Genre films aren’t always awards catnip, but Sinners landed an all-time record 16 Oscar noms, won the best cast Actor Award and may be a beneficiary of the preferential ballot.
Clockwise from left: Amy Madigan, Wagner Moura, KPop Demon Hunters, Renate Reinsve, Joe Alwyn and Jessie Buckley, Miles Caton, The Perfect Neighbor and Leonardo DiCaprio.‘s awards expert Scott Feinberg and chief film critic David Rooney weigh in on the probable and preferred victors, respectively, ahead of the 98th Annual Academy Awards.
landed an all-time record 16 Oscar noms, won the best cast Actor Award and may be a beneficiary of the preferential ballot. However,, though it landed three fewer noms, has dominated the precursor awards — from the Directors Guild and Producers Guild to the Globes, Critics Choice and BAFTAs — so it remains the safer bet. The sleeper:here since there was no more complex or skillfully executed movie in 2025. But the chances of the Brazilian political thriller pulling off avictory seem slim to none, so I’ll go with Paul Thomas Anderson’s radical epic: wildly entertaining but also timely as it taps into collective discontent with creeping authoritarianism and vilification of otherness, with a stellar ensemble cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio.‘ Ryan Coogler is tremendously liked and respected and would be the first Black filmmaker ever to win this award. But‘s Anderson has been around longer, has racked up 14 Oscar noms without a win and is widely regarded as overdue. Plus, PTA won every major precursor this cycle, including the DGA’s top honor, which has presaged this Oscar’s winner all but eight times over the past 77 years.‘s Kleber Mendonça Filho, whose Cannes best director win should have been a precursor to Oscar contention. That leaves me torn between Anderson and Coogler, both of whom delivered bold, original works with a lot on their minds. I’m going with the latter sinceIf there’s one result that you can take to the bank, it’s this one, given that Irishwoman Jessie Buckley, the heart and soul of, has swept the entire circuit of televised awards shows with utter charm. Just a few years ago, when the Academy was half its size and clubbier,, which only kicked in for me in the stage scenes at the Globe. Rose Byrne’s tightrope walk across the abyss of maternal delirium inis a remarkably sustained feat, and her win would be well-earned. But I’m going with Renate Reinsve’s transfixing balance of emotional volatility and sly humor.For the second straight year, Timothée Chalamet is in contention for playing a polarizing character in a best picture nominee.‘s star won Critics Choice and Golden Globe honors, then stumbled at the BAFTA and Actor awards. Michael B. Jordan, who plays twins in, and his performance is indeed a marvel — brash, shameless and steadfast in its refusal to sand off the abrasive edges. But Moura, in a far less showy role, makes something extraordinary of an ordinary man, his calm, contemplative exterior belying a turbulent interiority, with roiling currents of indignation, grief and tender concern for his young son.) are overdue first-time nominees. But Lindo wasn’t nominated for other awards , and Skarsgard won the Globe but missed an Actor nom.‘s Sean Penn, despite having won twice before, refusing to campaign and competing with a co-star , won the BAFTA and Actor awards.For me, it comes down to two beloved veterans who scored their long-overdue first Oscar noms. Lindo is wonderful inas a boozy, old-timer blues musician already acquainted with the devil. But it’s impossible to pass up Skarsgard’s wily ability to keep the audience in the corner of a narcissistic filmmaker whose efforts to reverse decades of lousy parenting are more opportunistic than redemptive.‘ Amy Madigan has literally been acting — and been an Oscar-nominated actress — for longer than any of them have been alive. Her relationships, name ID and colorful turn should boost her.is such a blazing life force that her presence lingers long after she exits the action. But Mosaku floored me as a spiritual healer whose toughness, wisdom and warmth translate from this life to the next., given people’s high regard for the author of its source material, Maggie O’Farrell, the fact that she’s co-writer of the adaptation and the resulting film’s popularity. But all indications — including USC Scripter, Critics Choice, Globe and BAFTA awards — point toward PTA becoming an Oscar winner via this prize with more certainty than any others for which he’s nominated., a fine-grained portrait of frontier life that endows the novelistic beauty of Denis Johnson’s prose with cinematic vitality. But the dearth of big-swing risk-taking in Hollywood makes Anderson’s bold reinvention of Thomas Pynchon feel like some kind of miracle, a provocative movie synced to our current political moment with sardonic humor and equal parts hope and despair.aren’t in English, which is still a hurdle. Voters will almost certainly seize this opportunity to ensure that Coogler goes home with at least one Oscar forhere, not that it would have been easy to eliminate even one of the final five. Each of them has its own distinctive artistry, but I’m opting for Joachim Trier’s piercing reflection on family and memory: The Norwegian drama balances light and darkness while examining the mutable contracts between sisters and, even more so, fathers and daughters.The doc race has been all over the place this year, with the PGA, DGA and International Documentary Association giving their top honors to films that aren’t even Oscar-nominated. Meanwhile, the Cinema Eye Honors championed— were passed over. But the standout here is a film that reimagines the true-crime genre using police body-cam footage, making us feel like real-time witnesses to the senseless killing of a mother of four. The doc throws Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law and its inherent racial bias into stark relief.won Cannes’ Palme d’Or, but the Oscar race seems to be between two films it beat: Norway’s, both of which are nominated for best picture and in other major categories . It’s a nail-biter.is a staggering example of the visceral power of cinema, but the Brazilian entry is a sui generis masterwork, a shape-shifting portrait of life under a brutal regime. Winner of the trifecta of New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association and National Society of Film Critics’ awards in this category, it’s also a useful reminder of the dangers of ignoring history.The Godfather
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