2025 Oscar Predictions: SUPPORTING ACTRESS (September)

With the announcement that Sony Pictures Classics plans to run both Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore as lead contenders for The Room Next Door, both are bumped out the supporting actress lineup for now. But, the Academy can sometimes sidestep a campaign (you don’t submit acting categories at the Oscars, like you have to do for Screen Actors Guild and the Golden Globes) and do what they want. Hell, Kate Winslet won an Oscar that way.

Toni Collette is back on the menu as Warner Bros. will have Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2 world premiere as the closing night film of AFI FEST and then open in limited release on November 1. Also bursting into the lineup is Felicity Jones now that The Brutalist has been picked up by A24 and she was among the standout notices from Venice reviews. Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez) and Danielle Deadwyler (The Piano Lesson) remain a formidable top due with Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor holding in there as the likely (only) acting representation for Nickel Boys if the film hits broadly with the Academy.

But it’s Selena Gomez in Emilia Pérez finds herself in real contention as a nominee alongside her co-star Saldaña. Despite being a multi-Emmy nominated television star, it’s a breakout film role for Gomez (certainly her most visible since 2012’s Spring Breakers), and she gets to play with her pop singer persona in one of the film’s most memorable musical numbers. The film, which was just selected as France’s submission for the International Feature Film Oscar, has already won Gomez a Best Actress honor from Cannes, which she shared with her three co-stars: Saldaña, Adriana Paz and lead actress contender Karla Sofia Gascón. More importantly, she’s already campaigning and despite her notoriously shy persona, she’s ready to come & get it.

Here are my 2025 Oscar predictions in Supporting Actress for September.

1. Zoe Saldaña – Emilia Pérez (Netflix)
2. Danielle Deadwyler – The Piano Lesson (Netflix)
3. Felicity Jones – The Brutalist (A24)
4. Selena Gomez – Emilia Pérez (Netflix)
5. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor – Nickel Boys (Amazon MGM)
6. Saoirse Ronan – Blitz (Apple Original Films)
7. Joan Chen – Dìdi (Focus Features)
8. Toni Collette – Juror #2 (Warner Bros)
9. Isabella Rossellini – Conclave (Focus Features)
10. Leonie Benesch – September 5 (Paramount Pictures)

Next up: Michelle Austin – Hard Truths (Bleecker Street), Maria Bakalova – The Apprentice (Briarcliff Entertainment), Monica Barbaro – A Complete Unknown (Searchlight Pictures), Carrie Coon – His Three Daughters (Netflix), Elle Fanning – A Complete Unknown (Searchlight Pictures), Lady Gaga – Joker: Folie à Deux (Warner Bros), Jennifer Lopez – Unstoppable (Amazon MGM), Lesley Manville – Queer (A24), Fernanda Montenegro – I’m Still Here (Sony Pictures Classics), Elizabeth Olsen – His Three Daughters (Netflix), Margaret Qualley – The Substance (MUBI), Renate Reinsve – A Different Man (A24), Rachel Sennott – Saturday Night (Sony Pictures)

Other contenders: Juliette Binoche – The Return (Bleecker Street), Kathy Burke – Blitz (Apple Original Films), Zoe Chao – Nightbitch (Searchlight Pictures), Glenn Close – The Deliverance (Netflix), Dolly De Leon – Between the Temples (Sony Pictures Classics), Ariana Grande – Wicked Part I (Universal Pictures), Jennifer Grey – A Real Pain (Searchlight Pictures), Moses Ingram – The End (NEON), Connie Nielsen – Gladiator II (Paramount Pictures), Adriana Paz – Emilia Pérez (Netflix), Emily Watson – Small Things Happen (Lionsgate), Robin Wright – Here (Sony Pictures/Columbia Pictures), Michelle Yeoh – Wicked Part I (Universal Pictures)

Lead or supporting?: Glenn Close – The Summer Book (TBA), Saoirse Ronan – Blitz (Apple Original Films), Robin Wright – Here (Sony Pictures/Columbia Pictures)

2024 or 2025?:  Glenn Close – The Summer Book (TBA), Jamie Lee Curtis – The Last Showgirl (TBA)

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

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), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) 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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