Delroy Lindo in Sinners
How am I feeling about my Academy Awards predictions this year? Actually pretty good … except in, you know, most of the major categories.
What a strange, strange (but fun!) awards season this has been. One Battle After Another appeared poised to steamroll over the competition … until it didn't. Timothée Chalamet seemed like an inevitable Best Actor winner … until he didn't. Sinners was looking like a Barbie- or Wicked-level also-ran in the big-ticket races … until it wasn't. The two supporting performers who won Critics' Choice Awards (CCA) didn't go on to win Golden Globe Awards, and the two who won Globes didn't go on to win British Academy of Film & Television Awards (BAFTA), and neither of those BAFTA winners won at CCA. For Pete's sake, BAFTA's Best Actor champ wasn't even nominated for an Oscar. (Not this year, anyway.)
Consequently, despite feeling more-confident-than-usual elsewhere, I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen in this year's Best Picture and acting competitions … except for in Best Actress. Make Jessie Buckley the center-square freebie on your Oscar Bingo card. Or, if you have a slightly different Bingo card, make the center square Warner Bros., which released both One Battle After Another and Sinners. That studio is gonna Clean. Up.
So without further ado, here are my enough-waffling-already guesses for the 98th-annual Academy Awards ceremony. The red-carpet shenanigans begin at 5:30 p.m. CT on Sunday, March 15, and the show itself starts at 6 p.m., with the telecast viewable on ABC, Hulu, and a number of additional streaming services.
BEST PICTURE
Bugonia
F1: The Movie
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
The Secret Agent
Sentimental Value
Sinners
Train Dreams
Had the movie received the SAG-ensemble prize, we could've ended this discussion with eight simple words: “The Oscar goes to One Battle After Another.” I mean, seriously: Paul Thomas Anderson's latest has everything else going for it. Literally. Best Picture at BAFTA. Best Picture – Musical or Comedy at the Globes. Best Picture at the CCA. The Producers Guild Award. The Directors Guild Award (DGA). The Writers Guild Award (WGA). The most nominations of any movie ever at SAG-AFTRA's newly named Actor Awards (which I'll continue to refer to as SAG, dammit). The quadfecta of Best Picture wins from the National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics, and National Society of Films Critics, making it only the fourth feature in history to nab all four accolades. And for an original, complex, decades-spanning work that ran close to three hours, the movie also made decent bank. What could possibly prevent it from landing the Academy Awards' biggest prize?
That SAG-ensemble trophy, that's what. Instead of OBAA, voters went with Sinners, and the manner in which the assembled film and TV folk – many of them Academy voters – reacted to the victory is now making me ignore all the precursor signs I shouldn't be ignoring. On paper, the PTA still looks like the clear champ, especially considering Anderson himself is practically guaranteed a Best Directing win. (If he's a 95-percent certainty there, he's 100 percent going to garner a screenwriting Oscar … as is, it should be acknowledged, Sinners writer/director Ryan Coogler.)
But if I'm choosing to ignore the obvious, it's because I'm also choosing not to ignore the roof-shaking happiness that emanated from the crowd when the Sinners brigade was named SAG's cast of the year. It was the same sort of fantastically loud, ebullient reaction that greeted the wins of Everything Everywhere All at Once and CODA and, most specifically, Parasite – films that were hardly assured their Best Picture victories until it became undeniably evident that actors, who constitute the heftiest segment of the Academy's disparate branches, lo-o-o-oved those movies. Beyond which, these ensemble triumphs clearly made actors feel great … and, in all likelihood, more than a little virtuous. (It can't be a coincidence that, like Sinners, EEAaO, CODA, and Parasite all concern members of society – people of color, people overseas, the deaf community – widely marginalized by Hollywood.) Sinners is my favorite movie of 2025, and even though its historic, record-setting 16 nominations hardly makes Coogler's achievement an underdog, my perhaps blind affection should be enough to prevent me from predicting it. As seems fitting, though, I'm biting down hard on this one.
