Oscar Seasoning: The 2025 Nominations are Mostly Predictable and Dull

A couple of exceptions aside, this shortlist is bland and so very Oscars-esque.

You know what it’s like when you expect nothing and are still disappointed? This is me, most of the time, with the Oscars. You’d think I’d be used to this given that it’s in my job description to analyse awards season into oblivion, and yet I always find myself blinded by naïve optimism. It’s the hope that kills you. 2024 was a great year for film, and as always, the Oscars found a way to distil that into a display of meh.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some good choices here. Anora, The Substance, Nickel Boys, Sing Sing, and The Brutalist are all nominated in some capacity, but these were mostly seen as safe bets (the Nickel Boys Best Picture nod aside – wow, that film got screwed over.) The middlebrow consensus picks like Conclave and A Complete Unknown cleared up. Everything else, however? It’s just sort of… well, it’s the Oscars. Expecting risks is usually a futile endeavour. So, let’s get into it.

(You can read the full list of the 2024 Oscar nominations here.)

GOOD: THE SUBSTANCE

(Image via MUBI.)

I knew that none of my favourite films this year would get any nominations, so I was thrilled to see The Substance breaking through in a big way this awards season. It’s supremely rare for a horror film to get this kind of Academy attention, but even rarer for a horror-comedy that’s mostly body horror and a giant f*ck-you to Hollywood’s hypocrisies. The industry loves movies about itself but not usually films about how much they suck. But The Substance was tough to ignore. It was riotous and grotesque and an absolute blast to watch with a crowd.

It also helped that Demi Moore was present all season reminding people she’s charming and talented and was majorly screwed over by the business for decades. Her Golden Globes speech was both moving and succinct, and it helped to cement her narrative in a season where Best Actress has been a tough fight among at least a dozen contenders. Moore also brought with her director Coralie Fargeat, ensuring another year with at least one female nominee in that category, and the movie into Original Screenplay and Picture. Sadly, no nod for Margaret Qualley but damn if I’m not 100% Team Demi this season.

BAD: EMILIA PEREZ

(Image via Netflix.)

I won’t go into another rant hole about how much I hate this movie. We knew it was going to sweep the nominations. Netflix ran a campaign with Weinstein-esque efficiency and for some reason a ton of people love this one. Every year, there’s one Oscar frontrunner whose appeal eludes me but I usually understand why other people get it. Emilia Perez? Nope, it’s awful. I do not get what anyone sees in it. it’s badly made, morally reprehensible, gross in its portrayal of both trans and Mexican people, and the music sucks. Of course the Academy adored it.

Okay, let me be positive for a bit. Karla Sofia Gascon made history as the first-ever out trans performer to receive an Oscar nomination for acting. That is a huge deal and it’s potent in the midst of a hard-right anti-diversity political heel-turn that has continued to throw trans people down the toilet. I can’t say I have hope for the industry to use this moment as a stepping stone towards further trans inclusivity in front of and behind the camera. We’ve seen how Hollywood fell over itself to fall in line with Trump’s anti-DEI hate wagon. 2024 was a strong year for trans filmmakers like Jane Schoenbrun with I Saw the TV Glow, but of course they didn’t get recognition outside of critics’ circles. As with so much progress in the entertainment world, it feels like a case of two steps forward then one step back.

HUH: SEBASTIAN STAN GOT IN… BUT FOR THE WRONG MOVIE

(Image via A24.)

Sebastian Stan spent pretty much the entirety of 2024 reminding people that he’s actually a great actor. He gave a career-best performance in A Different Man, which led to him winning both the Golden Globe and the Best Lead Performance prize at the Berlin Film Festival. It’s one of my favourite films of the year and a sign of his prowess with tricky tones and prickly characters. I was so happy to see him get nominated… then they said it was for The Apprentice. Ugh.

Around the time that Trump got re-elected, I predicted to a friend that this would secure Stan’s nomination for The Apprentice, where he plays a young Trump on his rise to the top of the evil pile. She said that she felt awards voters would want to avoid political talk, either to stay out of the fascistic orange’s glare or because they’d be falling over themselves to appease him. Certainly, we’ve seen plenty of entertainment industry figures eager to suck at the teat but apparently enough AMPAS members wanted to make a statement. Remember, it wasn’t that long ago that Variety admitted they had trouble getting actors to talk to Stan for one of their segments because nobody wanted to rock the Trump boat.

And I do think this is a statement, because they had to make the choice between this and A Different Man (which got a make-up nom but sadly nothing else – justice for Adam Pearson.) They choose the one that wasn’t as well reviewed. Granted, it’s also a biopic and they love those, but this still feels pointed, right? A nom’s a nom and I’m sure he’s proud of himself, as he should be, but it’s another reminder that the Oscars will always pick the safer path, even if it gives them a chance to look dangerous.

Also, let’s be honest: Jeremy Strong got nominated for this movie because of Succession, not his performance. That and he’s popular with his fellow actors.

GOOD: FERNANDA TORRES

(Image via Sony Pictures.)

In 1999, Fernanda Montenegro made history when she became the first Brazilian nominated for Best Actress for Central Station. Her daughter just became the second. Fernanda Torres, a legend in her home country, is a highly acclaimed performer who had a bunch of critics’ awards to her name leading up to Oscar season for the drama I'm Still Here. When she won the Golden Globe over the likes of Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman, it felt like a breakthrough moment, and lo and behold, the momentum held up once voters got their ballots.

Directed by Walter Salles, who made Central Station, I'm Still Here is about the activist Eunice Paiva, who fought for answers after the forced disappearance of her husband, the dissident politician Rubens Paiva, during the military dictatorship in Brazil. It also stars Montenegro. International films can have trouble breaking through, and usually it’s only one a year that makes it to the Best Picture lineup, so many thought that Emilia Perez would be the only one to get in. Mercifully, that didn’t happen. Can Torres win the top prize? It’s tough to say right now since I would argue the momentum is with Moore, but stranger things have happened.

