2025 has come and gone, and with it, a new awards season circus for us at home to hoot and holler about, regardless of experience or profession. This year's competition proved quite fierce, with Sinners leading the way early in the year before Hamnet, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, and Sentimental Value caught up to make it a close fight for Best Picture honors. Academy voters are also (finally) required to see all movies in the particular category they vote on, meaning they all must sit through three-hour movies like the rest of us. Only time will tell if this revision will make for a more robust program (and whether show host Conan O’Brien will make a joke about it), but I am quite excited to discuss and share my picks for this year’s winners. As the film equivalent of sports playoff picks, be sure to follow at home with your own Oscars ballot to see what nominees you have or are yet to see, or how right or wrong you were about who would win Best Original Song — the easiest of all categories to complete in under two hours.
NOTE: Due to my limited experience and knowledge with them, the following categories will not have in-depth winner predictions:
#1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 20 straight weeks. A wonderful blend of performative and personal emotion. Vocality rivaled by few songs this decade. The only two musical numbers that rival its prowess are “I Lied to You” and “This Is What It Sounds Like”...and one of them is not even nominated for this category.
Making up for its loss against stiff competition, Sinners claims Best Score through sheer consistency, quality, and cultural heritage. It fits the film’s tone better than any of its contenders, aside from One Battle After Another, which features a few high notes but lacks strong overall musicality, or F1, which was also not nominated despite being composed by Hans Zimmer. Now, where have I heard that one before…
Sinners FEELS great. It certainly has some stellar shots when its plot needs it most, but One Battle After Another is a visual stunner. The groundedness of its film grain, mixed with its use of lighting, makes it such a beautiful film to witness, especially on the big screen. I have my gripes with its pacing (which we’ll come to in later categories), but it embodies this category to a T.
Between Frankenstein and Marty Supreme, it’s going to be quite a close race. The former is extravagant and gothic in presentation, giving its source material the immaculate vibes it deserves while complementing its story. The latter produces a busy, grounded lens of the 1950s that fits all that Marty’s journey entails (especially as an occasional globe-trotting adventure). However, there is a greater breadth of life and scale to Marty Supreme’s overall aesthetic that Frankenstein doesn’t quite match, despite being easier to recreate the 1950’s than a gothic renaissance.
Similar to what makes its production design Oscar-worthy, Frankenstein’s costume design incorporates period pieces equally with a character’s personality. Victor, Elizabeth, and the Creature are often the best and most excessive examples, blending their roles into one uniquely trimmed thread that befits and benefits their stature.
While admittedly being less than enthused upon first experiencing it, Joseph Kosinski’s F1 has remained at the top of my mind for a few reasons, one of which is this very category. With its incessant use of real Formula 1 car sounds (the production used Formula 2 chassis while shooting) and the ambience of a typical race weekend, this film’s sound was the one thing that they had to nail. And they did.
F1 and Sinners may give good ol’ James Cameron a run for his money this time around (in more ways than one), but nothing beats the sheer aura and innovation of the technology he has pioneered since the original film back in 2009. Its precursor’s focus on water may have been a much more technologically challenging feat, but humanity’s artistic fascination with fire and chaos more than makes up for it.
Unfortunately, despite dabbling in video editing for several years now, I do not pay much attention to how certain scenes are stitched together. However, those I do notice often do something so distinct that it cannot be ignored. Case in point: Marty Supreme’s opening and closing sequences. Playing “Forever Young” as a backing track to Marty going ham on his childhood friend to open the film should never work. Yet it so perfectly captures the protagonist’s state of mind and the tone the film takes on that it makes for one of the film’s most exciting moments, and gives us a taste of what’s coming. Its sheer audacity to be raw and unfiltered kept me glued to its theatrics, and plays a big enough driving force in how it is edited better than any of its contenders.
Kudos to Hamnet and Frankenstein for trying their best to give One Battle After Another a run for its money this awards season, because the film’s script has come out on top every single time. For no movie is safe from the reign of its witty humor, the balance between said wit and its dramatic focus on revolutionaries and immigration, or its willingness to be nonsensical.
This category will likely come down to what Academy voters value more in a movie’s screenplay. Do you give it to Marty Supreme for its wit and raw entertainment value? Or to Sinners for its artistry and cultural exhibition? Obviously, my money is on the latter, as it has better longevity and impact (which it needs to have, considering it released back in April).
