This Year’s Oscar Winners Will (And Should) Be …

The run-up to the Academy Awards is a fun, ridiculous, and loopy monthslong stretch. It also encourages something vital to Hollywood’s artistic ecosystem: Movie studios, in the hopes of achieving Oscar glory, put money toward more stylistically challenging projects, rather than consistently aiming for the broadest common box-office denominator. But when the ceremony itself finally nears, I find myself desperate for it to be over—especially in a year like this one, when the Winter Olympics have pushed the Oscars into mid-March, extending what already feels like an endless trail of precursor events ahead of the ceremony. My primary note after this awards gantlet: Please hold the Oscars earlier next year.

My exhaustion with awards season itself, however, is mitigated by my appreciation of the films—2025 was an exciting year for cinema; the two Best Picture front-runners (One Battle After Another and Sinners) generated serious fanfare in a time otherwise fraught with industry drama and the politics of corporate mergers. One Battle has enjoyed overwhelming praise since its September release, but Sinners—which was in theaters nearly a year ago—has never faded from the conversation. The result is some down-to-the-wire races in several major categories.

Here are my final predictions of who will—and who ought to—take home the “big eight” awards this year, in advance of Sunday’s ceremony. Conan O’Brien is returning as host, and the broadcast begins on ABC and Hulu at 7 p.m. eastern time.  

Best Actress

Nominees: Jessie Buckley (Hamnet), Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I’d Kick You), Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue), Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value), Emma Stone (Bugonia)

This trophy has been Jessie Buckley’s to lose since Hamnet premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in August. A Best Picture nominee, the period romantic drama seems most likely to be recognized in this category, and Buckley is the perfect example of an ascendant star whom the Academy loves to reward. It helps that her work in Hamnet is very strong: heavy, steeped in personal tragedy, and deeply felt. My favorite performance of the year was Rose Byrne’s spiky and angsty portrayal of motherhood in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, but that movie is likely too polarizing for her to win. The prize is Buckley’s, her feelings about cats notwithstanding.

Who Will Win: Jessie Buckley

Who Ought to Win: Rose Byrne

Best Actor

Nominees: Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme), Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another), Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon), Michael B. Jordan (Sinners), Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent)

This could be the night’s tightest category, composed of a powerhouse lineup of five terrific actors. The pick seems to have come down to two inarguable Hollywood stars: Timothée Chalamet of Marty Supreme and Michael B. Jordan of Sinners. Both actors are fairly new entrants to the A-list, and equally committed to working with up-and-coming auteurs (Josh Safdie and Ryan Coogler, respectively); Chalamet’s and Jordan’s status helped get the directors’ blockbuster original features made. Each of them gave a masterful performance—Chalamet a loud blend of comedy and anxiety; Jordan playing twins, one a live-wire charmer and the other more smoldering. Awards prognosticators long presumed Chalamet to be ahead; he came close to taking the Oscar last year for the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, and muscled Marty Supreme to box-office success through his unorthodox approach to publicity. But momentum has shifted to Jordan in the closing weeks, thanks to his more subdued affect on the red carpets and a triumphant win at the Actor Awards earlier this month. Will that be enough? I’m leaning toward yes. The darkest of dark horses, though, is Wagner Moura, who was wonderful in the Brazilian thriller The Secret Agent. He gave a remarkable turn as a grieving political dissident, for which he collected a surprise Golden Globe, and the film itself is up for four awards—suggesting its popularity particularly among international voters.

Who Will Win: Michael B. Jordan

Who Ought to Win: Wagner Moura

[Read: The 10 best movies of 2025]

Best Supporting Actress

Nominees: Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value), Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value), Amy Madigan (Weapons), Wunmi Mosaku (Sinners), Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another)

This is another close contest, whose winner could be taken as an early indication of the Academy members’ preference for  Best Picture. Teyana Taylor is electrifying in the first act of One Battle After Another as the character who sets out the dramatic stakes, and her Golden Globes speech was a highlight of this awards season. Wunmi Mosaku’s performance as the estranged wife of one of the twins in Sinners is more quietly pitched, but, similar to Taylor, she is the movie’s emotional engine; she also won the BAFTA for Supporting Actress, and that voting body has significant overlap with the Academy. Still, the leader seems to be Amy Madigan, who provides the frightening punch of the horror film Weapons’ third act. Madigan is an esteemed veteran who’s been a wonderfully wry presence on the campaign trail, and many voters might respond to her comeback narrative: This is her second Oscar nomination, 40 years after she was recognized for Twice in a Lifetime. I’ll predict Madigan, but the relative weirdness of Weapons might keep her at bay—in which case Taylor and Mosaku would both be very worthy choices.

