Morgan Neville recently directed a feature documentary for Netflix titled Breakdown: 1975 that examines what an extraordinary year 1975 was for American films and television.
It’s hard to believe that so many amazing and iconic movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, Nashville, Jaws, and The Conversation were all released during the same 365 day period in the mid-1970s.
The intended effect of this documentary is for viewers to “ooh” and “ahh” at what an impressively stacked year 1975 was for Hollywood. But the unintended effect of watching Neville’s documentary is to get depressed about the quality of recent movies and the current state of the U.S. film industry more generally.
There are so many unsettling, unprecedented and deleterious trends affecting the entertainment industry. We see it on an almost daily basis. To name a few – the shuttering and obsolescence of multiple movie theater chains, the dumbing down of scripts for viewers who are watching movies on their phones, the Trump Administration bullying companies like Netflix, Paramount/CBS, and Disney/ABC.
The list above does not even mention the government pressuring Amazon Prime to spend tens of millions of dollars to make a puff piece documentary film about First Lady Melania Trump. To add insult to injury, the Melania film was directed by a man accused of sexual harassment and assault by numerous women – even before his name and image appeared all over the Epstein Files.
If these gloomy developments were not enough, the rise of AI is likewise generating seismic ripples, the effects of which are being felt throughout the industry. Their potential harm to the creative filmmaking process has yet to be quantified.
The film industry’s past few years have clearly not mirrored the heady creative times of 1975, which in retrospect was clearly a ‘golden age’ for Hollywood movies. That being said, the particular crop of Oscars 2026 film contenders is exceptionally good when compared to recent years’ nominees. In fact, these films have convinced me that Hollywood is still making some good films. Ones worth watching.
Time to Stop Whining: 2025 Films Were a Cut Above Recent Years
I myself have been among those moaning about recent Oscar winners that simply didn’t measure up to the high standards of prior decades.
To take one example, The Brutalist (2024) had great aspects to it and contained some very timely themes, but the second half of the film dropped off sharply in quality and I struggle to even remember much about the film outside of Adrien Brody’s impressive performance.
Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water (2017) was also a fantastical and creative film, but was marred by the overuse of cliches and a treacly sentimentalism – both of which I’m fine with if earned, but not if I’m feeling manipulated, as I was with The Shape of Water.
The film Crash (2004) seems to be on everyone’s list as a Best Picture winner that was not only unworthy of the prize, but wasn’t even a good film to begin with.
Rather than go down a rabbit hole of negativity about past unworthy Oscar films and the sorry state of the Hollywood film industry, let’s enjoy what was an objectively good year for films both large and small. While we can still see films on a large screen that are well acted, written and directed, maybe we should just stop and smell the roses (I don’t mean the film The Roses) and enjoy them while we can.
So, the following Academy Awards movie preview is a list of the major categories for the upcoming Academy Awards Ceremony to be hosted by Conan O’Brien on March 15. As with any fluffy Oscar movie predictions article, I’m not going to reinvent the wheel: I’ll tell you who was nominated for each of the major categories, who I think SHOULD win, and forecast who I believe WILL win.
I have no doubt that I may be wrong multiple times about the films likely to win Oscars – but hey, that’s part of the fun of picking Oscar winners. Wager real money at your own risk!
Here we go…
Best Supporting Actress – The Stars Are Aligned for Amy Madigan
Two film genres that often have trouble getting recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – the body which bestows the Oscars – are Comedy and Horror films. And while there aren’t any big comedies represented in most of the major awards this year, there are some Horror films that have been recognized, and I mean, big time.
Sinners is a vampire film with the prerequisite big fangs and puddles of blood. But it’s so much more. It’s a parable where the undead represent white supremacy, ready to drain the life out of the main characters who are black businessmen trying to attain their dreams of financial success by opening a nightclub. Sinners has been nominated for more Oscars than any film ever — with sixteen nominations.
