Frontrunner Friday 2025 Oscar Predictions: We Need to Talk About Karla

I haven’t delved much into the last few weeks of Oscar drama regarding Oscar-nominated actress Karla Sofía Garcón from Emilia Pérez, the most nominated film of the season, because I wasn’t sure what I would even be able to offer. Yes, talking about awards is kind of my entire personality, and to have not one but multiple campaign issues erupt from several films and performers in a single season seems like catnip. But it’s more like witnessing a strange new world of muckraking and unforced errors that we haven’t seen since the height of the Weinstein era and sadly, also feels like the result of the last ten years of both the downfall of social media as responsible or viable platforms and the political and social landscape since Donald Trump entered the presidency the first time.

For Gascón, I’ve met and talked her several times since the Telluride Film Festival screened. She’s funny, feisty and doesn’t back down from a fight, she fights back. It’s this quality over the summer and fall, attacking haters online. tossing dozens of anti-trans rhetoric her way as she tries to enjoy the film success that made her a heroic figure, not a martyr, someone unafraid of these keyboard commandos. It made her heroic and someone easy to champion. But when those tweet surfaced (from only 5-10 years, Gascón is 48), so many red flags went up it state the Pamplona Running of the Bulls and Gascón dug her heels in more first with a non-apology and non-remorseful response that made things worst. Then she kept going, cloaking herself in Nam–myoho–renge–kyo chants and ‘light will beat the darkness’ meditative platitudes. It just kept making things worse for her and for her co-stars and teams of publicists and reps and Netflix itself, which has since distanced themselves from the Best Actress nominee who was set to appear at multiple awards events this weekend including the Critics Choice Awards, AFI Awards, DGA Awards, PGA Awards and more. After a thoughtful and empathetic statement from her co-star Zoe Saldaña and a far less empathetic one from her director Jacques Audiared, Gascón dropped one ‘final’ note on Instagram that she would be taking a step back from the public eye during the rest of the award season. On Thursday, she wrote, “Following Jacques interview that I understand, I decided, for the film, for Jacques, for the cast, for the incredible crew who deserves it, for the beautiful adventure we all had together, to let the work talk for itself, hoping my silence will allow the film to be appreciated for what it is, a beautiful ode to love and difference.” One can hope that she can find the peace and balance she needs. The awards race for a newcomer can be such a daunting task that is too hard to prepare for and to sustain over a 6-8 month period, it’s simply not for everyone.

What happens if any of these groups go for Emilia Pérez since voting happened largely before the Gascóntroversy? We’re still a week away from the Academy beginning their week of voting on winners (February 11-18) and they’ll have all but BAFTA and SAG results (winner voting is currently underway at both) as they make their choices during one of the most tumultuous Oscar seasons in history. How will they react, not only to controversies in their own industry, but the dark cloud of the political landscape in the U.S. right now? In years past, socio-political influences have definitely impacted Oscar choices. Moonlight winning over La La Land after the shocking Presidential election where Hillary Clinton lost and Donald Trump won the first time seemed to say that voters didn’t feel a throwback musical was the right choice in the face of an unknown and likely dark future. CODA only managed three Oscar nominations but in the second phase of voting, that cast charmed their way into three wins, upsetting The Power of the Dog at every turn.

These new Oscar predictions come just hours before Critics Choice reveals their winners (their voting ended on January 10 but the original date of the show was postponed twice due to the LA fires) and the day before the one-two punch of the Directors Guild and Producers Guild Awards on Saturday, where everything can, and will, change.

I think The Brutalist will have an easy walk to a win at the DGA Awards for Brady Corbet with some outside shots for Sean Baker (Anora) or even James Mangold for A Complete Unknown. RaMell Ross feels like a lock for the First Time Director award for the innovative first person style of filmmaking her implores for Nickel Boys.

PGA is the real race this weekend. Using the same preferential ballot that the Oscars do, can The Brutalist continue there with its 3h35m length and how much will American producers be keen to reward a film made so far out of the system and for a budget less than $10M, one that was achieved by overworking non-union Hungarians talent and technical crews. Enough animus for that approach could open the door for Anora or Conclave, starting to give us a widely split race. What if A Complete Unknown’s rise hits at the right time and it wins? The idea that Wicked would be an easy answer as a film about people fighting the impending oligarch and and fascist reign beginning to come down seems to have petered out now.

How much has the KSG drama negatively impacted Saldaña in what’s already a very close race between her and Ariana Grande-Butera for Wicked? Could the songstress find herself pulled ahead with a CCA win today? Or, could there be a tie? It would such a CCA thing to do that. Same goes for Best Actor where frontrunner Adrien Brody in the likely Best Picture winner is being given hard chase by the youth and social silliness that Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown is showing he’s neck and neck with Brody in this race.

Along with CCA, DGA and PGA, this weekend will also see the Annie Awards for animation, where The Wild Robot and Flow are expected to maintain their side by side lead in the Animated Feature Film race.

Here are my Frontrunner Friday Oscar predictions for the 97th Academy Awards in all categories for February 7, 2025.

BEST PICTURE

BEST DIRECTOR

BEST ACTOR

BEST ACTRESS

SUPPORTING ACTOR

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

FILM EDITING

CINEMATOGRAPHY

PRODUCTION DESIGN

COSTUME DESIGN

ORIGINAL SCORE

ORIGINAL SONG

SOUND

MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING

VISUAL EFFECTS

ANIMATED FEATURE

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM

ANIMATED SHORT

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

LIVE ACTION SHORT