2025 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE and BEST DIRECTOR (August)

It’s just a matter of days before the curtain is peeled back on a host of fall and winter releases debuting at the Venice and Telluride film festivals, both kicking off next week.

Conclave (Focus Features), Nickel Boys (Amazon MGM), The Room Next Door (Sony Pictures Classics), Queer (TBA), Maria (TBA), Joker: Folie à Deux (Warner Bros), The Piano Lesson (Netflix), Saturday Night (Sony Pictures) and more will find themselves in front of audience and critics eyes, helping color in the lines of early predictions that are, as we say, ‘good on paper.’ Then we head right into Toronto with first looks at Nightbitch (Searchlight Pictures), Hard Truths (Bleecker Street), We Live in Time (A24), Unstoppable (Amazon MGM) and more as that second wave of first sees hits.

A handful of titles remain in flux, either without distribution (I’m looking at you, Maria and Queer) or a release date, or both in some cases. Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist will make a big splash at Venice and New York but right now only has international distribution set up. Joshua Oppenheimer’s musical The End has NEON behind it but no date yet. NEON also has The Actor, with André Holland, which hasn’t made a peep this festival season. All should become clearer soon, right?

Here are my 2025 Oscar predictions in Best Picture and Best Director for August.

BEST PICTURE

1. Conclave (Focus Features) – 11/8
2. Anora (NEON) – 10/18
3. Emilia Pérez (Netflix) – 11/13
4. Dune Part II (Warner Bros) – 3/1
5. Blitz (Apple Original Films) – 11/22
6. A Complete Unknown (Searchlight Pictures) – 12/25
7. Nickel Boys (Amazon MGM) – 10/25
8. The Room Next Door (Sony Pictures Classics) – 12/20
9. Sing Sing (A24) – 7/12
10. Queer (TBA) – date TBA

Next up: All We Imagine As Light (Janus/Sideshow) – 11/15, Challengers (Amazon MGM) – 4/26, Gladiator II (Paramount Pictures) – 11/22, Hard Truths (Bleecker Street) – 10/18, Joker: Folie à Deux (Warner Bros) – 10/4, Maria (TBA) – date TBA, Nightbitch (Searchlight Pictures) – 12/6, The Piano Lesson (Netflix) – 11/8, A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures) – 10/18, Saturday Night (Sony Pictures) – 10/11, The Seed of the Sacred Fig (NEON) – date TBA, Unstoppable (Amazon MGM) – December date TBA, We Live in Time (A24) – 10/11

Other contenders: Bird (MUBI), Civil War (A24) – 4/12, Dìdi (Focus Features) – 7/26, A Different Man (A24) – 9/20, The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM) – 12/25, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner Bros) – 5/24, Here (Sony Pictures/TriStar) – 11/15, His Three Daughters (Netflix) – 9/6, Hit Man (Netflix) – 6/7, Kinds of Kindness (Searchlight Pictures) – 6/28, Megalopolis (Lionsgate) – 9/27, Nosferatu (Focus Features) – 12/25, Small Things Like This (Lionsgate) – date TBA, The Substance (MUBI) – 9/20, The End (NEON) – date TBA, Wicked Part I (Universal Pictures) – 11/22

2024 or 2025?: The Actor (NEON), The Apprentice (Briarcliff Entertainment), The Brutalist (TBA), Hedda (Amazon MGM), Juror #2 (Warner Bros)

BEST DIRECTOR

1. Edward Berger – Conclave (Focus Features)
2. Sean Baker – Anora (NEON)
3. Jacques Audiard – Emilia Pérez (Netflix)
4. Denis Villeneuve – Dune Part II (Warner Bros)
5. Steve McQueen – Blitz (Apple Original Films)
6. James Mangold – A Complete Unknown (Searchlight Pictures)
7. RaMell Ross – Nickel Boys (Amazon MGM)
8. Pedro Almodóvar – The Room Next Door (Sony Pictures Classics)
9. Luca Guadagnino – Queer (TBA)
10. Mohammad Rasoulof – The Seed of the Sacred Fig (NEON)

Next up: Payal Kapadia – All We Imagine as Light (Janus/Sideshow), Luca Guadagnino – Challengers (Amazon MGM), Ridley Scott – Gladiator II (Paramount Pictures), Todd Phillips – Joker: Folie à Deux (Warner Bros), Pablo Larraín – Maria (TBA), Marielle Heller – Nightbitch (Searchlight Pictures), Malcolm Washington – The Piano Lesson (Netflix), Jason Reitman – Saturday Night (Sony Pictures), Greg Kwedar – Sing Sing (A24), William Goldenberg – Unstoppable (Amazon MGM), John Crowley – We Live in Time (A24)

Other contenders: Andrea Arnold – Bird (MUBI), Brady Corbet – The Brutalist (TBA), Sean Wang – Dìdi (Focus Features), Rachel Morrison – The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM), George Miller – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner Bros), Walter Salles – I’m Still Here (Sony Pictures Classics), Richard Linklater – Hit Man (Netflix), Mike Leigh – Hard Truths (Bleecker Street), Robert Zemekis – Here (Sony Pictures/Tri-Star), Azazel Jacobs – His Three Daughters (Netflix), Yorgos Lanthimos – Kind of Kindness (Searchlight Pictures), Francis Ford Coppola – Megalopolis (Lionsgate), Jesse Eisenberg – A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures), Joshua Oppenheimer – The End (NEON), John M. Chu – Wicked Part I (Warner Bros)

2024 or 2025?: Ali Abbasi – The Apprentice (Briarcliff Entertainment), Brady Corbet – The Brutalist (TBA), Nia DaCosta – Hedda (Amazon MGM), Clint Eastwood – Juror#2 (Warner Bros),