February 27, 2026
Why on Earth are we still talking about the best films of 2025? Well, that’s because the finish line for the 2025 movie year (the Oscar ceremony) has not occurred yet. No, I don’t know why it’s so late this year, but with the big night coming on March 15th, it’s time for my Oscar preview.
The big headline after this year’s nomination announcement was the record 16 nods for Sinners. It’s a monumental achievement, not just because it set a new record, but it was for a type of movie you wouldn’t expect the Academy to recognize, let alone shower with all of this praise. For most of the year, Sinners was my favorite film of 2025. When you see a movie and are immediately amazed, and eager to see it again, you know it’s made an impact on you. I quickly went back to see Sinners a second time and there is a better than 50/50 chance I will see it again in the theater in the next few weeks. As has been the custom for the last several years, all of the Best Picture nominees will be back in theaters for a short period of time right before the Oscars, so (as we used to say), check your local listings for showtimes near you.
So, with 16 nominations, does that mean Sinners is the odds-on favorite to win Best Picture? No, that’s not how this works. When there is a clear frontrunner that steamrolls all of the awards (like 2023’s Oppenheimer or 2022’s Everything Everywhere All At Once), the film with the most nods will walk away with the big prize. But you only have to go back to last year when the most nominated film (Emilia Perez with 13) did not win Best Picture (Thank GOD!). And you could have a wild year like 2021 when CODA was nominated for only three Oscars and won for all of them – Picture, Screenplay, and Best Supporting Actor. That year’s most nominated film (The Power of the Dog with 13) won only the award for Best Director Jane Campion.
The nominations are interesting, but once they are announced, a new round of voting starts, so there are no sure things. That being said, this year’s frontrunner for Best Picture is One Battle After Another, which scored 13 noms, only three fewer than Sinners. Of course, I was thrilled with all of this recognition for my two favorite movies of 2025. Regardless of who takes home the last Oscar of the night, this is sure to be an electric ceremony as we have a fabulous set of nominees representing an outstanding year in movies.
Let’s dive into this year’s major awards.
Best Supporting Actor
- Benicio del Toro – One Battle After Another (3rd nomination, one previous win for Traffic in 2000)
- Jacob Elordi – Frankenstein (1st nomination)
- Delroy Lindo – Sinners (1st nomination)
- Sean Penn – One Battle After Another (6th nomination, two previous wins for Best Actor for Mystic River in 2003 and Milk in 2008)
- Stellan Skarsgård – Sentimental Value (1st nomination)
Unlike the last two years when Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain) and Robert Downey, Jr. (Oppenheimer) were the shoo-ins heading into the ceremony, this year’s winner is far from certain. In fact, it might be wide open. Del Toro, Elordi, Penn and Skarsgård have all won at least one award at precursor ceremonies or from various critics associations. Lindo is one of the more beloved actors working in Hollywood and finally earned a long overdue nomination. I wouldn’t be surprised if any of these names were called to the stage to receive their prize, but my gut tells me Skarsgård, another beloved veteran, wins his first Oscar. My personal choice would be Lindo, but would be happy with whoever wins here.
Best Supporting Actress
- Elle Fanning – Sentimental Value (1st nomination)
- Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas – Sentimental Value (1st nomination)
- Amy Madigan – Weapons (2nd nomination, no previous wins)
- Wunmi Mosaku – Sinners (1st nomination)
- Teyana Taylor – One Battle After Another (1st nomination)
Another category with five strong and worthy nominees from films that were all in my top five of the year. One of them will be taking home their first Oscar and this race appears to be a battle between two very deserving performances. Last spring, when we were all knocked out by Zach Cregger’s excellent film Weapons, the drumbeat started: “Could a breakout horror hit deliver an Oscar nom for Amy Madigan?” Well, several months (and many nominations and wins) later, she is in a dead heat to be named Best Supporting Actress on Oscar night. Her main competition is Teyana Taylor, who also received several recognitions during awards season. Despite impressive performances from the other nominees (all of whom I was glad to see recognized), this one feels like a tossup. With all of the momentum for One Battle After Another, it feels like Taylor will win, but I think it would be pretty cool for Madigan to secure the rare acting Oscar for a horror movie.
