Oscar Blitz 2025 – Who Will Win?

Well, the hard part’s over. Over the last five weeks, I was able to dive as deeply as possible into each of the 23 categories for this year’s Academy Awards. Incidentally, this will be the last year where there are only 23 of them, as next year we’ll be inaugurating the Best Casting contest. I wonder how that will play out, and how I’ll rationalize however I choose to judge it.

Tonight, however, is the easiest task of the season. I’ve put my thumb on every scale as far as my personal preference, but that no longer matters. All we have to concern ourselves with tonight is in predicting the actual results. Some of these predictions are far more obvious and simple than others, but in most cases, we can at least take an educated guess. If nothing else, maybe this will help you in your own personal Oscar pools (assuming you can read this and get your picks in at the last minute), and I always put my proverbial money (as opposed to literal money; I’m broke as fuck) where my mouth is, because for all my pontificating, I’m still just a fan, and I have no inside information.

For the last few years, I’ve done these predictions in video form, but that just wasn’t feasible this time around. Ironically, that video is the easiest to put together, but the compressed timeline due to the delay in nominations made it so I couldn’t plan on having the free time. As it turned out, I did keep ahead of pace for most of Awards Season, so I certainly could have done a video if I really wanted to, but spending the last week half sick sapped any motivation there might have been.

So, at least for this go, we’re back to classic style. I’ll go through each of the 23 categories in the order I covered them in the Blitz. I’ll link to the analysis, remind you all of my personal choice, and then provide whatever insight I can into what will actually emerge victorious.

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Visual Effects
This one is pretty straightforward. Dune: Part Two and Wicked Part One are the only Best Picture nominees up for this award, which by default eliminates the other three. When you place them side by side, Dune wipes the floor with Wicked (or maybe sweeps the floor with a broom). Also, it’s been something of a leitmotif for the Academy to sort of spread the wealth when it comes to the expanded Best Picture field, and this is the best shot Dune has at any hardware, so it’s pretty much a slam dunk.
Should Win: Dune: Part Two
Will Win: Dune: Part Two

Original Score
By contrast, Original Score is much harder to predict. In two of the four circuit awards ceremonies where we could get some information via precedent, the winning score wasn’t even nominated. Both the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice gave the award to Challengers, which only made it as far as the shortlist for the Academy. Of the other two, the BAFTAs chose The Brutalist and the Hollywood Music in Media Awards went with Emilia Pérez. The latter doesn’t hold too much weight with Academy voters (only Joker won this award and the Oscar, and it tied for its HMIM; Diane Warren has won Original Song twice), and the downfall of Emilia Pérez is almost total at this point. That only leaves The Brutalist if you’re going by previous results, which basically makes this a toss-up. Daniel Blumberg has gotten a lot of praise, but Volker Bertelmann is a recent winner, so we know the Academy likes his work. Also, given that The Brutalist will almost certainly get one of the major awards as its consolation prize for losing Best Picture, my gut says to go with Conclave, because it only has a legit shot in two other fields, one minor and the other major. This is probably my biggest reach of the entire ceremony outside of the Shorts.
Should Win: The Wild Robot
Will Win: Conclave

Supporting Actor
This one’s been over for a while now. Kieran Culkin has swept Awards Season, and deservedly so. There have been some rumblings of an upset for either Jeremy Strong or Guy Pearce, but the results speak for themselves. Whatever momentum they might be building is too little too late. Culkin already has the BAFTA, Globe, Critics’ Choice, and SAG awards to his name. No one has been able to put a dent in his perfect run, and on Sunday, he’ll reach the mountaintop with ease.
Should Win: Kieran Culkin – A Real Pain
Will Win: Kieran Culkin – A Real Pain

Film Editing
This is an extremely difficult one to call, because again, precedent leaves us with few options. Really, only one. Again, the Critics’ Choice Awards picked Challengers, which isn’t nominated, and most of the other outlets don’t concern themselves with the so-called “minor” technical and artistic achievements. The trade union that handles this, the ACE, is curiously not holding their own ceremony for another two weeks, so all we can do is see what they nominated. Two of their top prize contenders, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and Civil War, have no Oscar nominations at all, and a third, Dune: Part Two, is not up in this category. That leaves only Conclave and Emilia Pérez. Outside of International Feature, Emilia Pérez isn’t winning anything if it doesn’t relate directly to Zoe Saldaña, so by process of elimination, we have to go with Conclave, which did at least win the BAFTA, so it has a résumé. Had overall momentum not shifted to Anora over the past two weeks, I’d say that Sean Baker would take this as his personal participation trophy, but the tea leaves portend much bigger prizes for him.
Should Win: Conclave
Will Win: Conclave