Weapons is also a horror film that has garnered some nominations and which was an incredibly fun watch. Weapons is scary and funny and visually exciting. All elements work together very well and the story is elevated by Amy Madigan’s great turn as a modern day witch with a truly bizarre look.
Both Madigan from Weapons and Wunmi Mosaku from Sinners are probably the frontrunners in this category of Best Supporting Actress. Mosaku plays a character who is the estranged wife of Michael B. Jordan’s character, Smoke, and who recognizes early on that there is a threat lurking nearby. She tries to keep Smoke safe. As far as I’m concerned, Mosaku should get the Oscar in this category. She is an incredible presence even though she doesn’t have a ton of screen time.
However, I think Amy Madigan will win the Oscar this year since the Academy likes to reward beloved actors who have been passed over in the past. Amy Madigan lost Best Supporting Actress once previously (to Anjelica Houston) in 1985 when she was nominated for her role in Once in a Lifetime.
Many members of the Academy and film lovers also thought she should’ve been nominated for her performance in the beloved baseball film Field of Dreams in 1989. So, Madigan has been passed over twice before and it seems probable that the Academy will reward her this time.
Teyana Taylor is also a serious contender for Best Supporting Actress for her role in One Battle After Another. She’s fabulous as the revolutionary love interest of Leonardo DiCaprio’s main character. In fact, the betting market Kalshi has Taylor’s odds of winning as higher than the other nominees. But her film One Battle After Another will likely win the larger categories, so an actress from Sinners could get the nod here.
Both Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas and Elle Fanning are great in the wonderful Norwegian film Sentimental Value. Because Stellan Skarsgard has a real shot at winning Best Supporting Actor, however, and the film itself could win in the Best Foreign Language category, I believe it’s unlikely that Lilleas or Fanning will take away this prize.
Sentimental Value is simply strong enough across several major Oscar categories that my best guess is that neither Fanning nor Ibsdotter Lilleaas is likely to take this particular award. I’m not saying that the award distribution pattern necessarily works like this, but it often seems to do so.
Best Supporting Actor – Sean Penn’s Colonel Lockjaw Is Likely to Chew Up the Competition
Let’s begin here by talking about Stellan Skarsgard, who plays the patriarch of a broken family in the foreign film Sentimental Value referenced above.
Skarsgard should win this award based on his performance alone, and actually has a good shot at it. The Academy likes to reward older actors who have built great bodies of work over decades. For example, Paul Newman finally won an Oscar for his role in The Color of Money in 1987 after a lifetime of roles in a huge number of great films.
But, let’s face it, Stellan Skarsgard is not nearly as well known as actors like Newman or Anthony Hopkins who have won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar award in the past. He nevertheless is a great actor and his performance in Sentimental Value is extraordinary and textured.
Skarsgard plays a man who left his family years before and returns after the death of his ex-wife. He then has the challenge of reconciling a fraught relationship with his two daughters. Skarsgard doesn’t play the role either as a bad guy or a good guy. Instead, he plays this character simply – and powerfully – as a human being full of flaws. What the viewer sees is his charm and stubbornness and it feels so real and true to life that you get sucked into his performance.
On the other hand, Sean Penn is also great as the antagonist, Colonel Steven Lockjaw, in One Battle After Another. His is a tour de force performance, and I think Sean Penn probably has a better chance of taking home the prize here. But nuanced his role is not. Penn plays Lockjaw essentially as a two-dimensional villain lacking any kind of nuance or psychological complexity – almost like a character out of “Dick Tracy” (does anyone even remember what Dick Tracy is anymore?).
Even though Penn’s acting in this role is not subtle, we all know there are people like Lockjaw out there and it’s fun to see them portrayed on screen occasionally. I will not be upset if Penn wins because he delivers so much fun to the audience in this performance, but my hope is that Skaarsgard will get the Academy Award.