Best Leading Actor
- Timothée Chalamet – Marty Supreme (3rd nomination, no previous wins)
- Leonardo DiCaprio – One Battle After Another (7th nomination, one previous win for The Revenant in 2015)
- Ethan Hawke – Blue Moon (3rd nomination, no previous wins)
- Michael B. Jordan – Sinners (1st nomination)
- Wagner Moura – The Secret Agent (1st nomination)
Just an absolutely loaded field of nominees, all of whom would be worthy of a win. The favorite for most of the awards season has been Chalamet. As much as I admired his performance, I continue to be surprised by the fawning over Marty Supreme I have read about since it premiered late last year. As I wrote in my year-end series, I thought it was a very good movie, but I think there is some real recency bias here.
I mean, if you really want to talk about the most impressive performance of the year, how about Jordan, who was magnificent playing twins in Sinners? I honestly think that his work is being overlooked simply because Sinners received so many nominations. That may sound weird, but how is he not the frontrunner? I would be thrilled if he won, but it’s not going to happen.
And if we want to talk about grievances, once again, we simply do not appreciate Leonardo DiCaprio enough. His performance in One Battle required an incredible range of emotions and talent throughout the story and he delivered, like he always does. Let’s just recap Leo’s Oscar pedigree for a minute. He won for The Revenant in 2015. Fine. That movie looked great, but I will never watch it again and the award was really the “Ok, it’s your turn to be rewarded for your career” Oscar. I would argue he should have won two years prior for The Wolf of Wall Street (he lost to Matthew McConaughey for Dallas Buyers Club) and definitely should have won in 2019 for Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (he lost to Joaquin Phoenix for Joker – GTFO). Not to mention that he wasn’t even nominated in 2023 for Killers of the Flower Moon. Ok, he wouldn’t have won that year as Cillian Murphy dominated the awards season for Oppenheimer. Still, we don’t value DiCaprio’s talents enough – he should have three Oscars already and I would pick him to win this year if I had a vote. Alas, it’s not happening as Chalamet is your likely winner. Ok, rant over.
Best Leading Actress
- Jessie Buckley – Hamnet (2nd nomination, no previous wins)
- Rose Byrne – If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (1st nomination)
- Kate Hudson – Song Sung Blue (2nd nomination, no previous wins)
- Renate Reinsve – Sentimental Value (1st nomination)
- Emma Stone – Bugonia (5th nomination, two previous wins for La La Land in 2016 and Poor Things in 2023)
This is probably a done deal with Jessie Buckley still the favorite to win for her searing performance in Hamnet. But don’t be shocked if we hear Rose Byrne announced as the winner come Oscar night. While I admired Buckley in Hamnet, I think Byrne had a much higher degree of difficulty in her role, which should be rewarded. And I said that back in October when I saw those two movies at the Philadelphia Film Festival. Byrne has been racking up some precursor awards wins, but Buckley has as well. If they released the vote totals from this category (wouldn’t it be fun if they did that?), this would be the closest race of the year.
As for the other nominees? Emma Stone just keeps racking up nominations, it’s great to see Kate Hudson back at the Oscars after she was robbed for not winning in 2000 for Almost Famous, and Renate Reinsve, who is one of the better actresses working today, finally got her first nom. Despite all of the talent in this category, this is a two horse race between Buckley and Byrne. I think Buckley wins it.
