Hello, and welcome back to another installment of Poll Position with your humble host Jacob Holmes, where we track what movies are in the driver’s seat for the Academy Awards.
Today I am participating in the longstanding tradition of making way-too-early Oscar predictions that will almost certainly be far, far off by the time nominations come around.
At this point, the only real 2025 contender that I’ve actually seen is Dune: Part Two, which you can read a full breakdown of in our first-ever Poll Position segment.
Other than that, not many Oscar contenders have actually screened anywhere–much less so for my eyes. With that said, there’s not much to go on but who’s involved, basic plot details, and the occasional teaser.
I’m going to focus on the Best Picture race here, as its much too difficult to predict the races up and down the board, but I will throw in a few bonus predictions in the end.
Best Picture
As of now, there is only one movie that can be considered in the poll position for Best Picture, and that’s Dune: Part Two. While it has a long, long stretch of road ahead of it to actually take home the top prize, it is currently the most likely film to be nominated due to its incredible below-the-line achievements, impressive direction and it’s stamp of approval from critics and audiences alike. If Dune: Part One made it in the Best Picture lineup, it’d be crazy to think its superior sequel would miss the cut.
The only other challenger right now is A24’s Sing Sing starring Colman Domingo, who appears to me to be in the poll position for Best Actor. What gives Sing Sing an edge is that it has also been seen by critics, who have not only raved about it but specifically mentioned its Best Picture odds. And it will get a fresh round of buzz when it debuts in September—knowing A24, it will have a slow rollout that will have it buzzing for months right as Oscar season is heating up.
The film, based on a true story, follows a wrongfully imprisoned man who creates and leads a theatre group among fellow prisoners. The buzz around this gives strong Past Lives energy, which which was pegged as a Best Picture contender when it debuted at the Sundance Film Festival last year and rode that wave all the way through to the awards season.
While we’re on the topic of A24, a recent move is leading me to predict a second A24 film in this top 10: Parthenope from director Paolo Sorrentino. A24 just last week snapped up the rights to the film in what appears to be the studio’s bet for the coveted Palme d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival that kicks off this week. Not much is yet known about the film, but the last two Palme d’Or winners—Triangle of Sadness and Anatomy of a Fall—each garnered Oscar noms for Best Picture. Of course, A24’s Zone of Interest missed out on the Palme d’Or last year but actually earned a nomination alongside Anatomy of a Fall regardless.
Accounting for two A24 films already in the Top 10 appears to make it all the less likely that Civil War will make the cut, despite come critics praising it as a masterpiece. The movie has divided critics and audience alike and without resounding support seems unlikely as it is to garner a nomination. A24’s focus elsewhere would only add another barrier to overcome. Still, I do think the film could be recognized with a nomination for its impeccable sound design, and it’s too early to sleep on a supporting actor nomination for Jesse Plemons despite limited screen time. Look for him to make a run at a Screenage Wasteland Award regardless, alongside Dune’s Austin Butler.
Two movies that have not yet been screened but radiate Best Picture potential are Blitz and Conclave.
Blitz is going to be Apple’s big Oscar play of the year, following a group of Londoners during the city’s bombing in World War II. Director Steve McQueen has a previous Best Picture winner under his belt with 12 Years a Slave, and Oscar voters tend to eat up World War movies. Oscar favorite Saoirse Ronan leads the film and could pick up her fifth Oscar nomination for the role—or maybe for her other 2024 film The Outrun.
Conclave comes from director Edward Berger whose 2022 remake of All Quiet on the Western Front gave the only challenge to eventual winner Everything Everywhere All at Once. Conclave follows a group of cardinals in the Vatican as they seek to name a new Pope and is described as a thriller. The cast is stacked with Ralph Fiennes, John Lithgow, Stanley Tucci and Isabella Rosellini. Given the political and religious aspects to this thriller and high praise for the source material, this seems like as sure a bet as any to win over voters.