Production Design
The Art Producers Guild divides feature films into multiple categories: Animated, Period, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and Contemporary. The respective winners this year were The Wild Robot, Nosferatu, Wicked, and Conclave. The rest of the awards circuit doesn’t go nearly that deep. The BAFTAs and Critics’ Choice both gave it to Wicked, and that’s as safe a bet as any. Given the way the team expanded the world of Oz and Shiz from what is essentially one set for the stage show, this makes a ton of sense. It was far from my favorite, but I completely get it.
Should Win: Conclave
Will Win: Wicked Part One

Cinematography
The American Society of Cinematographers had their annual awards last weekend, giving their top prize to Ed Lachmann for Maria and their spotlight award to Jomo Fray for Nickel Boys. The latter is bafflingly not nominated here, and the former has no chance, as apart from Visual Effects, tech awards are almost never won by single nominees. In fact, in the modern era, only Blade Runner 2049 took home this prize while not competing for Best Picture. So while the ASC is usually a reliable source, it can’t be trusted here. As for the rest of the circuit, the BAFTAs gave it to The Brutalist and the Critics’ Choice picked Nosferatu. I tend toward the latter here, as Nosferatu‘s camera work is much more memorable than The Brutalist, and the film is much more reliant on the visuals than its main competitor. This will be the only award that Robert Eggers’ film gets.
Should Win: Nosferatu
Will Win: Nosferatu

Best Director
If there was any justice in this world, it would be a lock for Coralie Fargeat, who was the most hands-on in a stacked field of jacks and jills of all trades. However, the writing is clearly on the wall here for Sean Baker. Brady Corbet had the early momentum, and there could still be some lingering affection for the fact that he made The Brutalist for about $10 million and has not personally profited from it. But when the Directors Guild had their say and gave it to Baker, along with the Producers Guild giving Anora its top honor, that was the sign that the winds had changed. Corbet could certainly pull the upset and no one would be too annoyed, but the shift has definitely happened.
Should Win: Coralie Fargeat – The Substance
Will Win: Sean Baker – Anora

Original Screenplay
Normally we can just look at the Writers Guild results and call it a day, but that’s not possible this time around. That’s because only two of the WGA nominees are in this set, Sean Baker and Jesse Eisenberg. Brady Corbet wasn’t nominated (though he was at the DGA), and the other two, Fargeat and the team behind September 5, are not part of the union, being that they don’t live or primarily work here in the States. This creates a true conundrum. Eisenberg got the BAFTA, while Fargeat received the Critics’ Choice Award. The Golden Globe went to Conclave, because they only have a singular category for screenplays, rather than the standard Original/Adapted split, so it doesn’t apply here. On the whole, I think this one is Fargeat’s to lose, because in addition to Best Actress, the Academy will want to show its appreciation for The Substance, even though it won’t win Best Picture. As for A Real Pain, it’s got Supporting Actor locked up and it’s not nominated for Best Picture, so the one win will have to do.
Should Win: A Real Pain
Will Win: The Substance

Sound
Another easy one. While there are essentially three musicals in the category, only A Complete Unknown emphasized the importance of both singing AND playing instruments on set, using era-appropriate equipment. This will likely be the only real shot the film has, and as I’ve mentioned before, the Academy likes to give something to as many Best Picture nominees as possible. This should be a lock.
Should Win: A Complete Unknown
Will Win: A Complete Unknown

Costume Design
Similar to the Art Directors Guild, the Costume Designers Guild splits their awards between Contemporary, Period, and Sci-Fi/Fantasy films. The respective winners were Conclave, Nosferatu, and Wicked. That’s the closest thing we have to a competition, because the BAFTAs and Critics’ Choice didn’t think twice about giving it to Wicked. Should be another clincher, and along with Production Design, the extent of Wicked‘s tally tomorrow night.
Should Win: Conclave
Will Win: Wicked Part One

International Feature
For reasons known but to God, the backlash against Emilia Pérez has not loosened its grip on this category, as it’s taken home the BAFTA, Globe, and Critics’ Choice awards. The illusion of competition was created by nominating Flow for Animated Feature and I’m Still Here for Best Picture and Best Actress, but the winning streak has held up in defiance of all logic, like a Frenchman making a film about a country he’s never been to about people he’s never interacted with. C’est la vie.
Should Win: The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Will Win: Emilia Pérez

