- Emilia Perez, Wicked and The Brutalist lead the nominations
- The ceremony kicks off in a matter of hours
- It’s the most prestigious night of award season
After weeks of anticipation, it’s almost time to find out who gets to go home with an Oscar.
Amid a campaign season featuring a Twitter scandal and Timothee Chalamet riding a Lime bike (and getting fined), we’ll soon get to see whose efforts have paid off.
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Emilia Perez leads on the night with 13 nods, including Best Picture and Best Supporting Actress. It broke the record for the most nominated non-English language film in the Academy’s history.
Meanwhile. The Brutalist, Wicked and The Substance could all win big, each landing 10 nominations. Other big contenders include Anora, Conclave and A Complete Unknown.
But who could win?
Best Picture
Brady Corbet’s three-and-a-half hour historical epic the Brutalist is a film many are backing to win Best Picture. On the flipside, could its length – three and a half hours, with built-in intermission – be its undoing?
There’s also a growing consensus that Anora could be the dark horse. Telling the story of an American escort who impulsively marries the son of a Rusian oligarch, it’s seen as a fresh, original and more accessible pick.
Read more: The Brutalist director says film made him “zero dollars”
Others have theorised that the pacy papal thriller Conclave could pull off an upset. The big prize, intriguingly, is anything but obvious.
Best Director
This category is likely a two-horse race. Brady Corbet’s ambitious direction of The Brutalist received widespread praise, making him an obvious frontrunner. Anora director Sean Baker has also made a strong impression on the Academy and may be seen as a refreshing choice for the trophy.
Interestingly, since Baker took the Directors’ Guild award, that is a strong indication that the Oscar could be his for the taking too.
Best Actor
All signs indicate that this category is also a two-horse race, this time between Adrien Brody for The Brutalist and Timothee Chalamet for A Complete Unknown. For a long time, it looked like Brody’s performance was the one to beat, but given Chalamet won this category at the SAG Awards, a win for him is looking likelier.
We know the Oscars loves a biopic and Chalamet’s meticulous work preparing to play Bob Dylan paid off with glowing reviews of his performance. He’s also put in the work big time for his quirky, attention-grabbing campaign. If he wins, he’ll be the youngest ever winner of this category.
Best Actress
Demi Moore landed her first ever Oscar nomination for The Substance. In fact, earlier in awards season, she won her first acting award ever. Her moving speech at the Golden Globes set up the narrative for her awards campaign as one of a woman receiving her long-overdue flowers and defeating industry ageism ion the process.
As such, she’s a very strong contender tonight. Her biggest competitor is newcomer Mikey Madison for Anora, who made her acting breakthrough with her name on the map with her performance.
Best Supporting Actor
Among cinephiles, Kieran Culkin is a dead cert for this trophy. He’s already scooped every major award in this category for his performance in A Real Pain, combining a sense of comedy and tragedy.
Read more: All we know about Kieran Culkin ahead of 2025 Oscars
There might have been a field of great competitors, but the Succession star is heads and shoulders above the rest of them.
Best Supporting Actress
So far, it seems unlikely that many of Emilia Perez’s 13 nominations could translate into wins. The controversy over Karla Sofia Gascon’s string of inflammatory tweets from between 2019 and 2021 may have spoiled its chances in many of its categories.
Its main hope now is Zoe Saldana. She already delivered a quality performance in a divisive film, but she may have distanced herself enough from the scandal to still have a chance. Helpfully, she has won every precursor award.
If there’s going to be a plot twist, it could come from Isabella Rosselini for Conclave, or maybe Ariana Grande for Wicked.