Throughout this awards season, the supporting role categories have been a complete crapshoot. Partly because there are too many quality nominees to choose from, and also because each actor pivotally anchors their film and their protagonist. However, with the SAG Awards being the best indication of who will come out on top at the Oscars, I’ll cave and say Sean Penn and Amy Madigan. Best we enjoy these amazing nominees while we can, however.
Aside from Renate Reinsve or Rose Byrne, nobody has made much of an argument against Buckley’s dominance during awards season. Each holds their respective roles tightly and proudly, as all three are the stars of each of their movies. Yet, Buckley’s performance in Hamnet requires a grander scale of drama and intuition than even the most heartfelt and personal of narratives — Sentimental Value and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You included.
It’s odd how little Jordan’s name has been mentioned in the Lead Actor race this awards season. He gave Sinners a firm footing with not one, but two exemplary performances of twins Smoke and Stack that needed to feel distinct in style and manner from each other…and he pulled it off. DiCaprio, while providing a truly entertaining performance as Bob Ferguson, doesn’t quite pull enough weight throughout One Battle After Another’s runtime to earn his second Oscar. Similar can be said of Timothée Chalamet, albeit with one less Oscar to his name and a much more riveting take on a star athlete blinded by ambition. The Academy could also ruin the entire debate by awarding Ethan Hawke, because they have been known to hand the award to those who should have earned it in years prior. That said, Jordan got the nod at the SAG Awards, which takes place smack dab in the middle of Oscar voting. He blasted the race wide open and may take it all the way in one fell swoop. 2026 is the year of Michael Jordan.
PTA has been after his lucrative Oscar for years. His outings with There Will Be Blood in 2007 and Phantom Thread in 2017 had the unfortunate timing of releasing in highly competitive years, but both have gained serious cult followings in the years that followed. Ultimately, PTA is a creative visionary. He got Warner Bros. to provide $150 million to produce his most recent film, despite never making one for more than $40 million, and cast Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role. Everyone wants to work with him for a reason, and this year is finally his time in the limelight. His being in his fifties and without an award to his name despite spending the past 30 years directing also bodes well for him, as the Academy rewards those who wait on occasion.
Considering the Academy’s track record of picking a winner based on which one their kids have seen, KPop Demon Hunters fits the bill on paper and in execution. It’s a celebration of Korean and broader Asian culture, mixed with heartfelt moments of courage and inner strength, and remarkably well-written and well-performed musical numbers. It’s almost fitting for a Disney-esque movie to win Best Animated Feature, even in a year where they have a $1.8 billion hit with Zootopia 2.
Despite The Secret Agent’s surge in the awards season conversation after winning at the Golden Globes, Joachim Trier’s film has been a star pupil of this category since its debut at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival in April. Like PTA, Trier received a cult following after releasing The Worst Person in the World in 2021, this time approaching awards season with stronger legs to stand on: a bigger budget and well-renowned actor Stellan Skarsgard (and under-the-radar actress Elle Fanning). It certainly appeases more American critics and voters than its contemporaries, and it has certainly been regarded as one of 2025’s best films, let alone a foreign one.
With wins at practically every major awards show leading up to the Oscars, One Battle After Another should have this category in the bag. It’s got a spectacular ensemble cast, a lock-tight script, and masterful visionaries behind the camera. It’s admittedly strange to see Sinners take the most nominations in Oscars history and NOT win most of them, but that’s what separates one of the best movies of 2025 from THE best.
And yet, here I stand with Sinners out on top. Maybe it’s because of a successful outing at the SAG Awards, or perhaps I played it rather safe with my other predictions. But to put this into perspective, this movie came out in April. One Battle After Another released back in September, and Marty Supreme in December. Out of the three, Sinners had the biggest hill to climb to stay in contention for this long. And people are still talking about this movie, in what it is, what it says, and what it has done. With Jordan’s SAG win, anything is possible. If it comes short, any other lead contender (e.g., One Battle After Another, Marty Supreme, and Hamnet) for the big win come March 15 will still deserve it.
Photo credits: 20th Century Fox, A24, Apple, Focus Features, Neon, Netflix, Proximity Media, Sony Pictures Animation, Warner Bros.
© Creative Insight 2024
