy Awards nominations will be announced January 17, 2025 and the 97th Oscars will be held on March 2.

Here are my 2025 Oscar predictions in Best Actor for June.

• 1. Ralph Fiennes – Conclave (Focus Features)
• 2. Colman Domingo – Sing Sing (A24)
• 3. Daniel Craig – Queer (TBA)
• 4. André Holland – The Actor (NEON)
• 5. Joaquin Phoenix – Joker: Folie à Deux (Warner Bros)
• 6. Jesse Plemons – Kinds of Kindness (Searchlight Pictures)
• 7. Sebastian Stan – A Different Man (A24)
• 8. Jharrel Jerome – Unstoppable (Amazon MGM)
• 9. Paul Mescal – Gladiator II (Paramount Pictures)
• 10. Andrew Garfield – We Live in Time (A24)

Next up: Ethan Herisse – Nickel Boys (Amazon MGM), Jesse Eisenberg – A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures), Mike Faist – Challengers (Amazon MGM), Ed Harris – Long Day’s Journey Into Night (MGM), Nicholas Hoult – Juror#2 (Warner Bros), Cillian Murphy – Small Things Like These (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions), Josh O’Connor – Challengers (Amazon MGM), Glen Powell – Hit Man (Netflix), Michael Shannon – The End (NEON), John David Washington – The Piano Lesson (Netflix)

Other contenders: Adrien Brody – The Brutalist (TBA), Austin Butler – The Bikeriders (Focus Features), Adam Driver – Megalopolis (Lionsgate), Jacob Elordi – On Swift Horses (Dimension Films), Richard Gere – Oh, Canada (TBA), Tom Hardy – The Bikeriders (Focus Features), André Holland – Exhibiting Forgiveness (Roadside Attractions), Barry Keoghan – Bird (MUBI), Sebastian Stan – The Apprentice (TBA)

Look for them in Supporting: Kieran Culkin – A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures), Willam Dafoe – Kinds of Kindness (Searchlight Pictures)

Likely 2025: Timothée Chalamet – A Complete Unknown (Searchlight Pictures), George Clooney – Jay Kelly (Netflix), Gabriel LaBelle – SNL 1975 (Sony Pictures), Adam Sandler – Jay Kelly (Netflix), Denzel Washington – High & Low (Apple Original Films)