Adapted Screenplay
This is essentially a two-horse race. Conclave took home the overall screenplay prize at the Globes and got the BAFTA, The Writers Guild gave it to Nickel Boys, but Conclave wasn’t eligible, because again, Peter Straughan is German and not part of the American union. This is something of a coin flip, because while trends would point to Conclave, you can’t count out Nickel Boys due to the size of the WGA’s membership (which certainly intersects with the Academy), and there’s that pesky participation trophy aspect of being a Best Picture nominee. While the film wasn’t nominated anywhere else but here, there was a sizeable enough voting bloc to get it onto the top list. I would assume those voters won’t abandon it now. Two years ago, Women Talking did win its lone contest so that the Academy could save face, but Past Lives fell short for Original Screenplay last year. My gut says that it will have strong support, but not quite enough, giving Conclave its highest profile victory.
Should Win: Conclave
Will Win: Conclave

Makeup and Hairstyling
If The Substance doesn’t win, I quit. Thankfully, it’s by far the easiest pick of the lot. It’s taken every major award this season, even the BAFTA, which is about the only token acknowledgement it got from the Brits, who notoriously don’t care for commercial or effects-driven films as far as their awards go. They even had a perfectly British film they could have fallen back on in the form of A Different Man, and they didn’t even nominate it. That’s how far beyond the competition The Substance is.
Should Win: The Substance
Will Win: The Substance

Live Action Short
The Short categories are always the hardest to call, because there really isn’t a way to judge based on Awards Season precedent, except for a slight hint in Animated Short from the Annie Awards and occasionally the BAFTAs. The only award winner I’m aware of in this category is Anuja, which won the Live Action competition at the Hollyshorts Festival, but that was an entirely different set of circumstances, because all that did was make the film eligible. Every other nominee also won a qualifying festival. The best we can do is to remember that the Academy likes to make a political statement or two with their picks, and the Short and Specialty categories are usually a good place. As such, I’ll go for A Lien, which also happens to be my personal preference, because we’ve seen the lengths Donald Trump will go to in order to enforce his hateful immigration “policies,” so a film about that crisis in action is as good an opportunity to extend a middle finger towards Orange Hitler as any.
Should Win: A Lien
Will Win: A Lien

Best Actor
I can see a world where Sebastian Stan gets the supreme upset victory just so the Academy can thumb its nose at Trump and give an Oscar to a film depicting him as the rapist failure he is. But it just won’t happen. Adrien Brody has almost completely swept Awards Season, taking home the Globe, BAFTA, and Critics’ Choice. His one defeat was last weekend with SAG, so there is at least a slight bit of suspense that Timothée Chalamet could shock the world, but I just don’t see it happening. Academy voters will want to ensure that The Brutalist leaves with something major for all of the effort put into its epic story, and this will be the prime spot to do so.
Should Win: Ralph Fiennes – Conclave
Will Win: Adrien Brody – The Brutalist

Documentary Short
The closest thing we have to Awards Season information here is the Critics’ Choice Documentary Awards. They gave the Short prize to The Only Girl in the Orchestra, making it the only nominee to win more than one award (at least according to their respective Wikipedia articles). It also beat out I Am Ready, Warden and Incident for that honor. But honestly, I can’t see it winning here. Well, scratch that, no, I can definitely see it winning. It just wouldn’t make any sense if it did. This isn’t like The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life from 2013, where musical ability had far-reaching effects, or last year’s winner, The Last Repair Shop, where we saw in plain life how dedicated people enrich the lives of others through music. Hell, it doesn’t even beat one of its fellow nominees, Instruments of a Beating Heart in communicating the essential nature of music. It’s just a nice love letter from a filmmaker to her aunt, and it pales in comparison with the others. It has Netflix’s backing, which has resulted in wins, but it would be a disservice to the other nominees to give it to such an inessential work. It would be especially egregious when compared to Death by Numbers. Hey, you survived a massacre at your high school, and showed remarkable bravery in confronting your would-be killer, but see, this lady who just retired and said over and over again that she didn’t want any accolades is going to win. Have fun with therapy! Yeah, I’m going to hope that the Academy has some common sense for once. If nothing else, we do have the precedent of If Anything Happens I Love You winning Animated Short a few years ago, so voters definitely are keyed in to stories about school shootings.
Should Win: Death by Numbers
Will Win: Death by Numbers

