The Academy Awards are near, with 10 movies competing for the top Oscar. Let’s look through all 10 2025 Best Picture nominees, ranked from worst to best!
It’s that time of the year again: Academy Award season. A time when 10 movies compete for the honor of Best Picture for their respective year, and a time when film snobs compete for the honor of Worst Human Being when arguing for their favorites. Thankfully, despite the 2025 race being one of the messiest, dirtiest Oscar seasons I’ve ever tracked in real time – and I’ve been thoroughly entertained through it all – the actual list of 10 nominees for Best Picture is really good. We’ve got a decent mix of small-scale stories, grandiose blockbusters, and film genres ranging from science-fiction to musical to horror to whatever the hell Emilia Pérez is. Almost all of these films are at the very least good, so it’s hard to go wrong here! So, let’s look at all 10 2025 Best Picture nominees, ranked from worst to best.
10. Emilia Pérez
Yeah, yeah, this is the obvious punching bag of the race that nearly everyone ranks as the worst nominee. But I’m sorry; it’s for good reason. Emilia Pérez is about a Mexican cartel leader (Karla Sofía Gascón) who, with the help of a lawyer (Zoe Saldaña), transitions into a woman, dons the name Emilia Pérez, and disappears into a new life. And she tries to reconnect with her wife (Selena Gomez) without revealing who she is. And she tries to right the wrongs of her past by identifying cartel victims. And this is a musical. Do you see the problem? If this movie deserves credit for one thing, it’s the audacity to combine such disparate, bizarre storylines and tones. Unfortunately, it’s still the worst nominee here, because it does none of these elements well, leading to a film that’s almost as messy as Gascón’s apology posts.
The major overarching problem with Emilia Pérez is that it has great starts of ideas that never go anywhere. Everything from Emilia’s hardened criminal nature that can’t be truly washed away, to the heinous way she emotionally manipulates her family, to the progress of her new charity, is examined through only the surface level. For instance, the corruption of Emilia’s donors is described through a whole song but then never addressed again. On that note (literally), the song numbers are poorly composed, poorly sung, laughably edited into the story, and only have glimpses of creative visuals. Emilia Pérez isn’t an irredeemably awful movie, but it’s the only one whose Best Picture nomination – along with its 12 others – outright baffles me.
9. A Complete Unknown
Despite this movie’s low placement, we’re already getting into pretty solid territory. A Complete Unknown is a biopic portraying the life of music legend Bob Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) from 1961 to 1965, showing his rise as a folk icon, his complicated personal relationships, and his controversial integration of electric instruments into his music. A lot A Complete Unknown hits some standard biopic beats, but it does so from a somewhat different angle in how it portrays Dylan himself. He’s shown as someone who has things to say, has his own ways in which he wants to say them, and frankly doesn’t care about the response he gets in return. If anything, he actively resents his new fame and the clamoring from fans to give them the same thing over and over, especially when he wants to branch out stylistically.
Chalamet is Bob Dylan personified. There’s no other way to say it. Or, he’s at least what little we know about the enigmatic real-life person. Through the aloof, sometimes dismissive way he holds himself, coupled with how freakishly well he replicates Dylan’s singing voice, Chalamet singlehandedly holds much of the film together, even when it refuses to take a deeper dive into his character. He’s surrounded by a stellar cast including Edward Norton as Pete Seeger and Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez (both of whom are nominated for Academy Awards alongside him), and director James Mangold’s old-school, detail-oriented touch plants you firmly in the sixties and folk culture. A Complete Unknown overstays its welcome and breaks no new ground in this genre, but it’s made wholly watchable through its dedication to a fascinating man and his loveable music. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to listen to the film’s version of “It Ain’t Me, Babe” now that it’s infected my head… again.
8. I’m Still Here
A lot of people are really high on I’m Still Here, so I may be in the minority by having it ranked this low. The film mainly takes place in 1970s Brazil during its military dictatorship. Fernanda Torres plays Eunice Paiva, a mother whose husband Rubens (Selton Mello) is forcibly taken by the military and permanently disappears, leaving the rest of the family to live their lives under the resulting dark cloud. The movie’s biggest source of Oscar hype is Torres, whose performance is the sturdy, unbreakable anchor from which you can never look away. She personifies the steely yet internally devastated response of someone who’s put through such an eerie, unjust loss, yet comes out of it emboldened and determined to lead her family to better days. I’m Still Here is a showcase of resilience more than anything else, best personified by when the family insists on smiling in a photo for a paper that’s covering their story.