The Nickel Boys, based on the Pulitzer-prize winning novel of the same name, appears to be Amazon‘s main Best Picture contender. I had not heard of the book, but in researching it—yeah, this has all he makings of an Oscar contender. The story dives into a Florida reform school that for years abused African American boys and apparently even had bodies buried on its campus in unmarked graves.
Joining Dune: Part Two are two other sequels following up past Best Picture nominees: Joker: Folíe a Deux and Gladiator 2. I’m not sure how much room there will be in this Top 10 for sequels—if I had to bet, I would probably take Joker just on the back of that excellent trailer that debuted, plus the interest in Lady Gaga taking on the role of Harley Quinn. Then again, the folks at CinemaCon really dug that Gladiator 2 footage they got a sneak peek at. Who knows, maybe both sequels can fit in.
Searchlight is likely to make a push for Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain in the BP slot, with the film earning rave reviews out of Sundance. But it also appears to be putting some early effort into promoting Nightbitch starring Amy Adams, who could make a run for a Best Actress nomination if the movie is special.
There’s also The Apprentice starring Sebastian Stan as none other than Donald Trump. The film isn’t a comedy either—it will follow Trump in the 70s as a business and real estate mogul.
Two directors are showing off their self-financed films at Cannes this week, which should give us better insight into their Oscars chances. Francis Ford Coppola’s passion project Megalopolis will first need to overcome rumors of Coppola behaving badly, and bizarrely, on set and there have long been concerns that the film could flop. Kevin Costner will also debut part one of his two-part epic Western Horizon: An American Saga. Horizon presents a particular problem if Oscar-worthy, as both part one and part two come out this summer. If both films are strong, Part Two may be the more likely to garner awards. But it’s also entirely possible neither film sniffs the Oscar race.
Many people also have their eyes on Kinds of Kindness, which sees director Yorgos Lanthimos teaming up yet again with Emma Stone, a winning recipe at last year’s Oscars with Poor Things. I personally have my doubts that this anthology movie will make the mix simply due to the Oscars loving Lanthimos, and the screenplay promises to be more in the vein of weirder Lanthimos movies like Dogtooth and The Lobster, which didn’t have Oscars praise.
And then, frankly, there are the unknowns: Neon’s The End promises a golden-age apocalyptic musical. I have no idea how that will turn out, but sign me up! And one international film on many pundits’ radar is Emmanuelle which appears to be an erotic French film. It appeared on enough lists that I’m going to grant it a completely arbitrary spot on my Top 10 just as a flier.
What an exciting Oscars race we have before us! Here’s my useless Top 10 predictions which will almost certainly be very wrong. I am confident, however, in my top five making the cut. The bottom five are bigger swings.
- Dune: Part Two
- Sing Sing
- Blitz
- Conclave
- The Nickel Boys
- Partenhope
- A Real Pain
- Emmanuelle
- The End
- Megalopolis
Oddball Predictions
While I wanted to focus on Best Picture, I wanted to also go ahead and stake my claim on a couple of other categories with some more hot take picks. Plus some ScreenAge Wasteland Awards predictions.
I think Civil War has a sound design so impressive that it should go ahead and notch a nomination for the category. Everyone has been talking about the weight of the gunshots, regardless of their take on the movie.
Many people are predicting The Apprentice to notch a nomination for hair and makeup, but I am having a hard time seeing Sebastian Stan’s much more dramatic transformation in A24’s A Different Man missing out on a nomination.
Speaking of hair and makeup, what are the odds we can get Lisa Frankenstein some love at SAW? I don’t actually think we have that category, and it won’t get an Oscar, but the hair and makeup in that film is absolutely standout and deserve some recognition.
There’s some talk about Austin Butler and Jesse Plemons having a shot at Best Supporting Actor nominations—I’m not so sure myself at the Oscar odds, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them honored here among us Screenagers.
I have only locked in two “Best Movie Moments” for the SAWards: Timothee Chalamet riding the sandworm in Dune 2 and Plemons’ Civil War scene. I would be shocked if either of those two scenes missed out. I haven’t seen Challengers yet, but I understand that it, too, has a scene that will likely go down on that list but time will tell.