BEST DIRECTING
Hamnet, Chloë Zhao
Marty Supreme, Josh Safdie
One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson
Sentimental Value, Joaquim Trier
Sinners, Ryan Coogler
My guess is that even Sinners' most ardent supporters, including Coogler himself, won't mind in the least when/if (but probably “when”) DGA victor PTA finally scores after three previous nods in this category – and 14 nominations overall – with no little gold man to show for it. Predicting Anderson's losses for Licorice Pizza in my 2022 Oscar-predix article, I sent a public message to the filmmaker: “It took Scorsese 26 years to go from first nomination to victory, and you're still two years shy of that span. See you in 2024!” I may have been slightly off in that prediction … but better two-years-late than never!
BEST ACTRESS
Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I'd Kick You
Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue
Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
Emma Stone, Bugonia
Done. Wrapped up. With a bow on top. Let's move on to the acting races in which no one knows WTF is gonna happen.
BEST ACTOR
Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another
Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon
Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
Long before his movie was ever seen, the blogging and podcasting film-bro contingents insisted that Timmy C. was winning the Oscar, and his subsequent CCA and Golden Globes victories seemed to cement that theory. But then, out of seemingly nowhere, Robert Aramayo won the BAFTA Best Actor prize for I Swear – a movie that won't be released in the U.S. until next month, and that found the actor besting Chalamet, DiCaprio, Hawke, Jordan, and Bugonia's Jesse Plemons. And then Chalamet lost again, this time to Jordan at SAG, where the Sinners star bested his non-Aramayo rivals and received a thunderous standing ovation (and almost literal vocal thunder from presenter Viola Davis). So what's going on here?
I think it's pretty evident. The CCA and Globes voters, who have precisely zero overlap with Academy voters, went with Chalamet because they love being predictive. (Also, to be fair, because they probably genuinely loved Timothée in his role.) But awards bodies that do have voter overlap – BAFTA and SAG – searched elsewhere, and in the case of Aramayo, at least, seemed to go out of their way to not make Chalamet a BAFTA winner. (You could easily argue that he didn't score with SAG because he won just last year for A Complete Unknown.) Regardless, this turn of events solidifies what I've been sensing ever since the 30-year-old's insufferable Marty Supreme P.R. campaign began: He wants that Oscar a little too much. Naked neediness of this sort isn't something that generally appeals to Academy members, and voters do lean toward a “Who-o-oa … slow down there, partner!” attitude when it comes to awarding younger dudes. (Of the 187 male Oscar winners for acting over the past 97 years, you know how many were ages 30 or under? Seven.)
Because his feather-ruffling comments about ballet and opera landed after voting ended, I don't think Chalamet's chances are completely kaput, and in truth, I'd say this is the one acting race in which all five contenders have a more-than-fair shot. Three of them beyond Tim, though, also have a strike or two against them. DiCaprio is in a Best Picture front-runner and seems due for a second Academy Award 10 years after his first, but he didn't win a televised prize, and hearing those speeches does tend to help. Hawke, on his fifth nomination (he has three for acting and two for writing), has absolutely earned a first trophy and has a big, juicy, bio-pic role, but he didn't win CCA/Globes/BAFTA/SAG either, and Blue Moon isn't a Best Picture nominee. Moura did win a Globe and gave a terrific speech, but despite the clear adoration for Secret Agent, him not scoring BAFTA and SAG nominations stings a bit. Consequently, I'm going all in on Jordan, whose SAG victory was perhaps that ceremony's most memorable event, whose movie appears to be continually climbing as a Best Picture likelihood, and who should, by now, really be on his fourth nomination instead of his first. Voters don't tend to love twinning in this category. But this time, they at least loved it enough to nominate the guy. I think they'll also love it, and Jordan himself, enough for the win.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value
Amy Madigan, Weapons
Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners
Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
While having two actors from one film cited in the same race doesn't inherently lessen a contender's chances – evidenced by victories for Jamie Lee Curtis, Daniel Kaluuya, and Sam Rockwell over the past eight years alone – I do think the first-rate Sentimental Value women should practice their losing-gracefully faces. After that, things get intensely tricky, because Madigan, Mosaku, and Taylor have all won televised prizes and were exceedingly charming (and seemed genuinely surprised) in their acceptance. It's important to note, too, that the prizes from organizations with Academy overlap, BAFTA and SAG, went respectively to the Sinners and Weapons performers, whereas Taylor got hers from the non-industry Globes. But while an Oscar victory for any of them won't shock me (and will, in fact, delight me), here's my thinking. The Nigerian-British Mosaku had home-turf advantage with BAFTA. Madigan, a proud union member since the '80s, obviously had a leg up with union-forward SAG. And because it would be really odd if One Battle were to go home with no acting wins, Supporting Actress seems the perfect place to reward a member of that stellar ensemble – Taylor being so fierce, funny, and iconic as Perfidia Beverly Hills certainly not hurting any. But why, you may wonder, do I think OBAA won't be getting its due in the other supporting category? Glad you asked … !