Best Director
- Chloé Zhao – Hamnet (2nd nomination, previous win for Nomadland in 2020)
- Josh Safdie – Marty Supreme (1st nomination)
- Paul Thomas Anderson – One Battle After Another (4th nomination, no previous wins)
- Joachim Trier – Sentimental Value (1st nomination)
- Ryan Coogler – Sinners (1st nomination)
The story of this year’s Oscars will likely be the long-overdue recognition for Paul Thomas Anderson, who is nominated for Best Director for the fourth time. When you factor in his nominations for Screenplay and producing Best Picture nominees, he has actually been recognized 14 times going all the way back to his nod for writing Boogie Nights in 1997. With all of those nominations, he has zero wins to show for it. That likely ends this year.
On paper, this is a race between Anderson and Coogler, who immediately vaulted his name up the ranks of best directors working today that will get people in theaters for his next film. He has the juice, as they say. The nominations for Zhao, Safdie, and Trier are good recognitions for their work this year, delivering career-best films. In any other year, Coogler would be rewarded for the technical feat of what he achieved with Sinners. And if PTA had other Oscar wins under his belt, he might not be the favorite. But this is his year, especially in this category. He is beloved by Hollywood and the Academy and it’s time for his recognition as Best Director.
Best Picture
Happy To Be Here
- F1
- The Secret Agent
- Train Dreams
As the awards season dragged on, there seemed to be nine locks for a Best Picture nomination and there was a fair amount of debate about which film would get the tenth slot. Once support waned for Wicked: For Good and Avatar: Fire and Ash, and not enough international support emerged for It Was Just an Accident, a certain blockbuster pulled ahead of the competitors and secured the checkered flag (see what I did there?). The nomination for F1 is a nice one for Apple Studios and for reminding people that blockbusters can still be awards-worthy. It’s also a demonstration of why the Academy expanded the Best Picture field back in 2009. So, as the likely last one in, F1 is just happy to be here.
That’s also the case for the terrific suspense thriller The Secret Agent, which also received nominations for Best Actor (Wagner Moura) and Best International Film and the new Best Casting category. I liked that movie a lot, and it’s an example of the nominations being the reward. Also in this category is one of my favorites of 2025, the beautiful Train Dreams, a small film that premiered at Sundance and rode positive reviews and word of mouth (not to mention wide distribution on Netflix) to secure four nominations. It might pull off a win for Best Cinematography, which would be worthy.
The Celebrated Filmmakers
- Bugonia
- Frankenstein
Every year, there seems to be a nominated movie where your reaction is “Oh yeah, the Academy loves this filmmaker.” Such was the case in 2021 when Licorice Pizza secured nominations for Best Picture and Best Director. While I loved that film, my reaction was “Really? Oh yeah, the Academy loves Paul Thomas Anderson.” You see, that movie was not really praised by a lot of people, except for PTA fanatics (raises hand). It feels like this might also be the case with these two movies.
Bugonia received four nominations and is the third film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos to receive a Best Picture nod, following 2018’s The Favourite and 2023’s Poor Things. Academy voters know that when he is releasing a movie, they need to stand up and take notice.
That’s also the case for Guillermo del Toro, who won Best Director and Best Picture awards for 2017’s The Shape of Water, as well as Best Animated Feature in 2023 for his reimagining of Pinocchio. His 2021 film Nightmare Alley (which I loved) also received a surprising Best Picture nomination. This year, his version of Frankenstein received nine nominations, including several technical categories, but surprisingly del Toro was not nominated for Best Director. Best Picture is not in the cards for del Toro this year, but the film received a lot of love from Academy voters, and may walk away with a few below-the-line categories, not to mention a potential surprise win for Jacob Elordi in Best Supporting Actor.
Probably Not Their Year
- Marty Supreme
- Sentimental Value
As I covered up above, despite the big love for Chalamet’s performance, there is simply not enough momentum to push Marty Supreme up to the podium for Best Picture this year. There was a time when the film was released late last year where people were wondering if it could give One Battle After Another or Sinners a run for their money. It’s not happening – that was recency bias. And as much as I love Sentimental Value (it was in my top five favorites of the year), this excellent drama from director Joachim Trier will likely have to settle for winning Best International Feature, a worthy prize on its own.
