FINAL 2025 Oscar Nomination Predictions: ANIMATED FEATURE, DOCUMENTARY FEATURE and INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
With BAFTA giving us the last piece of the puzzles for the Animated Feature, Documentary Feature and International Feature Film races, things have changed a bit.
For Animated Feature, I’d be hard pressed to see this top 5 not be the nominees, even with the behemoth box office that is Moana 2. As BAFTA only has four nominees in this category (why?) but my hunch is that if it were five we’d have had Memoir of a Snail there, as I expect we’ll have at the Oscars.
Documentary Feature has a clear frontrunner in No Other Land and from there it’s quite open. BAFTA gave us dual Netflix docs in Daughters (an August release that they had all but ignored) and Will & Harper (the Critics Choice winner in a tie with the non-shortlisted Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which was BAFTA-nominated). I had been a bit soft on W&H since it wasn’t being taken seriously by the doc guilds like Cinema Eye Honors and International Documentary Association but the topical trans theme of the film, albeit lighter than most docs would present, could have an optics power the branch can’t resist, especially this year. Porcelain War is the only shortlisted doc to make PGA (actually a very tough guild for docs) and the Sundance winner has held strong all year. What weirdly hasn’t is a film that has been in my top five all year and that’s Mati Diop’s Venice-winning Dahomey. It has a strong set of precursors in CEH, EFA and Gotham but feels like it’s been quietly passed up by other films, like Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etre and Black Box Diaries, the latter of which hit BAFTA.
International Feature Film also has a solid top tier of contenders in Emilia Pérez (France), The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Germany) and I’m Still Here (Brazil) and then another wide open race that could be filled with two of a handful of films: Denmark’s The Girl with the Needle, Italy’s Vermiglio, Senegal’s Dahomey, Latvia’s Flow or, on the outside, Thailand’s cleverly titled How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (remember Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom?). But what about Ireland’s Kneecap? The multi-BIFA winning musical/comedy/biopic might seem pretty left of center for this category but it feels like it’s right there.
Oscar nominations are now set to be announced on January 23, barring any further postponements. Here are my final 2025 Oscar nomination predictions in Animated Feature, Documentary Feature and International Feature Film.
ANIMATED FEATURE
| 1. The Wild Robot (Dreamworks/Universal) | BAFTA, CCA, GG |
| 2. Flow (Janus Films/Sideshow) | BAFTA, CCA, EFA, GG |
| 3. Inside Out 2 (Walt Disney/Pixar) | BAFTA, CCA, GG |
| 4. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (Aardman/Netflix) | BAFTA, CCA, GG |
| 5. Memoir of a Snail (IFC Films) | CCA, GG |
| 6. Moana 2 (Walt Disney) | GG |
| 7. Piece by Piece (Focus Features) | |
| 8. Chicken for Linda! (GKids) | |
| 9. Spellbound (Netflix/Skydance) | |
| 10. Transformers One (Paramount Pictures) |
Other contenders: The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (Ketchup Entertainment), Despicable Me 4 (Illumination/Universal Pictures), The Garfield Movie (Sony Pictures), The Glassworker (Geo Films), The Imaginary (Netflix), Kensuke’s Kingdom (Le Pacte), Kung Fu Panda 4 (Dreamworks/Universal), The Lord of the Rings: The War of Rohirrim (Warner Bros), That Christmas (Netflix), Ultraman: Rising (Netflix)
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
| 1. No Other Land (No U.S. distribution) | BAFTA, Berlinale Documentary Award – Berlin, CEH, EFA, Gotham, IDA |
| 2. Daughters (Netflix) | BAFTA, CCA, CEH, DGA |
| 3. Porcelain War (Picturehouse) | CEH, DGA, PGA, Sundance |
| 4. Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat (Kino Lorber) | CCA, DGA, EFA, Gotham, IDA |
| 5. Sugarcane (National Geographic Documentary Films) | CEH, DGA, IDA |
| 6. Black Box Diaries (MTV Documentary Films) | BAFTA, CEH, IDA |
| 7. Will & Harper (Netflix) | BAFTA, CCA |
| 8. The Remarkable Life of Ibelin (Netflix) | CCA, IDA |
| 9. Dahomey (MUBI) | Golden Bear for Best Film – Berlin, EFA, CEH, Gotham |
| 10. Hollywoodgate (Fourth Act Film) | CEH, DGA |
| 11. Union (Level Ground) | CEH, Gotham |
| 12. The Bibi Files (Madman Entertainment) | |
| 13. Frida (Amazon MGM) | |
| 14. Queendom (Dogwoof/Greenwich) | |
| 15. Eno (First Film Co./Tigerlily Productions) |
INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
| 1. France – Emilia Pérez (Netflix) | BAFTA, Cannes (Jury Prize), CCA, EFA, GG |
| 2. Brazil – I’m Still Here (Sony Pictures Classics) | BAFTA, CCA, GG |
| 3. Germany – The Seed of the Sacred Fig (NEON) | BAFTA, Cannes (Special Jury Prize), CCA, EFA, GG |
| 4. Denmark – The Girl with the Needle (MUBI) | GG |
| 5. Ireland – Kneecap (Sony Pictures Classics) | BAFTA, CCA |
| 6. Italy – Vermiglio (Janus Films) | EFA, GG, Gotham |
| 7. Senegal – Dahomey (MUBI) | Berlin (Golden Bear), EFA |
| 8. Latvia – Flow (Sideshow/Janus) | CCA, EFA |
| 9. Thailand – How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (Well Go USA) | |
| 10. Canada – Universal Language (Oscilloscope) | |
| 11. Iceland – Touch (Focus Features) | |
| 12. Palestine – From Ground Zero (Watermelon Pictures) | |
| 13. United Kingdom – Santosh (Metrograph) | |
| 14. Czechia – Waves (Bontonfilm) | |
| 15. Norway – Armand (IFC Films) |
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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