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein
Delroy Lindo, Sinners
Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value
The One Battle v. Sinners bloodbath continues. For the first time thus far, however, I'm predicting a draw. As with its female counterpart, this race seems to boil down to three names, none of them the first two listed alphabetically. Del Toro deservedly won a bunch of critics prizes, but his is easily the subtler – i.e. less Oscar-friendly – of the OBAA turns here, and critics don't get to vote. (As I'm reminded every year when the Academy mails back my submitted handmade ballot.) Elordi was the surprise CCA champ, but again, critics, and the guy hasn't turned 29 yet. Take a number there, pal! That leaves us with Penn, Skarsgård, and Lindo, and although he hasn't been nominated anywhere else – not with the CCA or Globes or SAG or even BAFTA, despite being London-born – I absolutely see a path for the Sinners co-star. It's frankly astounding that Lindo, more than three decades into his screen career, is on his first nod, and being his movie's voice when the film won SAG's ensemble prize was definitely the right visibility at the right time. I'm keeping him in third, and really should be going with Penn, who scored back-to-back BAFTA and SAG trophies. His not being there to accept them, however, might've dented his Oscar chances, reminding voters that the guy can be a tad prickly. Plus, Penn already has two Academy Awards. Shouldn't 74-year-old Skarsgård be allowed one? True, it would be unusual for a largely subtitled performance to triumph in this category. But if even half the people who've worked with Skarsgård over the decades opt for the revered Swedish character actor, he'd get this in a walk.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Blue Moon, Robert Kaptow
It Was Just an Accident, Jafar Panahi
Marty Supreme, Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie
Sentimental Value, Joaquin Trier, Eskil Vogt
Sinners, Ryan Coogler
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Bugonia, Will Tracy
Frankenstein, Guillermo del Toro
Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell, Chloë Zhao
One Battle After Another, Paul Thomas Anderson
Train Dreams, Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar
Ordinarily, there's at least some argument over the potential victors in one or both writing categories. Not this year there isn't – and “O Happy Day!” to that! Because Sinners is original and One Battle is adapted, and there consequently won't be any competition between their creators, we can at least rest assured that Coogler and Anderson, WGA champs both, will be Oscar winners on March 15. That's gonna be a massive relief to those movies' shared fans, myself among them. It'll no doubt be an even more massive relief to the folks at Warner Bros.
