Believe it or not, the 2025 movie awards season is not over. It finally comes to a close with the Academy Awards on Sunday, March 15. Each year, I make predictions for every major category to wildly different results. Ever since the Academy vastly expanded membership, the Oscars have become increasingly unpredictable, but I still like to try.
The expansion of the voting base has allowed for movies of all kinds to possibly win cinema’s biggest award. In the past few years, a foreign language film (Parasite) has won Best Picture, and insane and edgy stuff like Everything Everywhere All at Once and Anora have won. Some people might look at these and think, “Those movies just don’t seem like the Best Picture winners of the past.” And that’s exactly what the Academy is going for. “Prestige” films are no longer a shoe-in, and stuff that would normally only get accolades from minor awards shows and area critics associations are now in the big race.
This has made predicting things much more difficult, but it’s also made for a lot more crossover between my personal favorites and the nominees. This year, six of my top ten films are also nominated for Best Picture. And there’s only one nominee that I actively disliked (F1: The Movie), though I understand why it was nominated. (Cars go “vroom!” just isn’t enough for me to love a movie, but I do concede that the filming of the races in that film is impressive.) To put it another way, the Academy now nominates movies I like. A film like Sinners (my favorite of the year), which broke a record for most nominations for a single film, would most likely have only received nominations in technical categories twenty years ago, if any.
All of this is to say these predictions are not meant to be anything but fun, and it’s more of a chance for me to slightly comment on a few categories. I’ll break each category down in three ways: I will make my prediction for the winner, I will make my personal pick among the nominees, and I will name my favorite overall, whether it’s nominated or not. Sometimes all three will be different; sometimes they will be one film. In the interest of keeping this reasonably short, I’ll only make some slight comments on the bigger categories.
I will not be listing every single nominee because that would take up too much space, and I’m too lazy to do that. So feel free to just Google the nominees.
Cinematography
Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - One Battle After Another
Original Score
Prediction - Sinners
Pick and Favorite - Bugonia
Original Song
Original Song
Prediction - KPop Demon Hunters
Pick and Favorite - Sinners
Visual Effects
Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - Avatar: Fire and Ash
Original Screenplay
Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - Sinners
This is where I start getting very conflicted. I feel like Sinners could win almost every category it's nominated in, or they could only give it Original Screenplay while One Battle wins everything else. I’m just going with my gut on this one, but Sentimental Value could sneak in this one, too, but the Academy will likely feel good enough about just giving that film Best International Feature.
Adapted Screenplay
Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - One Battle After Another
One of the few picks I feel 100% confident about.
Documentary
Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - The Perfect Neighbor
Full disclosure, this category is a big blindspot for me, and The Perfect Neighbor is the only nominee I watched. But it’s very good. Check it out on Netflix if you haven’t already.
Animated Feature
Prediction and Pick - KPop Demon Hunters
Favorite - Predator: Killer of Killers
International Feature
Prediction - Sentimental Value
Pick and Favorite - The Secret Agent
I would love to see a little upset here for The Secret Agent, one of my favorite films of the year. But it seems like the Academy is big on this one, so I think it will go with it here, and it might get Best Supporting Actor, as well.
Supporting Actor
Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - Sean Penn
This is the most coin-toss category of the night. Jacob Elordi is the only nominee that would truly surprise me with a win. Penn has been winning the big awards leading up to this, picking up the BAFTA and the SAG Award, so that’s my reasoning. But I’d be happier if del Toro or Lindo won. Skarsgård is a strong possibility, too.
Supporting Actress
Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - Amy Madigan
I could see this also going to Wunmi Mosaku or Teyana Taylor, but I’m banking on Madigan since Weapons got snubbed elsewhere this year. And she’s great.
Actor
Prediction - Michael B. Jordan
Pick and Favorite - Wagner Moura
Until a few days ago, Chalamet would’ve been my prediction. He’s great, and he still could win, and deservedly so, but he didn’t win the BAFTA or the SAG, and Jordan won the SAG, so I think it goes to Jordan, which would be awesome, anyway, since he pulls double duty in Sinners and truly made each character unique.
Actress
Prediction - Jessie Buckley
Pick and Favorite - Rose Byrne
This is one of the only locks, apparently. Buckley is great in Hamnet, but that film is just too miserable for me. Byrne is amazing in an equally tough to watch film. But Buckley has been winning pretty much everything so far, so odds are it’ll be her.
Director
Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - Paul Thomas Anderson
This and Best Picture are giving me the most trouble this year. I could truly see this going any number of ways with One Battle and Sinners. I’m thinking it’ll be a split this year, honoring Anderson for the current film along with an amazing career, but giving Sinners the top prize. Or it could be vice versa. Or either film could win both. If it’s not the split I predict, then I think it’ll be One Battle winning both awards.
Picture
Prediction, Pick, and Favorite - Sinners
I pretty much laid out my thoughts on this in the Director category. I’ll just add that I loved Sinners, and it will be the film from this year that I revisit the most in the future. I hope it wins.
So there you go. I have no faith in these predictions, but it’ll be fun to see how badly I do on Sunday night. Also, Conan O’Brien is hosting again, so there should be plenty of off-beat weird humor during the show, as well.
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