Who Will Win: Amy Madigan

Who Ought to Win: Teyana Taylor

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)

This category has seen a lot of twists and turns over the many moons of awards season. My personal favorite, the serene Benicio del Toro, won many of the critics’ prizes for his performance as the revolutionary sensei of One Battle After Another. Jacob Elordi’s sensitive take on Frankenstein’s monster, meanwhile, received the Critics’ Choice Award, and Stellan Skarsgård took the Golden Globe. Delroy Lindo was a delightful and unpredictable inclusion, earning his first career nomination after not really popping up in precursor contests. But Sean Penn has had all the momentum of late, which picked up after he won the BAFTA and the Actor Award. He plays the domineering, pathetically grim villain Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw in One Battle, a bold role that could net Penn his third Oscar—but if voters think he’s received enough flowers over the years, I think they’ll opt for Skarsgård, as something of a career acknowledgment.

Who Will Win: Sean Penn

Who Ought to Win: Benicio del Toro

Best Original Screenplay

Nominees: Robert Kaplow (Blue Moon); Jafar Panahi, Nader Saïvar, Shadmehr Rastin, and Mehdi Mahmoudian (It Was Just an Accident); Ronald Bronstein and Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme); Eskil Vogt and Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value); Ryan Coogler (Sinners)

Sinners may end up as the runner-up for Best Picture (at least that’s what the betting odds suggest), but it’s the front-runner for this award. Coogler is in pole position to collect his first Oscar in what promises to be a storied Hollywood career. The potential spoiler could be It Was Just an Accident, directed and co-written by the venerated Iranian auteur Jafar Panahi, which critiques his country’s repressive regime in wry, skillful fashion. But I think the desire to justly reward Coogler for his achievement will win out.

Who Will Win: Ryan Coogler

Who Ought to Win: Ryan Coogler

Best Adapted Screenplay

Nominees: Will Tracy (Bugonia), Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein), Chloé Zhao and Maggie O’Farrell (Hamnet), Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another), Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar (Train Dreams)

One Battle is an exceptional feat of adaptation that uses only the bones of Thomas Pynchon’s novel Vineland—one of the author’s more straightforward works, though hardly a simple one—to create a gonzo epic. The writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s film is wild, sometimes rip-roaringly funny, and at other times disturbingly trenchant; it’s also a good old-fashioned family melodrama. Anderson’s expert blending of such disparate tones probably makes him a shoo-in. The runner-up seems to be Hamnet, but that movie received softer support across the nominations (Buckley’s co-star Paul Mescal notably missed out), and Chloé Zhao already has two Oscars to her name.

Who Will Win: Paul Thomas Anderson

Who Ought to Win: Paul Thomas Anderson

[Read: The Oscars are rewarding Hollywood’s big bets]

Best Director

Nominees: Chloé Zhao (Hamnet), Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme), Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another), Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value), Ryan Coogler (Sinners)

Anderson is the favorite for Adapted Screenplay, but he’s probably even more of a lock for Best Director. He’s one of Hollywood’s most highly regarded filmmakers, and has four Best Picture nominations and 14 Oscar nominations total. Yet with zero wins, he’s considered overdue—especially because, as he’s aged (and as the Academy’s voting body has changed), Anderson has grown from an upstart outsider to a much more respected figure. He has a similar narrative to that of Christopher Nolan, who won in this category two years ago for Oppenheimer. Coogler has the slimmest of possibilities, but I think Anderson will pull ahead.

Who Will Win: Paul Thomas Anderson

Who Ought to Win: Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Picture

Nominees: Bugonia, F1, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Sinners, Train Dreams

One Battle After Another has essentially been the presumed winner since Oscar season began. Anderson’s film has amassed a daunting collection of critics’ awards and other trophies that usually suggest broad industry support, including top prizes from the Producers Guild, the Directors Guild, and multiple wins at the BAFTAs and the Golden Globes. The only thing that could work against it at this point is inertia—and enthusiasm for Sinners, a smash hit that picked up the most Oscar nominations this year and seems to engender a similar amount of love in the room at every industry event. Perhaps a major upset is coming, but One Battle has not been deterred from any big prizes yet.

Who Will Win: One Battle After Another

Who Ought to Win: One Battle After Another

*Illustration sources: A24 / Everett; Focus Features / Everett; Neon / Everett; Warner Bros / Everett