Our way-too-early Oscars 2025 predictions

With his 2019 film Joker, Todd Phillips managed to do what so many directors before him could not—get the Oscars to take films based on comic-book characters seriously. While big, noisy blockbusters from DC and Marvel always tend to do well in the technical categories, Joker also scored a directing nomination for Phillips and a nomination for Best Actor for Joaquin Phoenix, who would go on to win. It received a total of 11 nominations in all, including Best Picture. This year’s sequel, Joker: Folie À Deux, adds another genre to the mix of thriller, action, and superheroes. It also happens to be a musical. And we know how the Academy feels about musicals starring Lady Gaga, so that’s a plus too.

If Martin Scorsese can find late-career success with Killers Of The Flower Moon, one of the most celebrated directors of all time can do it too. Despite his recent track record (or lack of one—he hasn’t directed a film in more than a decade), Francis Ford Coppola makes a return to cinema with his long-gestating Megalopolis. The film, about an architect who sets out to reshape New York City into a utopia after a disaster, is a massive passion project that he’s been thinking about since the 1980s. That’s almost as intriguing as its stacked cast of big-name stars, which includes Adam Driver, Forest Whitaker, Nathalie Emmanuel, Laurence Fishburne, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jason Schwartzman, Dustin Hoffman, D. B. Sweeney, and Giancarlo Esposito. Sure, there have been reports of turmoil behind the scenes, but that’s just part of Coppola’s process (it didn’t hurt Apocalypse Now). With only one teaser image to base our opinion on, we’re basing this prediction strictly on optimism and our imagination.

Kieran Culkin has the opportunity to parlay his awards streak for his captivating performance as Roman Roy in the final season of Succession and take it to a whole new level with his next project, A Real Pain. After a celebrated premiere at Sundance this past January, the sophomore directing effort from actor-turned-filmmaker Jesse Eisenberg is already gaining momentum. That’s the same path that Past Lives took to get to the Oscars this year, and that film wasn’t the first to do so. So there’s some precedent here, is what we’re saying. Culkin and Eisenberg star as estranged cousins who take a trip to Poland together in honor of their beloved grandmother. What starts as a tour of historical sites becomes an opportunity to air long standing personal and family grievances. It’s the kind of performance-dependent character study we can easily see Academy members warming up to.

This drama about a former war correspondent and her messy relationships will be director Pedro Almodóvar’s first feature film in English. That’s already an interesting twist before you even take into consideration the film’s cast, including Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, and John Turturro. On paper, The Room Next Door seems to have all the elements it takes to make it to Oscar night. The Academy has always had a soft spot for the Spanish director, and they’ve been increasingly inclusive of international features in the major categories in recent years. His last film, Parallel Mothers, earned Penélope Cruz a nomination for Best Actress, and many predicted she’d win it too (she wound up losing to Jessica Chastain for The Eyes Of Tammy Faye). We wouldn’t be surprised to see any of the three stars here wind up with a performance nomination, but Almodóvar could be in the running this time too.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus has done some first-rate dramatic work in independent films in recent years, including her underrated performance in You Hurt My Feelings last year. But you’ve never seen her like this before. Maybe because there’s never been a movie like Tuesday before. First-time filmmaker Daina Oniunas-Pusić weaves a modern fairytale about a mother and her terminally ill daughter who are visited by death in the form of a grizzled, magical macaw. It’s pretty heavy material, there’s no getting around that, but that’s never bothered the Academy before. Whatever happens this year in terms of awards, this role ought to be transformative for Louis-Dreyfus’ career going forward.

Every Oscars race has to have a sentimental favorite, right? A crowd pleaser. A money maker. Something for the viewers at home. It can’t all be doom and gloom, after all. We already got a little preview of what might be in store in 2025 during this year’s ceremony, when Wicked stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande came out to present a couple of awards in color-coded attire evoking their characters, Elphaba and Galinda. Based on the trailers alone, the film looks to have an elaborate production design to rival the hit Broadway musical it’s based on, and there’s a good chance it could also land in at least a few other technical categories too, like costumes, hair and makeup, or sound. So yeah, we think it’s quite possible Erivo and Grande might be back on the stage next year to represent their multi-nominated film, and could even be nominees themselves. As someone told us lately, “Everyone deserves the chance to fly.”