2025 Oscar Predictions: BEST PICTURE and BEST DIRECTOR (November)
The holiday season is almost upon us, it’s Glicked Day, with Gladiator II and Wicked both set to storm the box office. Both of their preview numbers look good with Wicked flying to a huge $19.2M and Gladiator II in the fight with $6.5M, each incredible numbers for their studios, Universal and Paramount, respectively.
It’s also been a mad dash of screenings, events, parties, Q&A, receptions, press conferences and more as voting bodies start to put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard, as it were) with voting periods for several groups are just days away. The top tier of contenders, for me, remains the same: Conclave, Anora, The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez. Consistency outweighs the shiny new object for me almost every time. Wicked definitely makes a top 10 impact this month but erratic and reactionary moves like putting it at #1 don’t seem to be rooted in reality or good predicting but more in the need to stoke online fires and get love, hate and love to hate clicks. I get it, this is a business. But have some integrity once in a while.
As with Best Actress, The Substance makes big strides in both Best Picture and Best Director for Coralie Fargeat this month. While I still have both outside, they’re not far off and between the great box office, press and nonstop appearances star Demi Moore is making, it’s surging at a good time.
First screenings of both Nosferatu and A Complete Unknown have happened and reactions followed quickly, with more enthusiastic praise for the former vs the latter. I’ve softened a bit on ACU and not sure where Eggers’ Dracula story could really go beyond a handful of tech noms and both studios – Searchlight Pictures and Focus Features – each have stranger contenders already in place. But, both are killer campaigners that are smart and successful with juggling multiple films in the awards race. But both are Christmas Day releases, reviews aren’t out for two+ weeks so there’s room in what feels very open in the 5-10 spots for Best Picture.
Nominations the Spirit Awards will be December 4, just two days after the Gotham Awards winners ceremony, nominations for the Golden Globes in drama and comedy will be here December 9 and Critics Choice noms will land December 12. The BAFTA longlists drop on January 3 with nominations on January 15 and right in between there the Screen Actors Guild will have their say with nominations on January 8. By then we’ll also have the lion’s share of individual critics’ group having chimed in with their winners in acting categories, among others.
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 Picture and Best Director for November.
BEST PICTURE
| 1. Conclave (Focus Features) | |
| 2. Anora (NEON) | Gotham, Palme d’Or (Cannes) |
| 3. The Brutalist (A24) | |
| 4. Emilia Pérez (Netflix) | Jury Prize (Cannes) |
| 5. Dune Part II (Warner Bros) | |
| 6. Nickel Boys (Amazon MGM) | Gotham |
| 7. Sing Sing (A24) | |
| 8. Wicked Part 1 (Universal Pictures) | |
| 9. A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures) | |
| 10. Gladiator II (Paramount Pictures) |
| 11. Blitz (Apple Original Films) | |
| 12. The Substance (MUBI) | EFA |
| 13. A Complete Unknown (Searchlight Pictures) | |
| 14. September 5 (Paramount Pictures) | |
| 15. The Room Next Door (Sony Pictures Classics) | EFA, Golden Lion (Venice) |
| 16. The Seed of the Sacred Fig (NEON) | EFA, Special Jury Prize (Cannes) |
| 17. All We Imagine As Light (Janus/Sideshow) | Grand Prize (Cannes) |
| 18. Challengers (Amazon MGM) | Gotham |
| 19. Babygirl (A24) | Gotham |
| 20. Nosferatu (Focus Features) |
Next up: A Different Man (A24) – Gotham, Hard Truths (Bleecker Street), His Three Daughters (Netflix), Queer (A24), The Piano Lesson (Netflix), The Wild Robot (Universal Pictures/Dreamworks Animation)
Other contenders: The Apprentice (Briarcliff Entertainment), Better Man (Paramount Pictures), Civil War (A24), Dìdi (Focus Features), The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM), Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner Bros), Here (Sony Pictures/Tri-Star Pictures), Hit Man (Netflix), Joker: Folie à Deux (Warner Bros), Juror #2 (Warner Bros), Kinds of Kindness (Searchlight Pictures), Maria (Netflix), Megalopolis (Lionsgate), Nightbitch (Searchlight Pictures), Saturday Night (Sony Pictures), The End (NEON), Unstoppable (Amazon MGM), We Live in Time (A24)
BEST DIRECTOR
| 1. Edward Berger – Conclave (Focus Features) | |
| 2. Sean Baker – Anora (NEON) | Gotham |
| 3. Brady Corbet – The Brutalist (A24) | Silver Bear (Venice) |
| 4. Jacques Audiard – Emilia Pérez (Netflix) | EFA |
| 5. RaMell Ross – Nickel Boys (Amazon MGM) | Gotham |
| 6. Denis Villeneuve – Dune Part II (Warner Bros) | |
| 7. Ridley Scott – Gladiator II (Paramount Pictures) | |
| 8. Coralie Fargeat – The Substance (MUBI) | |
| 9. Steve McQueen – Blitz (Apple Original Films) | |
| 10. Mohammad Rasoulof – The Seed of the Sacred Fig (NEON) | EFA |
| 11. James Mangold – A Complete Unknown (Searchlight Pictures) | |
| 12. Payal Kapadia – All We Imagine as Light (Janus/Sideshow) – Gotham | |
| 13. Pedro Almodóvar – The Room Next Door (Sony Pictures Classics) – EFA | EFA |
| 14. Greg Kwedar – Sing Sing (A24) | |
| 15. Jesse Eisenberg – A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures) | |
| 16. Jon M. Chu – Wicked Part 1 (Universal Pictures) | |
| 17. Luca Guadagnino – Challengers (Amazon MGM) | |
| 18. Halina Reijn – Babygirl (A24) | |
| 19. Tim Fehlbaum – September 5 (Paramount Pictures) | |
| 20. Robert Eggers – Nosferatu (Focus Features) |
Next up: Aaron Shimberg – A Different Man (A24), Mike Leigh – Hard Truths (Bleecker Street), Walter Salles – I’m Still Here (Sony Pictures Classics), Clint Eastwood – Juror #2 (Warner Bros), Malcolm Washington – The Piano Lesson (Netflix)
Other contenders: Michael Gracey – Better Man (Paramount Pictures), Sean Wang – Dìdi (Focus Features), Rachel Morrison – The Fire Inside (Amazon MGM), George Miller – Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner Bros), Richard Linklater – Hit Man (Netflix), Robert Zemekis – Here (Sony Pictures/Columbia Pictures), Azazel Jacobs – His Three Daughters (Netflix), Jane Shoenbrun – I Saw the TV Glow (A24) – Gotham, Todd Phillips – Joker: Folie à Deux (Warner Bros), Yorgos Lanthimos – Kind of Kindness (Searchlight Pictures), Pablo Larraín – Maria (Netflix), Francis Ford Coppola – Megalopolis (Lionsgate), Marielle Heller – Nightbitch (Searchlight Pictures), Luca Guadagnino – Queer (A24), Jason Reitman – Saturday Night (Sony Pictures), Joshua Oppenheimer – The End (NEON), William Goldenberg – Unstoppable (Amazon MGM), John Crowley – We Live in Time (A24)
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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