My Final Oscar Predictions: Part 2
Who will win the ‘Sinners’ vs. ‘One Battle’ showdowns, and the acting category primed for an upset
The red carpet is rolled out — Conan O’Brien lay down on it and everything — and Oscar Week parties are beginning, which means the moment really is finally here. I’m even in Los Angeles already, gearing up for a busy weekend of pre-Oscar events and sharing as much as I can with you, dear reader — read on to find out how.
Today I’m bringing you the second batch of my final Oscar predictions, including the topsy-turvy acting races and the big ones: best director and best picture. Once again, Christopher Rosen is weighing in with his own takes on some of these categories, and as you might guess, we’re all over the place on our acting predictions, especially. Just goes to show you what a tricky, genuinely exciting Oscar year it’s been, even if we can all probably agree it’s time for it to be over. (For more predictions from our esteemed group of pros, head to the Prestige Junkie pundits page.)
And in case you missed my first batch 👇
But if you’ve still got your Oscar enthusiasm left — and would you be reading this if you didn’t? — come share it with us this weekend! If you’re a Prestige Junkie After Party subscriber, join us live on Substack at 9 a.m. PT tomorrow, where Chris and I will reteam with beloved returning guest Joyce Eng to share our final final Oscar thoughts — and hopefully even take a few calls from you guys! Now’s the best time to be an After Party subscriber, of course, but our Sunday livestream during the Oscars will be open to everyone. Watch us on YouTube starting at 3 p.m. PT — Chris and I will start with the red carpet and stay on through the entire ceremony, taking your questions and hopefully enjoying some classic Oscar thrills together.
Next Monday’s newsletter will, of course, be a recap of Oscar night, and will include a special early edition of the Prestige Junkie podcast as Chris and I break down all the biggest moments. And believe it or not, we’re not really taking a break after that! Emmy season awaits, as do the releases of some really great-looking movies, and of course, we have to make our hugely irresponsible year-ahead Oscar predictions as well.
But for now, let’s stay focused on this year, and one last time make some predictions about how the films of 2025 will fare at the Academy Awards.
Best Original Song
The nominees:
“Dear Me,” Diane Warren: Relentless
“Golden,” KPop Demon Hunters
“I Lied to You,” Sinners
“Sweet Dreams of Joy,” Viva Verdi!
“Train Dreams,” Train Dreams
Huzzah to the KPop Demon Hunters team for strolling toward their two Oscars with virtually no competition, even as so many other categories remain nail-biters. I think there’s a case to be made that “I Lied to You,” the centerpiece of one of the best movie scenes of the year, is more competitive here than we imagine, especially with Sinners seemingly on an upswing. But “Golden” is probably the catchiest and most culturally relevant original song nominee since A Star Is Born’s “Shallow,” and it would be malpractice not to reward it.
Will Win: “Golden”
Should Win: “Golden”
Could Win: “I Lied To You”
Chris’ Thoughts: I didn’t listen to “Golden” hundreds of times for it not to win an Oscar.
Best Original Score
The nominees:
Bugonia
Frankenstein
Hamnet
One Battle After Another
Sinners
As much as I hoped this would be a real contest between Jonny Greenwood’s percussive, unpredictable score for One Battle After Another and the wall of sound Ludwig Göransson created for Sinners, Göransson seems to be cruising to his third Oscar win, having already triumphed at the BAFTAS, Golden Globes and even the Grammys. If he wins, Göransson will become only the third living composer with three or more original score Oscars, joining John Williams (who has five) and Alan Menken (four for score, plus four more for original song).
Will Win: Sinners
Should Win: One Battle After Another
Could Win: One Battle After Another
Chris’ Thoughts: Since my favorite score wasn’t even nominated (I won’t forget your Marty Supreme work, Daniel Lopatin!), I’ll be happy to see Göransson win.
