The Early Oscar Race: ‘Nuremberg’, Bruce, Bigelow & ‘Bugonia’
Reading between the lines of the 2025 release schedule
It’s June 30, which means you, dear reader, have survived the first phase of Emmy voting, the East Coast heatwave, the New York City mayoral election, a lot of local L.A. anxiety, a truly harrowing few weeks of global news, and whatever else the solstice threw at you. If you are taking a bit of a breather this week, as much of the business seems to be, you’ve surely earned it.
The end of June is a popular time for mid-year check-ins, and among all the “best films of 2025 so far” lists that have been published in the past few weeks, Ryan Coogler’s Sinners is by far the most frequently cited major release. Though smaller releases like On Becoming a Guinea Fowl (more on that later this week) and Eephus have earned their share of raves, Sinners is almost certainly the only film from the first half of this year that will become a major part of the Oscar race.
So, where does that leave us for July-December? As usual, plenty of details are up in the air, and there are surely a handful of titles that will be bumped to 2026 before all is said and done. Productions that wrapped this spring, like Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On?, may or may not hustle for spots on the fall release calendar. Honestly, this is the fun part — the fall calendar is full of potential and almost no disappointment yet.
Over the past few weeks, however, many details have solidified, from release date confirmations to studio pickups to the occasional trailer. Today, I’m looking back at everything we’ve learned about the fall awards season this month, and throwing out some educated guesses about how it will all play out once the weather starts cooling down. So let’s get to it:
And Your Honorary Oscars Go To…
The Academy announced its honorary Oscar recipients on June 17, which means we’ve had plenty of time for everyone to share their takes on Tom Cruise finally getting an Oscar, Debbie Allen and Dolly Parton’s potential to give great speeches, and production designer Wynn Thomas’ incredible body of work. The awards will be handed out at the private, untelevised Governors Awards on November 16. If they are not scheming a way to include these very starry speeches on the main Oscar telecast, I will be leading the march down Hollywood Boulevard.
The guessing game I’m most interested in between now and then is who will give the speeches introducing all these icons. At last year’s honorary awards, four of the speakers were Oscar hopefuls themselves — Hugh Grant (a contender for Heretic) introducing Richard Curtis, Nicole Kidman (Babygirl) introducing Juliet Taylor, Daniel Craig (Queer) introducing Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson, and Colmon Domingo (Sing Sing) as the evening’s de facto emcee. The fact that only Domingo was actually nominated for an Oscar might suggest there’s limited power in this kind of visibility. Still, I have to imagine it’s a pretty coveted job nonetheless.
Who might introduce Cruise and boost their own Oscar prospects? His longtime collaborator Christopher McQuarrie is a pretty obvious pick, and given how careful Cruise is about who he works with and how he presents himself publicly, he might insist on the safest option. (At CinemaCon earlier this year, it was Cruise who feted McQuarrie with a lengthy speech as the Mission: Impossible filmmaker was presented with CinemaCon’s Director of the Year honor.) But wouldn’t it be fun to see his Top Gun: Maverick mentee Glen Powell, leading the Running Man remake this fall, up on that stage? Or what about a throwback and bringing in his Interview with the Vampire co-star, and current leading man of F1, Brad Pitt? (Cruise appeared at the London premiere of F1 and took photos with Pitt on the red carpet.) Paul Thomas Anderson directed one of Cruise’s all-time great performances in Magnolia, and has another film out this fall — how cool would it be to witness that reunion?
Cruise may be the biggest star in the room, but I can only imagine how many people are clamoring to share the stage with Parton. Her 9 to 5 co-stars Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin would surely do it — they had a charming onstage reunion at the Emmys in 2021— but I’m also thinking of her goddaughter Miley Cyrus, who had her own close brush with the Oscars with an original song contender last year (“Beautiful That Way” from The Last Showgirl). Allen, meanwhile, has worked with so many people as a director and choreographer — Shonda Rhimes, Issa Rae, Kerry Washington or even Parton herself could all conceivably take the stage for her. For Thomas, the obvious choice is Spike Lee, whose collaborations with Thomas stretch back to 1986’s She’s Gotta Have It. Whether or not Lee’s summer release Highest 2 Lowest can hang in as part of the Oscar race, seeing him sing Thomas’s praises onstage will be a can’t-miss event.
Release Dates Reveal the Future
A release date is not fate — just ask best picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once and its seemingly unpromising March release. But the way studios schedule their films, especially in the crowded fall, tells you something about what they expect from them. Here’s my rampant speculation about the release dates confirmed in the past few weeks.
The History of Sound, Sept. 12. Premiering at Cannes to a respectful, if muted, critical response, this Mubi release features ascendant stars Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal as two young men who fall in love while traveling through New England in the early 20th century. The Sept. 12 date would allow History of Sound to play at the Toronto Film Festival, or maybe even Telluride (where director Oliver Hermanus’ previous film, Living, relaunched after its Sundance bow), and ride whatever boost it gets from those premieres straight into theaters. But, typically, you see the biggest awards hopefuls wait a bit longer — Conclave debuted at Telluride and hit theaters nearly two months later, for example — so this might be a sign that Mubi doesn’t expect a full-throated awards push for this one. But you never know! The Substance debuted at Cannes, played Telluride and Toronto, and was released in theaters in late September. Mubi knows as well as anyone how that turned out.
