Our Oscars Preview - Best Picture [2025]

It's Oscars Week '25! Maybe this our year to nail our predictions... Here is Part 5 of our preview.

Best Picture

Be sure to check out our latest podcast episode! This year, we took our Best Picture Brewery Crawl to Salt Lake City while we were at Sundance. Salt Lake City's incredible brewing scene was a blast to experience the beautiful mountains were the perfect back drop for talking about the 10 Best Picture nominees!

Nominees

• Anora - Alex Coco, Samantha Quan and Sean Baker, producers (-200)
• The Brutalist - Nick Gordon, Brian Young, Andrew Morrison, D.J. Gugenheim and Brady Corbet, producers (+600)
• A Complete Unknown - Fred Berger, James Mangold and Alex Heineman, producers (+4000)
• Conclave - Tessa Ross, Juliette Howell and Michael A. Jackman, producers (+225)
• Dune: Part Two - Mary Parent, Cale Boyter, Tanya Lapointe and Denis Villeneuve, producers (+10000)
• Emilia Pérez - Pascal Caucheteux and Jacques Audiard, producers (+6500)
• I'm Still Here - Maria Carlota Bruno and Rodrigo Teixeira, producers (+8000)
• Nickel Boys - Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Joslyn Barnes, producers (+10000)
• The Substance - Coralie Fargeat and Tim Bevan & Eric Fellner, producers (+10000)
• Wicked - Marc Platt, producer (+4000)

Best Picture Tiers

Dune: Part Two [2024]

Tier 3: Happy To Be Here

Dune: Part Two, The Substance, Nickel Boys, I'm Still Here

Isaac: This is the happy-go-lucky tier where everyone is just excited to be present. But I think the most excited might be, me? Well, excited and frustrated. Excited because a genre film like Coralie Fargeat's body-horror, The Substance, is actually receiving attention from the Academy in multiple categories. Remember when Julia Ducournau's Titane won the Palme d'Or and was one of the best films of 2021, only to receive dust bunnies from the Academy (and general awards)? I remember! Not that awards are the end-all-be-all of filmmaking but the sheer presence of The Substance signals a shift in Academy thinking that should make for a much more exciting future, if the trend continues. But I'm also frustrated because as a certified Dunehead, Dune: Part Two is woefully underrepresented in this years awards season. Denis Villeneuve continues to defy gravity (the crossover we all want) with his adaptations of Frank Herbert's seminal work and Dune: Part Two is one of the best films of the year, and one of the best science fiction films easily this century. I don't think that's hyperbole, maybe I'm biased, regardless it's still delightful to see these four films nominated in general

Wicked [2024]

Tier 2: So You're Saying There's a Chance

Wicked, Emilia Pérez, A Complete Unknown

Hopster: What an interesting trio of films that are now considered the middle-of-the-pack nominees for Best Picture! All three of these might have had an inside or outside chance of crashing the party and winning big, but it seems that time has passed them by. Emilia Pérez (you know, the film that received 13 nominations out of the gate and was the preeminent frontrunner) has fallen out of contention for the top prizes almost entirely, which is certainly attributable to controversies that have been exposed in recent weeks (go ahead and Google it yourself if you’re interested); however, that fall from grace seems warranted since the film wasn’t worthy of that level of praise to begin with (see here if you have any more questions on that subject). Which brings us to Wicked and A Complete Unknown. Here are two films that came out after the film festival season concluded and instead premiered in theaters during the peak of the two winter holiday seasons. Both films proceeded to win over completely all the movie fans in your life looking for crowd-pleasing musical numbers and uncomplicated but still resonant and worthwhile movie-going experiences. I don’t say any of that to besmirch but simply to point out that boomers, dads, and Chalamet-stans turned A Complete Unknown into a modest hit, while musical theater kids of all ages and iPod-generation millennials came out in droves, elevating Wicked into being the 5th highest grossing film of the year even with a November release!! (sorry to Gladiator II, which was left in the Glicked dust). What’s holding all these films back from being on the upper echelon of the Best Picture race is a matter of perspective, but I’d argue the reasoning is simple – they’re a class below the remaining nominees. Maybe A Complete Unknown would be more seriously considered if the musical biopic wasn’t an exhausted genre. Maybe voters are keeping their powder dry and are gearing up to vote for next year’s conclusive sequel Wicked: For Good. Hell, maybe Emilia Pérez would have a better chance if… well, let’s leave that sentence right where it is. The point is that these three films cannot be ruled out of contention completely, just mostly.

Conclave [2024]

Tier 1: Heavyweight Contenders

The Brutalist, Conclave, Anora

Isaac: Each of these three thoroughbreds has led at one point or another in the Best Picture race this year. From Anora taking the Palme d'Or in Spring, to The Brutalist taking Venice by storm in the Fall, all the way to Conclave winning the coveted SAG Best Ensemble award mere days ago, all three films have positioned themselves for an incredibly tight finish. I've always been one to weigh the SAG heavily when it comes to Best Picture but, it's difficult to do when Edward Berger wasn't even nominated for Best Director. Meanwhile, Sean Baker and Brady Corbet are duking it out for who will take home the Oscar for direction, a strong endorsement of The Brutalist and Anora in terms of Best Picture odds. If Conclave were to win Best Picture, it would be the first film since Argo in 2013 to take home the top honors without a nomination in Best Director, and it is baffling that Ben Affleck wasn't nominated in 2012 and that Berger wasn't nominated here. It would also make this the fourth time in history that a Best Picture winner doesn't have the director nominated. Argo in 2013, along with Driving Miss Daisy in 1990, and Grand Hotel in 1933 are the only instances this has ever happened. So, while the SAG win is huge for Conclave, it's almost fighting against history to actually win Best Picture. However, we're dealing with ranked choice here, which means, excuse me while I start connecting red yarn all over my conspiracy theory bulletin board, that Conclave just needs to stay in the top three of most Academy members' ballots. I, personally, think there will be a lot of Academy members that are old and cranky and didn't care for Anora, and a lot of Academy members that are young and have the attention span of a goldfish and didn't care for The Brutalist (or didn't watch it). Therefore, I'm going to pick the movie I most medium suspect to win Best Picture, which would be Conclave.

Hopster: That's a compelling case and hard to push back against! I agree that rank choice voting will make or break the Best Picture race, which does seem like it would help Conclave the most. However, the big question we have to ask ourselves is how much of an outlier year this will ultimately be. In trying to read the tea leaves, do you feel more confident in Anora or Conclave winning some of the bellwether below-the-line categories or something bigger like Best Editing or Best Screenplay? It's hard to say, right? Many of these races are really, really close. And like Isaac mentioned, Berger didn't even make it in Best Director, which is a glaring omission that I'm having a hard time getting past. Taking it all into account, I still think Anora has the strongest case to win the top prize compared to these final three films. In the history of the Academy Awards, only eight films have won PGA, DGA, and WGA; of those eight films, seven went on to win Best Picture with the sole exception being Brokeback Mountain in 2005 (which is one of the most inflammatory Oscar outcomes in the history of its checkered history). Despite missing the BAFTA and SAG ensemble (two wins Conclave has picked up in recent weeks), Anora has built enough of a base that losing Best Picture would be a shocker in its own right. I'm placing my bets on this unpredictable year going chalkier than many might be expecting, and I'm going to roll with Anora.