‘Emilia Perez,’ Timothee Chalamet, and more: Who’s up after the Oscar nominations?
For a race that seemed as unpredictable as any in recent history, the 2025 Oscar nominations came and went without many huge surprises. All the expected acting contenders — including frontrunners like Demi Moore, Adrien Brody, Timothée Chalamet, Zoe Salda?a, and Kieran Culkin — were bestowed with nominations on Thursday, as were several films long predicted to score Best Picture recognition. But while the 97th Oscars were perhaps shorter than usual on snubs and surprises, the list of nominees did clarify which films Academy voters truly loved and what might ultimately win Best Picture in March. Ahead are the key takeaways from the 2025 Oscar nominations.
Emilia Pérez is the front-runner to beat
With 13 Oscar nominations on Thursday, including Best Picture, Best International Feature, Best Director, and acting nominations for Karla Sofia Gascón and Zoe Salda?a, Emilia Pérez is not just the year’s top Oscar contender but one of the most decorated nominees in history. The Netflix musical joins Gone With the Wind, From Here to Eternity, Mary Poppins, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Forrest Gump, Shakespeare in Love, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Chicago, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Shape of Water, and Oppenheimer as films with 13 nominations — one behind record holders La La Land, Titanic, and Ben-Hur, all of which received 14 bids.
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Anyone who has paid attention to the contours of this season’s race knows that the windfall was little surprise. Despite online backlash and loud criticism from LGBTQ media, Emilia Pérez has remained an industry darling and international favorite. The film set a record for musical/comedy films at the Golden Globes with 10 nominations, tied a BAFTA Awards record for longlist bids with 15 (11 converted into eventual nominations), and swept the European Film Awards. Its 13 Oscar nominations were an overperformance: even without bringing costar Selena Gomez along for her first Oscar nomination, the film still landed key nominations in cinematography and sound, categories which it was expected to miss. The overall package of nominations and the increasing importance of international voters on the Oscar results have Emilia Pérez well-positioned to become only the second non-English film to win Best Picture after Parasite and the first-ever Netflix production to take home the top award.
Best Actor is the most competitive acting race…
While the supporting races seem more straightforward to predict — Culkin, despite A Real Pain missing a nomination for Best Picture, and Salda?a remain incredibly strong front-runners to win on Oscar night — the lead acting contests are just warming up. In Best Actor, the ultimate Oscar winner seems likely to come down to Adrien Brody for The Brutalist or Timothée Chalamet for A Complete Unknown, as both films did exceptionally well with Oscar voters, landing 10 and eight nominations, respectively. But Colman Domingo, back again after a nomination last year for Rustin, remains one of the industry’s most beloved figures. Ralph Fiennes, meanwhile, has never won an Oscar and is overdue for recognition. Sebastian Stan is here too for The Apprentice, a nomination he secured through sheer force of will (anecdotally, no actor campaigned harder season than Stan) and an international embrace of the Donald Trump film. An argument could be made for any of these nominees — even Stan, mainly depending on the response to the early stages of Trump’s second nonconsecutive term as president. But if it does become Brody versus Chalamet, who might win? Most observers expect those actors to split the key precursors ahead — with Chalamet perhaps winning at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and Brody taking home a BAFTA Award. In recent close acting races, the BAFTA winner usually prevails with the Academy (think Anthony Hopkins over Chadwick Boseman in 2021 or Emma Stone over Lily Gladstone last year). But this year, in a race this close, anything seems possible – especially after the overblown controversy over the use of AI in postproduction on The Brutalist spread widely on social media last week and left many wrongly insinuating Brody had digital help with his Hungarian accent in the film.
…unless Best Actress is the most competitive acting race
Best Actor is a battle, but Best Actress feels like a war. There’s a legitimate case to be made for all five nominees winning the award on March 2, including upstart contender Fernanda Torres. The Brazillian star not only crashed the race without any precursor support from industry groups like the SAG Awards or BAFTA Awards but also pulled her film I’m Still Here into the Best Picture race. The unexpected nomination and the apparent international support Torres has received — I’m Still Here is the most successful film released in Brazil since the coronavirus pandemic — puts her in play to duplicate the surprising Golden Globes win that put her into the race. But if Torres is going to win, she’ll have to take down her fellow Globes winner Moore, who remains a top pick for The Substance. Moore’s comeback narrative is hard to beat in this field, and her victory would slot in with recent veteran winners like Brendan Fraser and Michelle Yeoh. Moore and Torres are joined by fellow nominees Cynthia Erivo, Gascon, and Mikey Madison. All the actresses starred in Best Picture nominees (the first time the category has had a complete sweep of Best Picture representation in 47 years), and all have their own compelling narratives to hang a potential winning campaign.
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