Jacob Elordi – who many know from the HBO series Euphoria – also has a chance of winning as The Creature in Guillermo Del Toro’s fantastic Frankenstein adaptation. Elordi does awesome work and deserves great praise, but I don’t think his performance is quite on the level of acting prowess as are Skaarsgard’s and Penn’s.
Voters might still decide that Elordi should be the new “It Guy” leading man and choose him, so we’ll see. Elordi’s career trajectory seems to be on the rise, as he is now making people swoon with his performance as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights.
Delroy Lindo and Benicio Del Toro – also nominated for their performances in Sinners and One Battle After Another respectively – both have an amazing body of film roles and are strong in these parts, as well as in their many past roles. They too are each deserving of an Oscar, but I don’t think either will get the statuette here.
Del Toro is terrific and funny in One Battle After Another but he also has a mellow vibe, which could work against him. Lindo’s character is definitely not mellow, but I think the competition in this category is just too stiff this year. I’m not hearing a lot of buzz for either of these talented actors – regrettably.
Best Actor – Leonardo DiCaprio Won’t Win His Second Statuette
This is one of the few big categories where I haven’t seen all the films that have been nominated. I haven’t gotten to The Secret Agent with the terrific Brazilian actor Wagner Moura. I have heard great things about the film and his performance, but I can’t comment other than saying that I don’t think he’s going to win.
I have a soft spot for Ethan Hawke this year because I just love the subject matter in the film Blue Moon. For those who don’t know, the director Richard Linklater has been waiting decades for his frequent collaborator Hawke to get old enough to play Lorenz Hart in this script. Hart was the lyricist for composer Richard Rodgers for many years in the 1920s and 30s before Rodgers dumped Hart in favor of Oscar Hammerstein II, who became his new artistic collaborator. The rest, as they say, is musical theater history.
As great as Rodgers and Hammerstein were as a show writing team, Rodgers and Hart were no slouches either, writing many fine and highly acclaimed musicals together along with a number of timeless songs like ‘My Funny Valentine’, ‘Blue Moon’, ‘The Lady is a Tramp’, ‘Thou Swell’, and many others.
After Rodgers and Hart’s artistic separation, Lorenz Hart underwent a sad fall from grace. Hart drank far too much and he floundered professionally. He also grappled with personal demons as a result of not being “out” about his sexuality. Sadly, he died from pneumonia at 48 years of age.
Hawke is fantastic in Blue Moon and my heart (no pun intended) wants him to win. The movie is dramatically engrossing and has one setting – Sardi’s Restaurant in Manhattan, NYC – so that it almost feels like a stage play. It’s a ‘small film’ in that respect, and that might be the thing keeping Hawke from winning his first Oscar. He has been nominated twice in the past for his roles in Training Day and Boyhood. Like Amy Madigan, he has built up a respected body of work. The ‘smallness’ of Blue Moon aside, Hawke just might win.
Many people who I know and respect did not like the film Marty Supreme. However, there was much that I liked about it, including the look of it, the casting of peripheral characters with notable character actors and even directors like Abel Ferrara, and ping pong as a subject matter. Confession: Perhaps this is because I used to play ping pong with my brother in our basement for hours on end as a kid!
As entertaining a film as I think Marty Supreme is, Timothee’ Chalamet elevates the material even more. Chalamet is fun to watch, entertaining, full of energy, and clearly had a great time with the role. He should – and will – win the Oscar for Best Actor.
That’s to take nothing away from Leonardo DiCaprio, who has won an Oscar in the past (for The Revenant in 2016). But DiCaprio, who I don’t always love, is so good in One Battle After Another as a lapsed revolutionary single father who has smoked way too much pot over the years that I actually think there’s a chance that he might take home his second Best Actor Oscar this year.
DiCaprio is more likeable in this unusual role than he has been in a lot of other films, and a lot funnier too. His performance and delivery really made me laugh a lot, legitimately. Michael B. Jordan is also fantastic playing twins in Sinners. Jordan is one of America’s best actors and a major movie star, but I don’t see him winning this year, maybe partly because some Academy voters will see the twin thing as gimmicky. But we shall see.
