2025 Oscar Predictions: BEST ACTOR (October)

What if they put on the 97th Oscars just to trap Josh Hartnett in the Dolby Theatre?
Here are my 2025 Oscar predictions in Best Actor for October.
- Adrien Brody – The Brutalist (A24)
- Ralph Fiennes – Conclave (Focus Features)
- Timothée Chalamet – A Complete Unknown (Searchlight Pictures)
- Colman Domingo – Sing Sing (A24)
- Paul Mescal – Gladiator II (Paramount Pictures)
- Daniel Craig – Queer (A24)
- Glen Powell – Hit Man (Netflix)
- Jesse Eisenberg – A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures)
- Sebastian Stan – A Different Man (A24)
- Josh Hartnett – Trap (Warner Bros)
Next up: Kingsley Ben-Adir – Bob Marley: One Love (Paramount Pictures), Ethan Herisse – Nickel Boys (Amazon MGM), Tom Hanks – Here (Sony Pictures/Columbia Pictures), Jharrel Jerome – Unstoppable (Amazon MGM), Gabriel LaBelle – Saturday Night (Sony Pictures), Cillian Murphy – Small Things Like These (Lionsgate/Roadside Attractions), Joaquin Phoenix – Joker: Folie à Deux (Warner Bros), Sebastian Stan – The Apprentice (Briarcliff Entertainment), John David Washington – The Piano Lesson (Netflix), Robbie Williams – Better Man (Paramount Pictures)
Other contenders: Austin Butler – The Bikeriders (Focus Features), Timothée Chalamet – Dune Part Two (Warner Bros), Adam Driver – Megalopolis (Lionsgate), Andrew Garfield – We Live in Time (A24), Richard Gere – Oh, Canada (Kino Lorber), André Holland – Exhibiting Forgiveness (Roadside Attractions), Anthony Hopkins – One Life (Bleecker Street), Barry Keoghan – Bird (MUBI), Jesse Plemons – Kinds of Kindness (Searchlight Pictures), Jason Schwartzman – Between Two Temples (Sony Pictures Classics), Bill Skarsgård – Nosferatu (Focus Features), Michael Shannon – The End (NEON)
Is he even eligible?: Nicholas Hoult – Juror #2 (Warner Bros)
- ‘Wishful Thinking,’ ‘Over Your Dead Body’ Among 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival Juried and Audience Award Winners - March 21, 2026
- Association of Motion Picture Sound (AMPS) Television and Nonfiction Nominations Announced: ‘Adolescence,’ ‘Black Mirror,’ ‘Slow Horses’ and More - March 20, 2026
- Trailer Watch: ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day,’ ‘Dune: Part Three,’ Disclosure Day,’ ‘Wild Horse Nine’ - March 20, 2026

‘Wishful Thinking,’ ‘Over Your Dead Body’ Among 2026 SXSW Film & TV Festival Juried and Audience Award Winners
Director Watch Podcast Ep. 144 – ‘A Matter of Life and Death (Powell and Pressburger, 1946) with Special Guest Jesse Nussman
Association of Motion Picture Sound (AMPS) Television and Nonfiction Nominations Announced: ‘Adolescence,’ ‘Black Mirror,’ ‘Slow Horses’ and More
Trailer Watch: ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day,’ ‘Dune: Part Three,’ Disclosure Day,’ ‘Wild Horse Nine’