Timothee Chalamet is racking up prizes en route to what he hopes will be his first Academy Awards win. Is he an A-lister yet?
Is Timothee Chalamet having a moment, or is he here to stay? For the second straight year, the 30-year-old has been a fixture at a parade of award shows, championing a hit, adult-oriented movie that adheres to his sometime-mentor Leonardo DiCaprio’s advice that he avoid starring in superhero movies.
Last season, Chalamet was being celebrated for a great turn as Bob Dylan in music biopic vet James Mangold's A Complete Unknown. His campaign culminated in his second Best Actor nomination at the Academy Awards — not bad for a guy who at the time was still in his 20s. A Complete Unknown was a rare achievement: a musical drama for grown-ups. Yes, as a biopic about a bestselling, world-famous musician, it was hardly covering unfamiliar material . But Chalamet’s star power brought the project home. On a budget reported to be between $50-70 million, it grossed $140.5 million worldwide, including $75 million domestically. By comparison, this year’s similarly lauded Jeremy Allen White-starring Bruce Springsteen biopic, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, made a total of $45.2 million globally, even with Springsteen still selling out stadiums to this day and both White and Springsteen making the talk show circuit to hype it. The difference? Timothee Chalamet is a movie star. White, a very talented actor best known for his Chicago-centric TV work on The Bear and Shameless, isn’t there yet. When Chalamet took home Best Actor honors at what was then the SAG Awards last year for A Complete Unknown, he made a bold proclamation. “I know we're in a subjective business, but I'm really in pursuit of greatness. People don't usually talk like this, but I want to be one of the greats,” Chalamet said. “I'm as inspired by Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, and Viola Davis as I am by Michael Jordan and Michael Phelps, and I want to be up there. So I'm deeply grateful to that. This doesn't signify that, but it's a little more ammo, a little more fuel to keep going.“ Photo by: KGC-356/STAR MAX/IPx 2025 5/7/25 Timothee Chalamet at the 70th David Di Donatello Photocall on May 7, 2025 at Cinecitta Studios in Rome, Italy. His pursuit of an Academy Award ended in a loss to Adrien Brody, who won his second statue for his work in The Brutalist. Brody, a talented actor, hasn’t reached the younger Chalamet’s heights as a movie star. But Chalamet clearly wasn’t satisfied by being an also-ran for the second time. This year, Chalamet is looking to ride his cresting popularity to Oscar gold. He’s the star of the kinetic ping-pong biopic Marty Supreme, helmed by anxiety expert Josh Safdie in his solo debut. Most recently, on the march to what is likely to be his third Oscar nomination, Chalamet claimed his first-ever Critics' Choice Award win this past weekend. He had been nominated three other times as an individual, and three times beyond that in the Best Cast category. Chalamet beat out a loaded group of nominees that also included fellow longtime stars DiCaprio , Michael B. Jordan , and Ethan Hawke , plus revered character actors Joel Edgerton and Wagner Moura . During his sweet acceptance speech at the ceremony Sunday, Chalamet shouted out his longtime girlfriend, billionaire reality star Kylie Jenner. “And lastly I’ll just say, thank you to my partner for three years. Thank you for our foundation. I love you. I couldn’t do this without you,” Chalamet told Jenner. “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” Marty Supreme wouldn’t work with just any actor. It’s a hit — and a buzzy awards-bait favorite — because a bona fide movie star is running the show. Playing in its second weekend of wide release from Jan. 2-4, Marty Supreme eased a gentle 20.5 percent to gross another $12.6 million at the domestic box office. Its stateside total since debuting on six screens for the Dec. 19-21 weekend currently sits at $56 million. For an adult period drama about an at-times abrasive figure, that’s already pretty robust money in today’s movie climate — especially for something produced technically by an independent studio, albeit a “mini-major” in A24. But with chatter building about the film and Chalamet’s performance, it’s certainly possible that this could play for weeks, enjoying the kinds of holds that helped the Academy Awards nominees of yesteryear turn into sleeper blockbusters. The movie has made just $2.4 million overseas thus far, although as further award nominations are announced, that number will likely pick up considerably. Chalamet has proven over the past two years that he is legitimately a box office draw. He's picked his parts carefully, emphasizing challenging, prestige dramas and dramedies like the well-received Ladybird and Little Women , plus Beautiful Boy, The French Dispatch, and Don't Look Up while also dipping a toe into mainstream intellectual property — but even then, he's having fun with smash hits like the Dune films and Wonka. Dune: Part Two — starring several other rising hopeful stars of his generation in Zendaya, Florence Pugh and Austin Butler — netted $715.2 million. Wonka, a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory prequel in which he was the man above the marquee, took in a stunning $634.7 million worldwide. Chalamet is able to deftly straddle the worlds of big-ticket popcorn flicks — helmed by unique, challenging filmmakers like Denis Villeneuve and Paul King — and these more internal, smaller-scale, character-based