In Any Other Year
- Hamnet
This family drama from Chloe Zhao (with capital “A” acting on display) reminded me a lot of the type of movie that would get Oscar love in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Think Kramer v. Kramer, Ordinary People, Terms of Endearment, and (shudder) Driving Miss Daisy. Sure, this is a much different genre than those films and while I hate the phrase “Oscar bait,” there is a certain type of movie that Oscar voters go for. Well, they used to. You only have to look at recent winners like Moonlight, The Shape of Water and last year’s winner Anora to see that the Academy may admire works that are beautiful and showcase a number of talents across the various crafts that go into making a movie, but it’s not always going to secure the top prize. In a bygone era, Hamnet might have won Best Picture, but not this year.
It’s Kind of Incredible We Got Here
- Sinners
16 nominations. The most of any movie in the 98 years of handing out Academy Awards. For a multi-genre mashup of drama, music, steamy love scenes, and blood-spurting horror. For a story that also explores the history of music and race in our country in a story told over the course of one exhilarating and terrifying night in the 1930’s deep South. A true cinematic achievement that will be celebrated for decades to come.
Yes, when I walked away from my second viewing of Sinners last spring, I wrote that we should give it all the damn Oscars because there was no way a better movie would come out this year. The 16 nominations showed that the Academy loves this film too. But, a few months later, I saw One Battle After Another and I realized that we had a situation like 2023 when my top two movies (Killers of the Flower Moon and Oppenheimer) were both five-star masterpieces. This year, my top two films are competing for Best Picture.
Assuming PTA wins Best Director, could we see a split of the top two prizes and Sinners winning Best Picture? Sure, it’s happened many times throughout the history of the Oscars, including six of the last thirteen years. Would it be incredibly cool to see Sinners announced as Best Picture and hear the roar from the ecstatic crowd at the ceremony? Absolutely. I would be perfectly fine with a split of Best Picture and Best Director. I just don’t think it’s going to happen.
It’s His Time
- One Battle After Another
One of the downsides of the Oscar season dragging on until mid-March is that the pundits, writers, and podcasters need something to talk about. They try to find different angles for an upset. They look at precursor awards and try to make an argument for another movie to win Best Picture. Go look at the articles after Hamnet beat Sinners to win Best Picture – Drama at the Golden Globes. Everyone started wondering if Hamnet could win the big one at the Oscars. Also, look at the recent momentum for Sinners after its 16 nominations. As with most things in life, don’t overthink it.
As I noted above, Anderson is one of the most overdue filmmakers in Oscar history. Christopher Nolan could have made that argument when he was finally recognized for Oppenheimer, but he hadn’t even previously received a lot of nominations. Anderson has repeatedly been on voters’ minds every time he releases a movie, even when it’s not close to his best (like Licorice Pizza.) Now you are talking about easily one of his two or three best pictures in an already impressive filmography. I still think There Will Be Blood will never be topped, but I’d have to think long and hard about One Battle vs. Boogie Nights for the #2 spot.
One more thought on this film, and why I’m quite proud about what I wrote four years ago. Now, I never (I mean, NEVER) go back and re-read my old blog posts, unless I’m trying to remember if I covered a movie or not. Once I hit publish, that’s it. But I vividly remember what I wrote after the 2021 Oscars when Anderson didn’t win Best Screenplay for Licorice Pizza. Before the ceremony, there was talk that Anderson might finally get his Oscar recognition with a Screenplay award that night. He lost to Kenneth Branagh for Belfast, a movie that a lot of people loved, but I despised for being too schmaltzy. Here is what I wrote after the ceremony:
On the one hand, I was kind of bummed he didn’t get his Oscar, but on the other hand, I don’t want a token prize for him. He is such a master at the craft of writing and directing, I want his Oscar moment to be grand. He has been long recognized by the Academy, with eleven nominations across six films, including three Best Picture nominations. Licorice Pizza was excellent, but not on par with his best work. I’m hoping his next film is a grand movie that resonates with critics and audiences as a masterpiece and he gets his moment in the sun with wins for Picture, Director and Screenplay. Sometimes, it’s worth waiting for the best in life.
