{"id":3870,"date":"2025-01-23T20:50:07","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T20:50:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3870"},"modified":"2025-01-27T11:12:22","modified_gmt":"2025-01-27T11:12:22","slug":"oscar-nominations-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2025\/01\/23\/oscar-nominations-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscar nominations 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

And they\u2019re off. The starter\u2019s gun has been fired for this year\u2019s Oscars race, and while it wasn\u2019t hard to predict most of the films appearing in most of the categories, there were still some surprises. Chief of these is that the most nominated film is Jacques Audiard\u2019s bonkers transgender Spanish language gangster musical redemption fantasy Emilia P\u00e9rez<\/em>\u00a0which can count thirteen mentions. This is to a certain extent artificial, but even if you discount Best International Feature and ignore one of its two Best Original Song mentions, it would still top the list with eleven, just ahead of The Brutalist<\/em> and Wicked<\/em>, both with ten.<\/p>\n

Together with strong showings in the directing and editing categories, that suggests that the contest for Best Picture is between those three, but I think Emilia P\u00e9rez<\/em> will struggle to convert a lot of its chances and I also wouldn\u2019t rule out Conclave<\/em>, which might not have as many pluses as some of its rivals (and only garnered eight nominations, tying it with A Complete Unknown<\/em>), but it doesn\u2019t have any negatives \u2013 it isn\u2019t weird, it isn\u2019t a musical, it isn\u2019t TikTok friendly and none of its characters were revoiced by AI.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s rundown the Best Picture nominees and I\u2019ll give you some further thoughts.<\/p>\n

Anora <\/strong>was a delightful surprise when I took myself off to see it earlier this year. Sean Baker is a very fine filmmaker indeed and the promise he showed with The Florida Project <\/em>is fully flowering here (I didn\u2019t see Red Rocket<\/em> but I’ve heard good things). I don\u2019t think this has much of a chance of winning Best Picture, but it\u2019s the kind of movie which could pick up a screenplay award as a sort of consolation prize.<\/p>\n

The Brutalist<\/strong> is about as compelling as a 200-minute movie about architecture could possibly hope to be. Adrien Brody is amazing and the guest cast almost uniformly strong. I wasn\u2019t always convinced by Felicity Jones, AI or no AI, but this is a huge and very Oscar-friendly achievement, and currently the bookies\u2019 favourite. I just wonder whether it\u2019s a bit too weighty to have lots of people putting it at the top of their ballots. Full review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Complete Unknown<\/strong> looks great, provided it can avoid enough Dewey Cox<\/em> clich\u00e9s, and Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet can usually be relied upon to elevate weaker material. I\u2019ll try and see it very soon.<\/p>\n

Conclave<\/strong> likewise has passed me by and looks like hand-milled Oscar bait, but I think that voters who want serious and meaningful will prefer The Brutalist<\/em> and those who want something with a bit more flair and dash will go for Emilia P\u00e9rez<\/em> \u2013 but then maybe Conclave<\/em> will come through the middle? Against that, Edward Berger hasn\u2019t been nominated as Best Director, which must hurt the film\u2019s chances.<\/p>\n

Dune: Part Two <\/strong>feels like it\u2019s here to make up the numbers. I don\u2019t have any particular fondness for the Duniverse, but I went to see both movies on the big screen and I had a good time. I don\u2019t entirely know if the effort required to create them is appropriate to the entertainment value I derived from them, but I don\u2019t have any real complaints about either. The chances of a science-fiction sequel winning Best Picture however are slim to say the least.<\/p>\n

And you might think that a similar calculation applies to Emilia P\u00e9rez <\/strong>but with nominations for two of its cast, its director, its screenplay and its editing, it must be in with a shout. The bookies have it just behind The Brutalist<\/em> which sounds right to me \u2013 and there\u2019s quite a jump in price, so you could clean up if you got it right.<\/p>\n

Of I\u2019m Still Here <\/strong>and Nickel Boys<\/strong> I know almost nothing, but I will \u2013 as usual \u2013 attempt to see them on a big screen before the first Sunday in March. The Substance <\/strong>I\u2019m delighted to find on the list, as it is already one of my favourite films of the year, and I found it utterly compelling. Full review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lastly, we have Jon M Chu\u2019s Wicked <\/strong>(shorn of its \u201cPart One\u201d suffix) which I thought was one of the best stage-to-screen musical adaptations I\u2019ve seen recently (not quite as good as Matilda<\/em> though). And yes, a lot of the set-ups will have to be paid off next year which isn\u2019t ideal, but as vastly elongated first acts of musicals go, this is exemplary. Review here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In other categories, Best Actor looks like a straight fight between Adrien Brody and Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet, Best Actress looks nailed on for Demi Moore, likewise Kieran Culkin is getting a lot of attention for A Real Pain<\/em>, and Zoe Salda\u00f1a will surely win for Emilia P\u00e9rez<\/em> even if that film is shut out elsewhere. Likewise, Conclave<\/em> must have a good chance at winning Best Adapted Screenplay even if it is not given much love in other categories.<\/p>\n

And speaking of films not given much love, it\u2019s a double Guadagnino shut-out with no nominations at all for either Challengers<\/em> or Queer<\/em>, and it looks like Nicole Kidman humped all those rugs for nothing as Babygirl<\/em> has been completely overlooked. Some Academy watchers also expected to see mentions for Angelina Jolie as Maria Callas, and Denzil Washington for Gladiator II<\/em>, which only gets a nod for its costume design. There was also a lot of enthusiasm for Pamela Anderson in The Last Showgirl<\/em>, but not from the Academy.<\/p>\n

Right, time for me to book some movie tickets. See you back here soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And they\u2019re off. The starter\u2019s gun has been fired for this year\u2019s Oscars race, and while it wasn\u2019t hard to predict most of the films appearing in most of the categories, there were still some surprises. Chief of these is that the most nominated film is Jacques Audiard\u2019s bonkers transgender Spanish language gangster musical redemption […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25,11,111],"tags":[12,13],"class_list":["post-3870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-at-the-cinema","category-culture","category-technology","tag-movies","tag-oscars"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5JY5l-10q","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3870"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3882,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3870\/revisions\/3882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}