Oscars 2025: Frontrunners and their Challengers - Awardsdaily (2024)

What is ahead in the fake Oscar race we're all pretending to be following?

bySasha Stone

October 10, 2024

inBEST PICTURE, featured

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As we know, there is no real Oscar race right now. There are no official “frontrunners” as such. For instance, Scott Feinberg, for whatever reason, has the film Sept. 5 in the number one place. Like Anne Thompson, he does not predict the films that he has not yet seen so his list is a little, at least from my perspective, odd. But it is typical Scott, if you know, you know.

The Oscar pundits are like cats or horses. They kind of look the same from afar but they all have their own peculiarities. Knowing their biases means understanding their predictions. I don’t always know, myself. I don’t know who is friends with whom, who had one on a podcast, or whether or not someone likes a movie and is pushing it into the race. I have to assume some bias is at play with Scott in this decision because it is an outlier in terms of the predictions overall.

Scott’s predictions live on their own planet as far as Oscar predicting goes. The game here isn’t to be right, that’s clear. The game is advocacy. He has a powerful perch at the Hollywood Reporter and he is using it to push the films he seems to like best. In other words, he isn’t so much predicting as he is suggesting. Here are some examples of his list:

So, obviously he loves Sept. 5 enough to predict it to win Supporting Actor and Picture. That is, to me, a clear example of an Oscar pundit attempting to influence the race. Look, everyone does it. You just have to know who is doing it and why. But note how he does not have the film predicted in Best Director. It can happen that films win without a Best Directing nod, but it’s rare.

Since 2009:

2012-Argo
2018-Green Book
2021-CODA

That’s it. It happens but it’s rare. What do all three of those films have in common? They’re crowdpleasers. It sounds more like a Spotlight-type of movie but again, the director would be nominated if that were the case. The reviews are decent, with one critic comparing it to The Post. And so yeah. Who knows, right?

But for now, I will remain skeptical of Scott’s pushing of that film in such a top spot. He doesn’t seem to like Anora or see it as a frontrunner at the moment, that seems clear. He has Audiard predicted for Director but not Emilia Perez for Picture. Yeah, that’s not happening. If one wins, so too will the other.

You have to ask yourself what would cause a split? A split usually occurs, lately anyway, when there is a disconnect between the preferential ballot (Best Picture) and the ordinary majority rule (Best Director). The majority vote might have held for, say, La La Land but the preferential ballot pushed Moonlight to the top of the pile.

When CODA won, its director was not nominated, so they gave it to Jane Campion more as a career Oscar than anything else. Green Book was not just a crowdpleaser but Oscar voters felt defensive about the attacks against the movie. And with Argo, when Ben Affleck was left off the list it put into motion a whirlwind campaign that worked in his favor, bringing Argo in for the win. It might have won anyway. It’s hard to say. There is no doubt that he had the momentum once he was “snubbed.” It’s funny how things that seemed like such a big deal at the time don’t seem like they matter at all later. Or, to quote Bob Dylan, “What looks large from a distance, close up ain’t never that big.”

So if I were predicting September 5 to win Best Picture, you’d bet I’d be predicting the director would, at least, be nominated.

But I do not know because no one knows because there isn’t an Oscar race right now. There is no audience. They’ve vanished like the lake vanishes in The Catcher in the Rye when the ducks fly south. They’re gone. So all we have is a snake eating its own tail with publicists working various angles and bloggers doing their best to guess.

So that’s all this will be too, is a guess at who is ahead and who is the challenger and who is the dark horse.

Frontrunners and Challengers

Best Picture

Frontrunner – Anora – it is not so much a conventional Best Picture. But it doesn’t have to be. It has the strongest performance by any actor this year in Mikey Madison, full stop. It is more about the brilliance and creativity of Sean Baker who peers into the lives of the ordinary and finds in them the extraordinary. He tells stories about people who are invisible to almost everyone and he reveals them in all of their flawed beauty. So yeah, the Oscar voters are not going to pass up a chance to celebrate this filmmaker. Does it win? I don’t know. Is it the frontrunner? Yeah.
Challenger – Gladiator II is the film I think COULD challenge this one or any one, simply because it is so big and the Oscars don’t want to be resting inside the bubble of niche, indie films. They want to be relevant. They want to matter. If it isn’t Gladiator, it could be Emilia Perez but I have my doubts on that one. We’ll see.
Dark Horse – Sing Sing remains that stealthy underdog running under the radar. Where at one time it was THE FRONTRUNNER, now it’s gone quiet. It is the kind of movie that wins these days.

Best Director

The Frontrunner – Sean Baker, Anora. This is not a tough call. The man who once made a movie using an iPhone who now has made his best film to date, riding the wave of Mike Nichols and The Graduate in terms of delivering “the new,” Anora is something special. It is also crazy, unpredictable, loud, chaotic but to quote Neil Young, it is like a hurricane. There’s calm in its eye. It’s one of the few films I’ve seen that has stayed with me. And trust me, my old black heart isn’t moved by much these days. But Anora thawed it out.