Roofman, Oct. 10. Although director Derek Cianfrance’s two previous films, Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond the Pines, have been stone-cold bummers, the jaunty first trailer for Roofman landed well online last week, and seemed to delight my crowd before F1 as well. The Oct. 10 release date seems perfect for this potential crowdpleaser to play the Toronto Film Festival and build buzz — I can see the screaming fans lining up to see Channing Tatum and Kirsten Dunst already.
Bugonia, limited release on Oct. 24 ahead of a “wide expansion” on Oct. 31. The Focus Features release is the latest collaboration from the Poor Things team of Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone. Still, it seems pretty clear from the trailer that Jesse Plemons — who worked with both of them on last year’s Kinds of Kindness — may be the one who steals the show. That Searchlight release flopped with awards voters, but Lanthimos’ previous efforts with Stone — The Favourite and Poor Things — racked up 21 total Oscar nominations and five wins, including best actress trophies for The Favourite star Olivia Colman and Stone. Focus is obviously bullish on their first Lanthimos joint – Searchlight has handled the Oscar-nominated filmmaker’s last three releases after Lanthimos’s U.S. breakthrough movies, The Lobster and Killing of a Sacred Deer, were launched by A24 — placing it in the same spot on the calendar that Conclave found success on last year.
A House of Dynamite, in select theaters in October, on Netflix Oct. 24. The first new film from Kathryn Bigelow in eight years following 2017’s Detroit, the “dramatic thriller” stars Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson and follows what happens when a missile from an unknown source is launched at the United States. Bigelow was best known as an action director before winning best picture with The Hurt Locker, and it seems possible this will be more of a crowdpleaser than an awards heavyweight. But the theatrical release and prime October slot seem to be keeping the film’s options open.
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Oct. 24. You can tell how hungry we are for meaty awards season topics to talk about because everyone had a take on the first trailer for the Jeremy Allen White-led Bruce Springsteen biopic. Is Jeremy Strong’s monologue about saving the world too over the top? Is White performing “Born to Run” uncanny? Is putting Springsteen’s name in the title a cowardly admission that 20th Century Studios doesn’t trust audiences? My Springsteen-loving friend was texting me about the trailer from the literal delivery room after his first child was born. We’ll see if 20th Century can keep up the conversation between now and that prime release date.
Die, My Love and Sentimental Value, Nov. 7. What is with this date? If I had a nickel for every ’80s action movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger getting new life on Nov. 7, I’d have two nickels — which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened on the same day. In wide release on Nov. 7 are both Edgar Wright’s reboot of The Running Man, starring Powell and Domingo in lead roles, and Dan Trachtenberg’s latest Predator movie, Predator: Badlands. However, the double vision and potential audience cannibalization don’t stop with mainstream releases. Two more Cannes releases, one from Mubi and one from Neon, are also scheduled for this day. Mubi picked up Lynne Ramsay’s Die, My Love at Cannes for an eye-popping $24 million despite divisive reviews. It’s much more likely than The History of Sound to be the studio’s The Substance-style push this fall, particularly with star and producer Jennifer Lawrence already generating breathless headlines about her potential awards bona fides (sample: “Is Jennifer Lawrence About to Win Another Oscar?”). Lawrence, for all her acclaim, hasn’t been an Oscar nominee since 2015’s Joy. Sentimental Value, meanwhile, was a much more widely acclaimed family drama, with Stellan Skarsgård already tipped as a strong best supporting actor contender. Neon, fresh off its best picture win for Anora, had Sentimental Value, from The Worst Person in the World Oscar nominee Joachim Trier, in its coffers before Cannes. It’s clearly the studio’s top priority this year with a “robust awards campaign” planned (is there any other kind?) following its initial theatrical bow. Both films will likely have a presence at the fall festivals, but my real question is, will someone blink on this date? Or does the opening not matter as much as the result?
Sony Pictures Classics Gets In the Game
It wouldn’t be an awards race without a Sony Pictures Classics release, and the specialty distributor already had a few strong contenders, including Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon (one of two Linklater movies in contention this year, with Netflix’s Nouvelle Vague being the other) and Scarlett Johansson’s Eleanor the Great. But they picked up what feels like a truly major contender with Nuremberg, the historical drama about the post-World War II Nuremberg trials starring Oscar winners Russell Crowe and Rami Malek and Oscar nominees Michael Shannon and Richard E. Grant. It’s written and directed by James Vanderbilt, whose writing credits vary from the sublime (David Fincher’s Zodiac) to the less-sublime (Adam Sandler’s Murder Mystery franchise). However, this is only Vanderbilt’s second directorial effort, following 2015’s solid newsroom thriller Truth with Robert Redford as Dan Rather and Cate Blanchett as CBS News producer Mary Mapes, which Sony Pictures Classics distributed and failed to get into the awards conversation.
If you can believe this, Nuremberg is also currently set for release on Nov. 7, so something is clearly going to have to budge here, right? But like it is for Die, My Love and Sentimental Value, it’s a confident kind of release date, and shows Sony Pictures Classics betting on the power of a more traditional historical drama amid what’s looking like an unconventional awards season field. Hey, if it worked for Judy Garland…