BAD: ALL THE OTHER BEST ACTRESS SNUBS

(Image via Roadside Attractions.)

Best Actress was always going to be a big fight this year. Where the men had maybe six major contenders lobbying for five slots, the women were far more numerous and made this a less certain category to predict. So, we had to watch a lot of painful cuts: No Pamela Anderson for The Last Showgirl, no Angelina Jolie for Maria, no Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Hard Truths, no Tilda Swinton for The Room Next Door, no Amy Adams for Nightbitch…

The cuts for Kidman and Anderson were the ones that stung the most for me. Granted, the former was a long-shot and the latter only began to feel tangible once she got the SAG nod, but they would have been excellent choices. I’d wonder if both were too nervy or off-kilter for voters but the frontrunner is Demi Moore’s body crumbling to pieces as blood sprays everywhere!

HUH: VOTERS SURE LIKED A COMPLETE UNKNOWN

(Image via Searchlight.)

A biopic did well with Oscar voters? Stunning, unheard of, what a shock. A Complete Unknown is exactly what you expect it to be as a young Bob Dylan biopic. It’s fine. Totally unspectacular. But it’s also a biopic set in the ‘60s about an iconic musician where the lead actor did his own singing so it was AMPAS catnip. Appealing to an old white male voter-base is sometimes like shooting fish in a barrel. So, we got a Timothee Chalamet nod, a Best Picture nod, a nomination for Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez, and James Mangold landed his first Best Director nom. If he was going to get it for a biopic, it should have been Walk the Line, but hey, the Oscars love playing catch-up. I am a bit surprised to see him get in over Edward Berger for Conclave, but both movies are also the epitome of the consensus pick. Everyone has these films at between number four and seven on their ballots, guaranteed.

GOOD: NO OTHER LAND

(Image via Yabayay Media and Antipode Films)

No Other Land is a documentary directed by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. They are a group of Palestinian-Israeli activists who have been resisting the forced displacement in the West Bank by the IDF. The documentary was filmed over four years and premiered at the 2024 Berlin Film Festival, where it won two awards. After its directors' acceptance speech called the oppression of Palestinians "apartheid" German politicians called the speech anti-Semitic, even though a Jewish man gave it. Yuval Abraham's family were forced to flee their home in Israel after a right-wing mob attacked them. It has no US distributor. And now, it's an Oscar nominee.

Films without distribution are seldom Oscar-nominated, and ones that are staunchly pro-Palestinian and criticize the Israeli government are even rarer, especially in the current climate. Remember the outrage directed at The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer last year when he, as a Jewish man, called out the bleak rhetoric and violence. There were people in his own industry calling him a bigot who should be stripped of his awards. So, there is clearly a strong and devoted level of support for No Other Land among the documentarians’ branch. They’re pushing against the grain. At the very least, I hope this helps the film get American distribution. It’ll be pretty hard for Zionists to try and bury it for now. Fight the occupation.

BAD: NOTHING FOR QUEER OR HARD TRUTHS?!

(Image via A24.)

Just because you knew it was going to happen, that doesn’t make it suck any less. Luca Guadagnino’s Queer really fell off with its awards season hype in the weeks leading up to the nominations. It just felt like there wasn’t a lot of true industry passion for what is admittedly a very messy and tough-to-embrace film. Still, Daniel Craig not getting into Best Actor feels especially unfair. What will it take for you lot to give him his dues?!

Mike Leigh has been an awards season favourite for many years now but Hard Truths never seemed to gain traction as a 2024 fave among the mainstream outlets, even though critics loved both the film and the lead performance by Marianne Jean-Baptiste. Was the drama, about a deeply mean and unlikeable woman who hates everyone and everything, too caustic for them? I wonder if this was a matter of timing. The film was infamously rejected by both the Cannes and Venice film festivals, despite Leigh being a regular for each event. It had a strong world premiere at TIFF but it definitely felt like a film that could have used, for example, the full gondolas and red carpet glitz rollout of the Biennale. Jean-Baptiste, at the very least, deserved more than what distributor Bleecker Street was able to give her. Oh well, at least we’ll get some good This Had Oscar Buzz episodes out of it.

HUH: DIANE WARREN STRIKES AGAIN

She will never let us be. Songwriter Diane Warren gave us some of the most beloved power ballads of the ‘80s and ‘90s, and she’s now a 16-time nominee for the Best Original Song Oscar. The problem? Most of her nominations for the past several years have been for crap songs in movies you haven’t heard of. Did you know she’d written a song with H.E.R. for the Tyler Perry movie called The Six Triple Eight? Anyone?

She is relentless (also the title of the documentary about her, for which she also wrote a song.) Warren wants to win this award bad. She has an honourary Oscar but nope, she wants the “real thing.” So, if that means she has to churn out a new mediocre ballad every year for movies that nobody has seen, so be it. The songwriters’ branch is notoriously tight-knit but also has a low voter turnout so if it turned out that Warren’s name was just pre-written onto every ballot, I wouldn’t be surprised. I’d be more sympathetic towards her hunger if the music was good but wow it so isn’t. Not one of these original songs from the past seven or eight noms can measure up to prime Warren. If it was another “If I Could Turn Back Time”, I’d be all for it. But all we get are the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos’ biopic’s ballad. That happened.

GOOD: WALLACE AND GROMIT

All hail Feathers McGraw, our own true king.

(Image via BBC.)

What were your favourite/least favourite/biggest surprises with the nominations? Let me know in the comments.