Best Actress
Of all the acting categories, this is the only one with any real intrigue and suspense. Fernanda Torres won the Globe for the Dramatic half of this equation. Mikey Madison has the BAFTA. Demi Moore won the Critics’ Choice and the Comedic side of the Globes. A lot was up in the air until last weekend, when SAG had their say. The union of nearly 130,000 members gave their laurel to Demi Moore, which should just about seal it. The Acting Branch of the Academy is the largest of the entire organization, with over 1,200 members. If there’s any correlation, Moore’s win should be finally assured.
Should Win: Demi Moore – The Substance
Will Win: Demi Moore – The Substance

Animated Feature
Far too often this category is treated like an afterthought, often with a winner determined well in advance. This year, the Academy’s individual branches certainly weighed in on their general preferences, giving The Wild Robot nominations for Original Score and Sound to go along with its place here, and giving Flow a nod for International Feature. The Awards Season results also paint an interesting picture. The BAFTAs gave two awards (Animated Feature and Best Children/Family Film) to Wallace & Gromit. Critics’ Choice gave it to The Wild Robot. The Golden Globes picked Flow. Memoir of a Snail won the Annecy Film Festival, the premier fest for animation around the world. So how do we break the tie? Well, we go to the Annie Awards. Their top two prizes went to The Wild Robot (Best Feature – Mainstream) and Flow (Best Feature – Independent), so it’s safe to say those are our two real finalists (sorry, Inside Out 2 fans). In my fantasy world, Flow wins International Feature instead of Emilia Pérez – hell, a Swiss man shitting down a ski slope set to film would be a better winner in my fantasy world – making this a moot point. Instead, it will have to put up its biggest fight here, and between these two, I just don’t see a world where a plurality of voters pick a movie with animals who don’t speak over one that does have talking critters, especially when said critters are voiced by their A-list friends. There’s not a bad pick to be had here, but it looks like Roz is taking it home.
Should Win: Memoir of a Snail
Will Win: The Wild Robot

Animated Short
This is the one Short category where I’m going to go against my own personal choice, because we actually do have some data on this one. Wander to Wonder won Hollyshorts over three of its competitors (all but Beautiful Men), the Annie Award over Beautiful Men and In the Shadow of the Cypress, and the BAFTA, which I’d normally take with a grain of salt because it’s specifically for British short films. Still, that’s more than enough precedent to say that it has the upper hand. There’s a chance that something more fanciful will take the prize, like Yuck! or Magic Candies, as a decent share of Academy voters still look at animation as a medium solely for kids, but I don’t think it’ll be enough.
Should Win: Magic Candies
Will Win: Wander to Wonder

Documentary Feature
Documentaries are always the hardest to predict, especially when the Academy’s Documentary Branch takes active steps to remove popular, crowd-pleasing entries. You know what documentary had the most wins during this Awards Season? Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story. It won the Producers Guild Award, the Critics’ Choice, AND the BAFTA, but it wasn’t even on the shortlist for the Oscar. Literally, the only relevant Awards Season result we have is Porcelain War winning with the DGA. Thankfully, though, the real world offers more insight than the stuffed shirts in the Academy’s most mercurial branch. Just a day ago, the fucking President and Vice President of the United States had the President of Ukraine in the Oval Office, only to berate and bully him on live television for not surrendering to Vladimir Putin and not “thanking” the U.S. enough (even though he’s publicly thanked us on at least 33 occasions over the last three years) for our aid as an ally before kicking him out of the White House for daring to defend himself and argue with facts. The entire world is calling us a disgrace for this behavior (for fuck’s sake the man is a wartime leader and J.D. Vance couldn’t get past him not wearing a business suit), with Europe further reinforcing their support for Ukraine and one of Norway’s largest oil and gas companies deciding to no longer provide fuel for our navy. DIPLOMACY! So yeah, it’s quite clear that Trump continuing to be Putin’s bitch boy still rubs a LOT of people the wrong way. This latest embarrassment took place after the voting deadline, but something tells me that won’t matter. The last two winners of this award were films that extended a middle finger to Putin – and Trump by extension – and I don’t see things being any different this time around.
Should Win: Porcelain War
Will Win: Porcelain War