[Mic drop]
One More Thing – RIP: The Streak
Now, I intended to end this week’s blog with that last thought about the Oscars, but this past week, there was an event (or really a lack of an event) that led me to add this One More Thing.
As they say, all good things must come to an end and to be honest, it’s kind of insane that it lasted this long. If you know me well or are a regular reader of this blog, then you probably know about my golf streak. Many years ago, my friend Doug and I (who regularly golf together) were talking about how we had been fortunate to play golf during our recent mild winters. When we went back and looked at it, we realized that we hadn’t missed a month golfing in Connecticut since April 2015. The streak was born.
For the first few years, it was kind of a joke. Whenever the first of the month would roll around and we got out to play, we’d do the math and talk about how the streak had been extended. During the non-winter months, we never worried about when we played. You always knew you could get a round in during Spring, Summer or Fall. But when November 1st appeared on the calendar, we would make it a priority. You couldn’t risk a freak snowstorm. And of course, December, January, and February were priorities. Yes, I spent several New Year’s Days on the golf course. You just can’t take a chance.
About five years ago, things were looking dicey in February. Doug found a course on the southern shore of CT that was open. You see, there is usually less snow on the Connecticut shore, compared to where we live. So, we high-tailed it down there to extend the streak. It was an hour away, but worth it. Wouldn’t you know it? We got paired on the first tee with two other golfers who had the same streak going. In July of 2023, we celebrated our 100th consecutive month at that same golf course. And in late February of 2025, we were thrilled to find out they were open to get in our February round. Four days later, we drove down there on March 1st to officially mark 10 straight years of never missing a month. We both played great that day and had a blast commemorating a truly ridiculous statistic.
Every time we finished a round during the winter months, whether it was unusually warm (read: 30 degrees) or ridiculously cold (I will never forget the time the water in my water bottle started to freeze while we played), we always finished the round the same way, “Thanks for being crazy and getting out.”
Every winter, one of us would wonder if our luck would run out. January of 2026 was dicey. No New Years Day golf for the first time in a while. We were fortunate to get a warm spell and got out (twice actually) to extend the streak to 130 months. And then came February. You know already. So much damn snow. My wife and I were actually out of the country for the first two weeks, so I needed a warm spell at the end of the month. We kept our fingers crossed that it would happen until that mother of a blizzard hit the Northeast last weekend. And that was that.
As the calendar turns to March this weekend, it will be the first time in almost eleven years that I didn’t play golf at least one time that month. And no, indoor simulators don’t count. Neither does going to another (warmer) state. The fun of the whole experience was layering up on those cold days, enduring the frozen fairways and greens, using the cordless drill to get your tee into the frozen ground on the tee box, and laughing at how stupid we were to keep a streak going that we stumbled upon many years ago. As my wife said, at least if the streak had to end, it was due to an epic amount of snow. I’m thankful that we have all of those great memories and am ready to start a new one in March. Well, actually given all the snow we have, it might have to wait until April.
That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed my Oscar preview. The ceremony is not until March 15th, so you have plenty of time to catch up on the nominated films. Many of them are already available at home, either on a streaming service or to rent on demand. Also, most of the Best Picture nominees are playing in theaters in early March. So, you still have an opportunity to see them on the big screen. As a reminder, you can check out JustWatch.com to find where to watch them at home or Fandango to find a theater near you.
I’ll be back next week with a preview of the 2026 movie year. Thanks for reading and if you’d like to be notified of future posts, you can subscribe below.