The Challengers –– Jaques Audiard if they like Emilia Perez (some will, some won’t). And then there is Sir Ridley, who might finally pick up that Oscar, well-deservedly, for Gladiator II and Gladiator. Look, man, this is the guy whose production almost derailed when Kevin Spacey’s career imploded. Ridley Scott just said, not on my watch, and he brought in Christopher Plummer to play the part and then be inserted into the scenes. What was that movie again? Doesn’t matter. No one remembers. But they remember what he did. Also, the guy decided to build real sets for Gladiator II instead of using computer graphics because it was less expensive. You have to admire that.

The Dark Horse — it could be anyone. But you always have to ask yourself why. Why does a Best Director win without winning Best Picture? Usually, it’s for a high-concept, visually exceptional film (Gravity, ROMA, The Revenant). In this case, that could be Sir Ridley or Denis Villeneuve for Dune II.

Best Actor

The Frontrunner – Adrien Brody, The Brutalist — this is the idea from the majority of pundits. Brody has already won an Oscar but so what. They give out second Oscars all of the time. Just look at Daniel Day-Lewis. He has three. The thing to pay attention to with Best Actor is that it is always tied to Best Picture. The more they like and nominate the movie, the better chance it has (with a couple of notable exceptions, Crazy Heart, The Whale).

The Challenger –– Ralph Fiennes for Conclave, who is long overdue for a win. But it will depend on how excited they feel about the film. All it will take is one win for Fiennes, and he might run the tables. Coleman Domingo is also a threat here, especially if Sing Sing is that stealthy CODA-like film that everyone is underestimating.

The Dark Horse –– Sebastian Stan for The Apprentice. Trump looms so large in the minds of Hollywood and the Left. He really is like Satan to the Puritans in 1692 and so anyone who plays him is automatically set apart from the rest. It can’t be underestimated — but it will probably depend on how the election turns out.

Best Actress

The Frontrunner – Mikey Madison by a mile. What a brilliant performance this is. I could go on and on about the kind of part it is and why that kind of part does well with voters (sexually uninhibited, SW with a heart of gold, Cinderella, etc) but to really get just how good she is in this requires remembering her work in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood just to put the two roles side by side. She can tap into the hysterical and crazy fairly easily but these are two completely different people. If you follow SWs at all on TikTok (as I do), you will see that Sean Baker and Mikey Madison get it exactly right. They made the effort to get it right and that is obvious. She plays a girl who, on the one hand, has seen it all. But on the other hand, is still fairly innocent to the ways of the world. Otherwise, she would not allow herself to be drawn into a fantasy. She’s not yet jaded by the world. Maybe one day she will be. I like to think she is rescued at the end of the movie and lives her happily ever after but that ain’t how the world works.

The Challenger — Karla Sofia Gascon in Emilia Perez. It would ordinarily be Angelina Jolie as Maria and that’s possible but I’m not sensing urgency in awarding her as there would be for Gascon (to make history). For Jolie to win voters would need to love the movie too. It wouldn’t matter in any other year but it matters in a year where there are other contenders with movies voters will like. We think. We do not know.

Supporting Actor

The Frontrunner – Kieran Culkin in A Real Pain is the other great performance this year in a film that should do very well with Oscar voters. Culkin is riding high from his work on Succession and has the benefit here of Jesse Eisenberg’s screenplay. It is almost a lead performance but if it goes into supporting then he is in a prime spot to win.

The Challenger: Clarence Maclin for Sing Sing. Remember, if it’s the stealthy little movie that could, there is a good chance it picks up at least one acting award.

The Dark Horse: Is Denzel Washington in Supporting for Gladiator II or lead? He is probably nominated either way but if he’s in supporting, that might make him tough to beat.

Supporting Actress

The Frontrunner – Zoe Saldana, Emilia Perez. She’s almost in the can’t-lose place right now, a Laura Dern in Marriage Story kind of place. She probably has the best performance in the film, with Selena Gomez second and, I think, Gascon third. Saldana is the most interesting to watch.

The Challenger – Danielle Deadwyler for The Piano Lesson. She has the best “Oscar Story” after being snubbed that one year when poor Andrea Riseborough was nominated in a last-minute push. So I wonder how inclined they will be to right that wrong.

The Dark Horse — I would not underestimate Isabella Rossellini in Conclave. Sure, it’s a small part but she’s great in it. And she is beloved.

That’s it for now. Predictions tomorrow.

Tags: 2025 OscarsAnoraFrontrunners and Challengers

Oscars 2025: Frontrunners and their Challengers - Awardsdaily (2024)

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