Supporting Actress
The compromise that’s taken place with regards to Emilia Pérez is two-fold. One, it’ll still get International Feature because most viewers don’t care about foreign films, plus it being on Netflix makes it the most accessible (though Flow is now available on Max, just sayin’). The other is that Zoe Saldaña has enough goodwill in Hollywood that we can kind of forgive her for being part of this, especially since she’s appropriately distanced herself from her bigoted co-star and ignorant director, so anything she does in the film is still “allowed” to be celebrated, and the idiotic voters who gave the film 13 nominations can save face by awarding it something tangible. Thus, Saldaña has swept Awards Season, taking the Globe, BAFTA, SAG, and Critics’ Choice awards. Even if this wasn’t a controversial film, she’d still be a lock, as she’s the one that everybody sort of got behind early as the one performer in all the acting categories who had “paid her dues” by being in so many franchise films, and that it was her “turn” to win something meaningful. Does she deserve to win for this performance? Fuck and no she does not. That said, she’s certainly not the first to benefit from this sentiment, and she sure as shit won’t be the last, so who am I to argue?
Should Win: Isabella Rossellini – Conclave
Will Win: Zoe Saldaña – Emilia Pérez

Original Song
In one of the weakest fields this contest has ever seen, the same concession that I just mentioned applies here. “El Mal” is Zoe Saldaña’s big “moment” in Emilia Pérez, and while the song sucks, the Stomp-esque choreography and Saldaña positioning herself to be eaten out by one of the dinner guests certainly made for the most memorable scene in the film. The song has pretty much run through Awards Season without a blemish, save for the HMIM award, which went to Diane Warren. As I mentioned, she’s won it before, and it hasn’t translated into an Oscar, nor should it. That said, given how terrible this group of nominees is, if there was ever a year for her to finally notch the victory – and hopefully go away forever; for Christ’s sake there’s even a self-serving documentary about her that just came out for her to potentially campaign on – this might be it.
Should Win: “Like a Bird” from Sing Sing
Will Win: “El Mal” from Emilia Pérez

Best Picture
The Best Picture race is a tale of two months. While Emilia Pérez got the most nominations, no one gave it a realistic chance to win, and it especially got tanked when people got to actually see it and realize how terrible it was. No, the real front-runner when the race began was The Brutalist, because it’s the type of movie that checks all the right boxes: well-acted, young director and writer telling a very personal story, Holocaust survival, superb production elements on a minimalist budget. But again, things changed when people finally started to watch it. It was far too long, and didn’t have nearly the pacing and intrigue that a movie like Oppenheimer or Titanic did to make the lengthy runtime worth it. The admission of using generative AI for certain elements also didn’t help matters, as that fact was hidden during the initial campaign. That turned a lot of people off, and as January turned to February, the damage was done.

At that point, pretty much all the momentum shifted to Anora. Sean Baker has spent the last decade building up goodwill, the film has that strong balance of drama and comedy, along with a star-making turn for Mikey Madison, and it deals with a touchy subject matter that Academy voters and Hollywood elites like to advocate for, but seldom get a chance to outright endorse. It got its first major victory with the Critics’ Choice Awards, then quickly picked up the top prizes with the DGA, PGA, and WGA, three of the four major American unions. The only one it didn’t win was SAG, who gave their Best Ensemble prize to Conclave. The BAFTAs also named Conclave as its top film, creating just a smidge of suspense, but most of that can be chalked up to pro-European bias. Despite having 10 nominees for the top prize, if my hunches are correct, only three will see anything significant in the way of an awards tally: Anora, Conclave, and The Substance. They’ll each get two, maybe three (Emilia Pérez will also get three, but it was long eliminated from actual contention), and the battle for Best Actress will be very interesting. But of the multiple wins that those films will get, Anora will get Best Director, while the other two will likely top out at the Screenplay level. That should be all the push needed to get Sean Baker to the top.
Should Win: The Substance
Will Win: Anora

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So there you have it. Those are my predictions. Nothing left to do but tune in tomorrow night and see how wrong I am. I’ll be back as always with the Live Diary, which will be continually updated as the ceremony plays out. I hope you’ll join me then!

Join the conversation in the comments below! Which category offers the most intrigue to you? What will be the biggest surprise win? Should the guilds wait until after the Oscars so as not to influence Academy voters with their results? Let me know! And remember, you can follow me on Twitter (fuck “X”) as well as Bluesky, and subscribe to my YouTube channel for even more content, and check out the entire BTRP Media Network at btrpmedia.com!