Best Actress – Jessie Buckley, Get Thee To An Oscar-Winner Party
Jessie Buckley seems destined to walk away with the Best Actress Award, and I don’t think there will be an upset here. Buckley is amazing in Hamnet going through many dizzying emotional highs and lows through the course of the film. She really should win, and will win, this award. In addition, she just seems like a lovely person (and has a great accent), which always helps you root for someone.
Her closest competitor for the Best Actress award, Rose Byrne, is brilliant in the dark drama, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You. It’s a brutal film to watch at times. For those who haven’t seen it, it doesn’t feature a character without legs. It’s about the trials and tribulations of being a long-term caretaker for a severely ill family member, which many people these days can relate to with either aging parents or kids with disabilities.
My view: people should see this film even though it’s quite upsetting. It should also be said that the fact that the film’s director, Mary Bronstein, wasn’t nominated for the Best Director award has been interpreted as a snub toward Bronstein by the Academy.
In my view, Bronstein made some risky choices with this film, and should be applauded for making a movie that doesn’t ‘cop out’ by searching for false sentimentality or some kind of a silver lining for the characters and their extremely difficult situation.
Renate Reinsve was a powerhouse in Sentimental Value who could be a surprise dark horse, though.
In addition, I really loved Bugonia with Emma Stone. Stone is dramatically on-point, funny and entertaining in Bugonia, as she so often is. The director, Yorgos Lathimos, is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I appreciate his weirdness and uniqueness. Making films that are derivative of other movies – something that Lathimos doesn’t often do – is to work at a much lower degree of difficulty than Lathimos does.
Kate Hudson was highly engaging in Song Sung Blue and she could be a good surprise Best Actress winner. A win by Hudson would fit in with an impressive comeback narrative for her following a period of several years in which she had become the butt of a lot of unnecessary insults in the industry – for whatever reason.
Hudson’s acting has gotten better and better over the years and she can really sing. She holds her own with Hugh Jackman in Song Sung Blue, which is an impressive feat in and of itself!
Best Director – The Winner Should and Will Be Paul Thomas Anderson
This category is really a two man race for the 2025 nominees – and yes, every nominee but one is a man.
Chloe Zhao –the lone female nominee here – did amazing work in Hamnet. This is a film that has many beautiful and sad moments that strongly affect the viewer. I didn’t think Hamnet was as cohesive a film as it could have been, plot-wise, but I’m glad that it has been recognized with many nominations.
There’s a scene near the end of Hamnet that really made my eyes well up with tears. I can’t say that for any other film that came out last year. However, despite those virtues I don’t think Zhao is going to win this time. She already has an Academy award for the Frances McDormand vehicle Nomadland that came out in 2020, so it’s unlikely that the Academy will give her a second Oscar in less than a decade.
Personally, I greatly enjoyed Marty Supreme as I mentioned earlier, but some of the rumors that came out about the Safdie brothers creative “break up” aren’t going to help Josh Safdie’s cause.
Director Joachim Trier did terrific work on Sentimental Value and is definitely deserving of both the nomination and a win. For a film that is set in one house for much of the movie, it never gets dull to look at, and he has also coaxed some splendidly moving and authentic performances from his entire cast.
That being said, I believe it is essential to mention that it is truly a snub by the Academy against Guillermo Del Toro that the famed horror film director did not get an Oscar nomination for best picture. Del Toro’s Frankenstein – reviewed in depth on this site in December – is a great film and it far exceeded my expectations.
Now, to be absolutely honest, I didn’t love Del Toro’s Shape of Water, as mentioned above, which won a Best Director Oscar in 2018. Del Toro has one of these prizes already, so let’s not feel too bad for him. But with that aside, Frankenstein is pure cinematic art and very moving for a horror film. My biggest gripe with Frankenstein is the ice surrounding the shipwreck in the early scenes looks kind of fake, and not very cold. But maybe that’s just me. Del Toro might’ve received a nomination if 2025 wasn’t such a strong overall year for movies.