narratives. He’s had success in both avenues, and now clearly ranks among the biggest movie stars on the planet. Chalamet is a real-deal draw, in and of himself. That’s a very rare thing these days. Where’s the Austin Butler lookalike contest? The interest in balancing safer moneymakers with smaller movies is the kind of old-school movie star play we rarely see these days. DiCaprio has managed to do this over the decades by ensuring that he works with top directors and that his production company has a say in the storytelling. With the medium in a tenuous place, the world needs a new, younger crop of movie stars to help combat — or at least, better offset — the IP fatigue. Chalamet has proven that he’s no flash in the pan. He’s the real deal. Chalamet Stands With the Movie World’s Top Draws Chalamet is a quality actor — especially when it comes to portraying eccentric flakes. It’s hard to assess his excellence as a performer relative to other good film actors. That said, we can certainly appraise the company he keeps when talking about the biggest current movie stars in the world. Film stars used to be defined by how well they could “open” a movie — that is, if their presence compelled audiences to flock to a flick during its first weekend in wide release. Now, with a diluted market flooded by alternative entertainment options, tentpole pictures based on brand-name recognition are the surest thing out there. Movie stars still exist — and in a lot of cases, it’s the same people who’ve been dominant for decades — but their draw is a bit murkier. Can their presence in a $300 million superhero sequel likely add a few extra bucks to its gross? Certainly. But can they also excite audiences away from these safe, pre-established options? That’s proving tougher to do. DiCaprio, a Gen Xer, probably outpaces Chalamet marginally for now. Although neither One Battle After Another nor Killers of the Flower Moon recouped their budgets at the domestic box office, both were revered and showered with award nominations, and should have long tails on streaming and home video. Each cleared $150 million at the global box office, no small feat for epic character dramas light on capes. Scarlett Johansson has been hitting it out of the park with established IP of late, and has continued to submit stellar work in award bait like Jojo Rabbit, Marriage Story, Asteroid City and The Phoenician Scheme. She also made her directorial debut helming a well-received June Squibb indie drama this year, Eleanor The Great. Her Avengers run and general longevity give her a slight edge, although her non-franchise fare hasn’t lit the box office on fire. Chris Pratt, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jack Black have all been leaning heavily on kiddie fare lately, but it’s been paying off. Johnson, whose star has faded a bit from its absolute 2010s apex, finally made an award-hopeful Safdie brother sports movie of his own this year with Benny Safdie's The Smashing Machine. He has had an uncomfortable recent run of box office misses, but in the right projects remains golden. Jason Momoa is hovering around this group, too, although his cumulative track record is a bit spottier when he’s the solo draw. Margot Robbie has been focusing a lot on producing in the wake of Barbie’s billions. The 35-year-old, who had a string of hits after her unforgettable The Wolf of Wall Street breakout, needs this year’s upcoming Wuthering Heights adaptation to hit. She recently anchored a Sony-produced bomb that made back just $20.2 million of its $45 million net budget worldwide this fall. If I didn’t tell you the title, you’d have no idea what I’m talking about. Fine, it’s A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, co-starring Collin Farrell. Chalamet is gaining on Jordan right now. The smash success of Sinners — a wholly original story featuring Jordan playing not one but two Prohibition-era, vampire-slaying bad-asses — and his run with the Creed and Black Panther series gives him the cumulative box office edge. But Jordan hasn’t worked as much as Chalamet lately, and before Sinners hadn't found as much success anchoring non-franchise properties. Jordan does have the lead, but it will be fascinating to see how his next couple post-Sinners, non-IP theatrical releases are received. For my money, Jordan and Chalamet are the two biggest risers to watch going forward. And film fans should be excited that both are exercising significant quality control, as each have taken producer roles on a lot of their recent projects. Jordan even directed Creed III. There’s also an older guard of movie stars who can still pack in seats — Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Sandra Bullock, Brad Pitt, Keanu Reeves, and Will Smith. Bullock, Washington, and Pitt don’t work a ton, but they've quietly anchored a respectable tally of recent $100 million-plus hits. Cruise, Reeves, and Smith seem to be confined to more rigid genre buckets where audiences want to see them, but within those specific confines remain astronomic draws. So what's next for Chalamet on the awards circuit? A shot at winning his first Golden Globe in five tries. Nominations for the former SAG Awards, now frustratingly re-dubbed the Actor Awards, have yet to be announced. Oscar nominations will be unveiled Jan. 22. Chalamet’s success thus far suggests that he is the proverbial favorite to win it all. More news: 26 Films To Watch Out for in 2026 For the latest film and entertainment news, head to Newsweek Movies.
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