Best Film Editing
The nominees:
F1
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
Sentimental Value
Sinners
Not to put too much pressure on this craft category, but the winner of best editing is most likely your best picture winner. As they have in so many other guild awards this season, One Battle After Another and Sinners split victories at the ACE Eddie Awards between the drama and comedy categories, which makes it feel like an even matchup between One Battle’s Andy Jurgensen and Sinners’ Michael Shawver. Because I think One Battle After Another will win best picture (we’ll get there in a minute!) I’m predicting a victory here, too. If Sinners wins this, though, brace for a major best picture surprise.
Will Win: One Battle After Another
Should Win: One Battle After Another
Could Win: Sinners
Chris’ Thoughts: Only 16 times since 1990 has the best picture winner also won best editing, and several presumed best picture favorites (including Saving Private Ryan, Traffic and The Social Network) won editing but ultimately lost best picture. Still, those two categories have matched three years in a row, and I expect that streak to extend to four with One Battle After Another.
Best International Feature
The nominees:
The Secret Agent
It Was Just an Accident
Sentimental Value
Sirāt
The Voice of Hind Rajab
I have been marveling for months at how much the complex, sometimes downright odd The Secret Agent has become an awards-season favorite and even a proper box-office hit in the U.S. and its native Brazil. It’s an unusual movie to become an Oscar juggernaut, especially when up against the much more traditional and easier to understand Sentimental Value. And yet, despite the fact that Sentimental Value has nine Oscar nominations to The Secret Agent’s four, this does seem to be The Secret Agent’s prize to lose. Personally, I wish there had been more of a push for It Was Just an Accident, which only feels more terrifyingly relevant given current events. But Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or victory at Cannes for that film will have to be enough.
Will Win: The Secret Agent
Should Win: It Was Just an Accident
Could Win: Sentimental Value
Chris’ Thoughts: Sentimental Value remains the favorite — at least according to the prediction markets — but I also expect The Secret Agent to win here. Anecdotally, the enthusiasm for the movie is incredibly high, and while it lost to Sentimental Value at BAFTA, Mubi (which handled U.K. distribution for the title versus Neon in the U.S.) didn’t even release it theatrically in England until BAFTA weekend.
Best Adapted Screenplay
The nominees:
Bugonia
Frankenstein
Hamnet
One Battle After Another
Train Dreams
Thank you to the WGA Awards for making this category even easier to predict than it already felt. Paul Thomas Anderson won for his audacious adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland at the WGA ceremony last week, and will certainly do so again on Sunday, kicking off what will probably feel like a long string of his appearances onstage at the Oscars for One Battle After Another. There was a time when I thought Hamnet could, in theory, make a run at this category, but that time has long passed!
Will Win: One Battle After Another
Should Win: One Battle After Another
Could Win: To be honest… only One Battle After Another
Chris’ Thoughts: Congratulations on your screenwriting Oscar, Paul Thomas Anderson.
Best Original Screenplay
The nominees:
Blue Moon
It Was Just an Accident
Marty Supreme
Sentimental Value
Sinners
This is the guaranteed category where Ryan Coogler can win an individual Oscar for Sinners, and voters are seizing it — Coogler won the WGA Award on Sunday, essentially sealing his victory. It’s a relief that Coogler will likely have an Oscar on his desk for the incredible accomplishment of Sinners, but it’s bittersweet, too. No Black director has ever won best director, but four — Barry Jenkins (Moonlight), Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman), Jordan Peele (Get Out) and Cord Jefferson (American Fiction) — have won screenplay awards for films they also directed, all in the last 10 years. I doubt Academy voters are actively thinking of the screenplay prize as a consolation for directors who won’t win in that category, but especially as we go longer without a single Black directing winner, it’s a trend that surely ought to end soon.
Will Win: Sinners
Should Win: Sinners
Could Win: Again, there is no plausible alternative!
Chris’ Thoughts: Congratulations on your screenwriting Oscar, Ryan Coogler.
