Oscars

Oscars 2025: Best Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress

Jeremy BeckOscars
Stellan Skarsgård in Sentimental Value; Amy Madigan in Weapons

Welcome to the Oscar categories you might actually be interested in! So far this week, we’ve analyzed some miscellaneous categories and some more robust technical fields. Now, we get to the good stuff—the supporting actor/actress races. Bonus points for both battles being somewhat competitive this year!

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

NOMINEES
Benicio del Toro—One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi—Frankenstein
Delroy Lindo—Sinners
Sean Penn—One Battle After Another
Stellan Skarsgård—Sentimental Value

WILL WIN
For most of the year this felt like del Toro’s race to lose, but then the actual awards started happening and his name never got called. Instead, the big winner thus far has been Penn, who claimed victory at both the Actor Awards (aka SAG) and the BAFTAs. His likeliest competition is Skarsgård, who won the Golden Globe; he’s a well-liked performer who’s never received an Oscar, whereas Penn already has two. But I used that logic the last time Penn was the favorite (in 2008 for Milk, when he defeated Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler), so I’m not getting burned by it again. The Academy just really likes giving trophies to Sean Penn, and I don’t see them stopping now. Penn takes it. Read More

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Oscars 2025: The Big Techies

Jeremy BeckOscars
Jacob Elordi in Frankenstein

Yesterday, we analyzed eight different miscellaneous categories for the upcoming Oscars. Today, we’re keeping things below the line, but these five fields aren’t miscellany; they’re big-time. Let’s get to it.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

NOMINEES
Frankenstein—Dan Laustsen
Marty Supreme—Darius Khondji
One Battle After Another—Michael Bauman
Sinners—Autumn Durald Arkapaw
Train Dreams—Adolpho Veloso

WILL WIN
This is one of many categories that presents as a faceoff between the year’s two heavy hitters, One Battle After Another and Sinners—though I wouldn’t rule out a Train Dreams upset, given that film’s enveloping landscapes. Still, One Battle After Another is the safe pick here; it’s quite expansive itself, and that closing car chase is a virtuoso piece of camerawork. Read More

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Oscars 2025: The Odds and Ends

Jeremy BeckOscars
A scene from KPop Demon Hunters

Behold, it’s the Oscars! And an unusually competitive Oscars at that! Over the next week, we’ll be analyzing the 21 feature categories (no offense, shorts), discussing our predictions and preferences. Am I deeply invested in who will or should win any particular Academy Award? Not really. But the Oscars still matter, in both a commercial and historical sense, and it remains meaningful to think about them, even if just as an excuse to complain about them.

Today we’ll be running through eight miscellaneous categories—the kind that can make or break your pool (are Oscar pools still a thing?). Let’s get to it.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

NOMINEES
Arco
Elio
KPop Demon Hunters
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain
Zootopia 2

WILL WIN
Did you know that Zootopia 2 was the biggest domestic hit of 2025? It somehow made more money than Minecraft, Avatar: Fire and Ash, and Superman. But the Oscars are less about financial success than cultural saturation, and no animated film was a bigger phenomenon last year than KPop Demon Hunters—a movie whose presence was so pervasive, Netflix even allowed it to appear in theaters for a few days. That’s a real breakthrough. Read More

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Oscars 2025: Nominations and Analysis

Jeremy BeckOscars
Brad Pitt in F1

Good is bad at the Oscars, at least when it comes to predictions. Gamblers and number-crunchers might be pleased about successfully prognosticating the Academy’s latest slate of honorees. But for those of us who prefer chaos to clarity—who hope that voters might mix in some genuine curveballs alongside all of their safe choices—a high hit rate is less cause for celebration than resignation. Oh, look, the Oscars nominated a bunch of movies everyone expected them to nominate. Again.

Not that this year’s slate of nominees provided a ton to complain about. The Academy’s picks may have been predictable, but they were hardly terrible; for the most part, voters nominated a bunch of good movies, good actors, and good artisans. They also highlighted a handful of foreign features and non-white performers. And they gave two nominations to Avatar: Fire and Ash and zero to Wicked: For Good. It could’ve been worse. Read More

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Oscars 2025: Nomination Predictions

Jeremy BeckOscars
Wagner Moura in The Secret Agent

Tomorrow morning, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce its nominations for their 98th awards. This will not be the most meaningful news item of the day, nor will it be the one most likely to flood you with rage; even the most devoted Best Original Song fetishists are sure to be more infuriated by real-world developments. In our era of state-sponsored terror campaigns and plotted territorial invasions, the annual ritual of complaining about the Oscars—the boringly safe choices, the bias and entrenchment, the so-called “snubs”—is less cathartic than quaint.

This doesn’t mean that the movies are a distraction; they’re the whole point. In the American utopia—i.e., the opposite of our current political moment—people spend far too much time getting far too angry about far too many dumb Academy choices. If we stop kvetching about the Oscars—which, despite my annual complaints, typically honor films that are at least pretty good—then evil has already won. Read More

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