BEST CASTING
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle after Another
The Secret Agent
Sinners
Applause, in this category's inaugural year, for voters collectively citing five works that truly deserve their recognition. Instead of merely acknowledging movies with star-studded casts (Jay Kelly, the latest Knives Out), they recognized films with a wide swath of professionals, amateurs, and exquisitely well-chosen child actors; this roster is a great vindication of the category's existence. That said, barring a tie, only one movie can win. And although this Sinners fanatic would, rather improbably, maybe put Coogler's movie last on his list of deserved options here – even below those titles I was ambivalent or downright hostile toward – I'm going with its nominee Francine Maisler. She's apparently legendary among Hollywood casting directors, and I'm also guessing that Academy members who confuse “Best Casting” with SAG's “Best Ensemble” will also flock to this option. I'm fine with that! The Sinners crew is amazing! It may take a few more years, though, for voters to fully separate the behind-the-scenes casting process from the people they're enjoying on-screen.
BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE FILM
It Was Just an Accident, France
The Secret Agent, Brazil
Sentimental Value, Norway
Sirât, Spain
The Voice of Hind Rajab, Tunisia
Its win at the Golden Globes, to say nothing of star Wagner Moura's victory, make The Secret Agent an awfully credible pick. But that film netted four Oscars nods to Sentimental Value's nine. With or without a Stellan Skarsgård victory, it's hard to imagine Joaquim Trier's voter-catnip family drama – a movie about people who make movies! – not emerging victorious.
BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Arco
Elio
KPop Demon Hunters
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
Zootopia 2
Not even a question. Was that “Golden” tune designed to be prophetic?
BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE FILM
The Alabama Solution
Come See Me in the Good Light
Cutting through Rocks
Mr. Nobody Against Putin
The Perfect Neighbor
The only impediment to Netflix's much-seen, much-discussed Perfect Neighbor emerging triumphant was the unlikelihood of it being nominated in the first place, as the Academy's documentary branch has routinely shown itself inhospitable to docs composed entirely of found footage. But the film did get nominated. And being easily the most high-profile title on this roster, it consequently, in all likelihood, is going to win.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Frankenstein
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Train Dreams
I'm avidly hoping for a shock here, because I would love few things more on Oscars night than seeing Train Dreams' Adolpho Veloso score this prize. Presuming, however, that Best Cinematography is one (more) battle after another between the Best Picture front-runners, I'm gonna put my imaginary money on Sinners' Autumn Durald Arkapaw. Voters may not necessarily know she'd be the first woman to take this trophy. But they must certainly be aware that few other cinematographers in 2025 were so attuned to temperature. Her lighting made the sweaty heat of the juke-joint sequences as visceral as the cool-for-Mississippi mornings on a plantation.
BEST FILM EDITING
F1: The Movie
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sentimental Value
Sinners
My gut says that racing movies, if nominated, never lose here. (Of course, the only example I have is Ford v. Ferrari.) But in yet another showdown between OBAO and Sinners – the latter having beaten FI for the prize at the American Cinema Editors' frequently predictive Eddie Awards – I'm going with One Battle's Andy Jurgensen for myriad reasons. The film's potential Best Picture win is one of them. That climactic, hilly car chase is another. Leo's 40-foot drop from an apartment roof after which he emerges relatively unscathed – when you know, as the star himself readily admits, he didn't do that stunt himself – is icing on the cake. And for anyone taking stock of my predictions and asking “How can One Battle win Directing, Adapted Screenplay, Editing, and a supporting acting prize and not win Best Picture?!”, I'd reply, “I dunno. Ask Steven Soderbergh's Traffic.”
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sinners
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Avatar: Fire & Ash
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
Sinners
Considering the Netflix bucks Guillermo del Toro had to play with here, it's hard to argue with his film's achievements in these categories. Besides, a bunch of us were worried that Wicked: For Good would wind up double-dipping for sets and costumes that were merely extensions of the first film's (Oscar-winning) sets and costumes. Let's hear it for a fresh contender! Let's choose to forget, of course, that Frankenstein has previously been preserved on screen, like, a zillion times … .
BEST SOUND
F1: The Movie
Frankenstein
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Sirât
It's a Formula One racing movie. One directed by Joseph Kosinski, whose Top Gun: Maverick scored this prize in 2023. Film Editing may be a possibility. But of course this thing will triumph here.
BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Bugonia
Frankenstein
Hamnet
One Battle After Another
Sinners
Swedish composer Ludwig Göransson was a really strong option in the years he won Oscars for Oppenheimer and Black Panther. This year, for Sinners, he's just about the only option.
BEST ORIGINAL SONG
“Dear Me,” Diane Warren: Relentless
“Golden,” KPop Demon Hunters
“I Lied To You,” Sinners
“Sweet Dreams of Joy,” Viva Verdi!
“Train Dreams,” Train Dreams
I really, really want to predict “I Lied to You,” given that its performance was my favorite movie scene of the year, (Of many years.) But even this super-fan will concede that the song, as a composition, isn't as strong as what Ryan Coogler did with it as cinema. So let's instead follow the herd and agree that the Grammy- and Globe-winning smash “Golden,” a chart-topper in 30 countries, just might have the advantage … even though this cranky 57-year-old maintains that, in its vocal performance, Huntrix's “I'm born to be” sounds unmistakably like “a butter bee.” I don't really get KPop. I doubt KPop gets me, either.
BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Avatar: Fire & Ash
F1: The Movie
Jurassic World Rebirth
The Lost Bus
Sinners
I'd love for this to go to Sinners for twinning effects so extraordinary that you forget to be amazed. Hell, I'd love it to go to The Lost Bus for the most intense screen conflagrations I've ever witnessed. For better or worse, though, Avatars will probably own this category until the series ends. Which is either now or hundreds of years in the future, when James Cameron is still somehow directing them from his life-expanding cryogenic chamber.
BEST MAKEUP & HAIRSTYLING
Frankenstein
Kokuho
Sinners
The Smashing Machine
The Ugly Stepsister
Any artists who can make Jacob Elordi look not-hot on screen deserve Oscars. Although, ya gotta admit … he still looked kinda hot.
BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT FILM
All the Empty Rooms
Armed Only with a Camera: The Life & Death of Brent Renaud
Children No More: Were & Are Gone
The Devil Is Busy
Perfectly a Strangeness
The first of two categories in which I'm entering completely blind, and the collective subject matter – victims of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, victims of school shootings, an abortion clinic under siege – makes me not entirely unhappy to have not seen the films yet. (Perfectly a Strangeness, about a trio of wandering donkeys, sounds like the only title not designed to leave you convulsing with sobs.) I'm consequently leaving this guess to the experts, and among the 84 online sources I scanned, the school-shooting elegy All the Empty Rooms was the choice of 70 of them. The next-highest vote-getter, Armed with Only a Camera, was the choice of nine. I'm going with the odds.
BEST LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM
Butcher's Stain
A Friend of Dorothy
Jane Austen’s Period Drama
The Singers
Two People Exchanging Saliva
I need to get caught up on this batch, too, and judging by others' predictions, this is apparently a two-way race between A Friend of Dorothy, a 21-minute charmer about the friendship between octogenarian and teen art lovers, and Two People Exchanging Saliva, a 36-minute dystopian drama in which kissing is a capital crime. I'm leaning toward the latter, because it's generally wise to bet on the short that seems most easily adaptable into a feature-length movie. (Its synopsis makes TPES sound like an ideal Yorgos Lanthimos project.) Betting on the category's funniest title is also a solid strategy … so while my choice has a great one, I maybe shouldn't be discounting Jane Austen's Period Drama quite so quickly.
BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
Butterfly
Forevergreen
The Girl Who Cried Pearls
Retirement Plan
The Three Sisters
Finally – nominated shorts I've actually seen! Not that viewing them, mind you, at all helps with my forecasting, and I've long come to terms with my personal favorite almost never winning here. Because love makes you do foolish things, though, I keep predicting my faves anyway, and the only animated short I was abjectly head over heels for this year was Retirement Plan. For my reasons why, click here. To see this seven-minute wonder for yourself, click here. It'll give you even more reasons why.