Best Supporting Actor
The nominees:
Benicio del Toro, One Battle After Another
Jacob Elordi, Frankenstein
Delroy Lindo, Sinners
Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value
So many presumed frontrunners in this category over the course of the season — remember when we briefly wondered after his Critics Choice victory if Jacob Elordi might walk away with it? — but the smart money has now settled on Sean Penn, whose BAFTA and Actor Awards victories are pretty persuasive evidence that the industry is really behind his villainous turn in One Battle After Another. I’m sure Chris will make the case for why Penn will win, but I have been stubborn in this category for weeks now, and I’m not stopping now. Delroy Lindo, star of an incredibly popular best picture nominee who has never even been nominated for an Oscar, has been the most visible member of the Sinners cast as the movie made its late-season surge. He is a long-overdue veteran, which can be a major advantage in this category (see past winners like Robert Downey Jr., Brad Pitt, J.K. Simmons, Christopher Plummer, Alan Arkin, Morgan Freeman and James Coburn, among many others), and come on, it would be so fun to see him win. I would be so mad at myself if I gave up on this prediction and he won anyway, so I may as well stay strong: Delroy Lindo, you got this!
Will Win: Delroy Lindo, Sinners
Should Win: Delroy Lindo, Sinners
Could Win: Sean Penn, One Battle After Another
Chris’ Thoughts: And yet… It’s a two-word phrase I’ve been hearing myself say all season about several categories (including, as you’ll read, many discussed below). So Katey is right: I am predicting Penn here — he’s got the industry support and plays a memorable villain, always a bonus in supporting actor (see: Javier Bardem, Christoph Waltz, Simmons, Gene Hackman and more).
And yet… I don’t think it’s out of the question for Lindo to pull off the upset. Keep in mind: Lindo wasn’t nominated at BAFTA or the Actor Awards (Lindo missed every precursor this season, which would make his potential win the first of its kind since Marcia Gay Harden in 2001), so we don’t actually know if Penn can beat the Sinners star head-to-head on the ballot. I think Penn will, but it’s probably a lot closer than people want to admit.
Best Supporting Actress
The nominees
Elle Fanning, Sentimental Value
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value
Amy Madigan, Weapons
Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners
Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
No matter who wins this category, it will feel like a surprise, given that Amy Madigan, Wunmi Mosaku and Teyana Taylor all have strong precursor wins, and none of them has a clear lead. With all due respect to Elle Fanning and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, this feels like a tight three-way race, which could shift depending on overall Academy sentiment for One Battle or Sinners, how much voters feel like rewarding a long-overdue veteran vs. exciting new faces, or even how recently they’ve watched Field of Dreams. I’m predicting a Madigan win here, partly because the recency of her Actor Awards win could be enough to put her over the top in a race this tight. But truly, I have no idea what will happen. Since the supporting awards are usually among the first handed out during the ceremony, we at least don’t have too much longer to wait.
Will Win: Amy Madigan, Weapons
Should Win: Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
Could Win: Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners
Chris’ Thoughts: Do coins have three sides? Asking for a friend. I’ll likewise go with Madigan, who lost to Taylor at the Golden Globes (not great!) and was snubbed altogether at BAFTA (a bad sign!), but has shown the ability to defeat both Mosaku and Taylor when all three Oscar contenders are nominated together (like they were at the Critics Choice Awards and Actor Awards).
Best Actor
The nominees:
Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme
Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another
Ethan Hawke, Blue Moon
Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
In a fitting end to a best actor race that was this stacked from the very beginning, this one is a real nail-biter. Timothée Chalamet’s loss at BAFTA to Robert Aramayo of I Swear, which wasn’t even Oscar-eligible, put a crack in what seemed like a glide path to victory. Then, Michael B. Jordan’s victory at the Actor Awards a week later, and the ecstatic response around him, positioned Jordan as a very viable potential frontrunner, with perfect timing just as final Oscar voting was about to close. That doesn’t even get into the mess around Chalamet and ballet, which mostly happened after voting ended, and the continued drumbeat of speculation that Wagner Moura — a tireless campaigner and seemingly the most popular person at every awards event — could swoop in from the outside lane and take it all. Knowing full well that Actor Awards victories can just as often not translate to Oscars — just ask Demi Moore and Lily Gladstone — I am predicting Jordan to win this. But I do think Chalamet could very well win after all, and the internet is welcome to just be mad about it if that happens.