As I mentioned earlier, the Best Director category is a realistically a two person race this year between Ryan Coogler who directed Sinners and Paul Thomas Anderson who directed One Battle After Another.
And let’s face it, it simply makes no sense for a film to win Best Picture and NOT win Best Director also. Films don’t direct themselves, so it is quite uncommon for different films to be represented as winners in these two categories.
Both Sinners and One Battle After Another are cinematically striking and very entertaining. I saw Sinners when it came out in the theaters a while ago, and I’ve seen One Battle After Another more recently – twice, actually! So, that alone might be the reason why I think the Best Director winner SHOULD be Paul Thomas Anderson. I also believe the winner WILL be Paul Thomas Anderson.
This is not that bold a pick for me. Anderson has been the very big favorite for quite a while, though I think Coogler has picked up momentum lately, So I would not be surprised if I’m wrong about this call.
Coogler is clearly great at what he does. I’m a huge fan of Black Panther (I know, a lot of people are) but I also think Sinners is scary and beautiful. He deserves praise alone for directing Michael B. Jordan as twin brothers seamlessly. There were moments in Sinners that reminded me a little of the Robert Rodriguez’ 1996 film From Dusk Til Dawn but then again, there are probably similarities to every vampire movie – it’s unavoidable.
Best Picture – One Battle After Another Captures Both Our Zeitgeist and the Oscar for 2025
Well, we’ve finally made it to the big award. This article hasn’t been as long as the Oscars ceremony will be, but maybe longer than it needed to be. So I’ll try to keep things brief for this last category.
The films nominated for the 2025 Best Picture category are Bugonia, F1, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Sinners, and Train Dreams.
I have not seen F1, and I already mentioned that I have not seen The Secret Agent, both of which are nominated for Best Picture.
One film that I have seen, but haven’t mentioned so far, is Train Dreams. This was a movie that I really enjoyed. I mentioned earlier that Hamnet was the only film in 2025 that left me misty-eyed, but that’s quite not true. The ending of Train Dreams also made me tear up.
Train Dreams is a gorgeous movie from a cinematic standpoint, but its dramatic themes are beautiful as well, and often sad. Clint Bentley is the director and Joel Edgerton is perfect as the dramatic lead, albeit in a subdued way. Edgerton should’ve been nominated for Best Actor as well on the basis of this performance.
The movie is quiet and seemingly simple in its premise, but there is a lot going on dramatically beneath the surface. Those types of films don’t often win mainstream awards, but they should.
And now for the moment of truth: Based on everything that I know and feel after a lifetime of watching movies, the Best Picture winner for 2025 should be, and will be, One Battle After Another.
As I mentioned above, I saw it twice and liked it better the second time around. It’s definitely a film that grows on the viewer. It is entertaining and fun, but also suspenseful and dramatic.
One Battle After Another grabs onto many of the larger themes that we as a society are struggling with today – political protest, immigration, race, law enforcement, the concept of ‘white supremacy’, conspiracies, and so much more. But it does so in a way that isn’t particularly polemical or partisan – which is actually, and perhaps surprisingly, one of the film’s greatest virtues.
In a lot of ways, it makes sense for this film to take home the top prize this year. The “Battles” referenced in the title are not only the battles the main characters take on against what they see as a corrupt and unjust government, but also the battles everyone fights within their own personal life and family.
I don’t always love Paul Thomas Anderson’s films. Boogie Nights is probably still his best, though admittedly I haven’t seen it in a while, but One Battle After Another is a close second.
As good as Sinners is, and it very well could surprise me, I believe One Battle After Another will be the big winner at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on March 15, 2026.
Thanks for reading. Enjoy the Academy Awards.
And again, please don’t bet “big money” on my picks!
Until next time –
Gideon Evans