Will Win: Michael B. Jordan, Sinners
Should Win: Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
Could Win: Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme
Chris’ Thoughts: The path of least resistance is Jordan, largely because he was the last winner standing during Oscar voting. That’s the pick I made with Katey on the Prestige Junkie podcast, and I’ll stick to it today.
And yet… in the days since we spoke, I’ve been toying with the unlikely, unbelievable, reckless idea that Leonardo DiCaprio can pull it off, joining recent “surprise” acting winners like Frances McDormand for Nomadland and Mikey Madison for Anora — both of whom were leads in best picture winners. To be fair, those actresses had also won actual precursors along the way, and DiCaprio has been blanked all season. However, if you’ll indulge me in some conspiratorial speculation, consider this question: Did Leo finish second at BAFTA, where One Battle proved so strong (with six wins, including best film)? If the answer is yes, that’s almost as good as if he won. In the last 10 years, when BAFTA and the Actor Awards have split in this category, the BAFTA winner has triumphed on Oscar night three out of four times: Casey Affleck (BAFTA) over Denzel Washington (Actor Awards), Anthony Hopkins (BAFTA) over Chadwick Boseman (Actor Awards) and Adrien Brody (BAFTA) over Chalamet (Actor Awards). (The outlier was Brendan Fraser, who lost at BAFTA to Austin Butler, but won at the Actor Awards and the Oscars.) I know, I know: If DiCaprio were the BAFTA winner, he would’ve won at BAFTA. I can’t disagree. (Maybe Jordan was the runner-up, and he’ll cruise to an Oscar win; since none of these institutions releases the vote totals, we’ll never know!) But I still think this category has one last twist in store before it’s over.
Best Actress
The nominees:
Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Kate Hudson, Song Sung Blue
Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value
Emma Stone, Bugonia
Finally, a category we can be less stressed about. Jessie Buckley has had this award locked in place ever since Hamnet premiered at Telluride, and no amount of bad-faith cat discourse or pans for The Bride! is going to take that away.
Will Win: Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Should Win: Jessie Buckley, Hamnet
Could Win: Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Chris’ Thoughts: Even Garfield would give Jessie Buckley this award.
Best Director
The nominees:
Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
Ryan Coogler, Sinners
Josh Safdie, Marty Supreme
Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value
Chloé Zhao, Hamnet
Even with the momentum behind Sinners in the past few weeks, almost no one has ever really doubted that this award belongs to Paul Thomas Anderson. Among the most revered directors of his generation — with past best director nominations for There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread and Licorice Pizza among his 11 total noms heading into this year — it once seemed like Anderson would never win an Oscar, putting him in the history books alongside Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Anderson’s mentor, Robert Altman. Instead, One Battle After Another hit the right Oscar wavelength and will allow the Academy to finally reward one of the greats, and for one of his best movies, too.
Will Win: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
Should Win: Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another
Could Win: Ryan Coogler, Sinners
Chris’ Thoughts: I’ve been waiting to call Paul Thomas Anderson an Oscar-winning director since the 1990s. The long game paid off!
Best Picture
The nominees:
Bugonia
F1
Frankenstein
Hamnet
Marty Supreme
One Battle After Another
The Secret Agent
Sentimental Value
Sinners
Train Dreams
Just because this race feels incredibly close doesn’t mean that it is: From Prestige Junkie pundits (92 percent) to Kalshi (75 percent) to Polymarket (78 percent), One Battle After Another is the overwhelming favorite over Sinners, and so I expect my favorite film of 2025 to win best picture. Sinners is still giving it a run for its money, and as mentioned throughout these predictions, if it pulls off surprise victories in some crafts categories, we could have some real suspense until the final envelope is opened. But Anderson’s film has had a formidable lead in this race ever since it opened in September, and with wins at every single major guild award and televised awards show, there’s absolutely no evidence it will falter on Oscar night.
Will Win: One Battle After Another
Should Win: One Battle After Another
Could Win: Sinners
Chris’ Thoughts: All the available data and historical context point to One Battle After Another winning best picture, so that’s my pick, too. And yet…