The film makes the unique decision to not dwell in sadness but rather show the day-to-day lives of the family before and after Rubens is taken. It’s based on a true story, and it does its best to resemble reality by taking a more slice-of-life approach, in which the looming tragedy is present but not always focused on. As refreshing as that is, it’s taken to a point where the film seems slightly dispassionate towards its real-life subject matter. Eunice’s foray into activism gets almost no attention, nor does the context behind the setting’s politics. And with a 2-hour-plus runtime, that all causes the film to seriously drag. But it’s worth it for the emotional highs and lows that are nonetheless achieved, especially in a powerful homestretch that demonstrates the long-lasting effects of love and grief.
7. Nickel Boys
This is the point where our nominees get downright great. In Nickel Boys, Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson star as Elwood and Turner, two African-American boys sent to Nickel Academy, a horrifically abusive reform school in 1960s Florida. The film is entirely shot through the two characters’ first-person POVs, putting you literally in their positions. That alone makes the impact of Nickel Boys unlike any other story about racism, cruelty, and oppression. The disturbing hell and even unusual moments of reprieve make you feel as strange and uncomfortable as if you were actually put in another person’s body, which in turn likely resembles how the characters feel in an environment that’s built to deliberately alienate and dehumanize them.
But like I’m Still Here, Nickel Boys is 2 hours and 20 minutes when it doesn’t quite need to be, and it sometimes comes across as meandering for the sake of enhancing a mood that’s already doing a great job without that padding. This includes many montages of tangentially related sequences of world events and people that, while effective for the atmosphere, distract more than they benefit the story. But whether or not I understood these choices, they never inhibited my level of investment. Additionally, the first-person form is slightly shaken up when we’re taken to decades after the boys’ time in the academy, and if you read into that choice the same way I did, it takes the whole story to devastatingly haunting places. Considering the real-life Florida school that inspired this movie, Nickel Boys is worthy of existing all on its own. But its incredibly distinct approach elevates it that much further.
6. Wicked
Almost every Best Picture Oscar race includes at least one big crowd-pleasing nominee, and Wicked takes that spot this year. Based on the iconic 2003 stage musical, this adaptation takes us to the land of The Wizard of Oz, in which university student Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), the future Wicked Witch of the West, aspires to meet the Wizard and cure her heavily ostracized green skin. She also forms a strong friendship with popular student Glinda (Ariana Grande), who will become Glinda the Good. Just me saying the word “popular” has you humming that song right now, doesn’t it? As far as musicals go, Wicked has pretty much everything you’d want: lush sets that look highly livable, stellar dancing, sweeping cinematography that takes full advantage of the transition from stage to screen, and of course memorable, well written songs that further the story while pleasing the ears.
And thankfully, Wicked retains the heart of the original musical – or at least its first act – with two show-stopping performances by Erivo and Grande. They, along with every other actor, commit wholeheartedly to the attitude and cadence that’s needed for a character in this world, and they take their own personal journeys that cause them to question more about themselves, their identities, and their surroundings than some may expect from a Wizard of Oz prequel. Do I understand some complaints about the film’s wonky CGI and occasionally muted colors? Sure. But it still puts in so much more effort than a lot of halfhearted blockbusters would, and it embraces every cinematic trick at its disposal to translate the tangible fun of Broadway to the big screen. It also has a setting called Shiz University. Which means this movie is, objectively, the shiz.
5. The Brutalist
The Brutalist is a behemoth of an Academy Award contender, clocking in at three and a half hours. And, fittingly, it has a lot of ground to cover as it follows the journey of László Toth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian-Jewish architect who flees to America from post-war Europe. He’s employed by wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) and eventually reunited with his now-ailing wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), all while facing increasing trouble from xenophobia and a crippling drug addiction. As you could probably guess, The Brutalist is the definition of all-encompassing. It’s hard to distill the very core of what the movie’s about, but I’d say the primary takeaway surrounds the overall artistic struggle in trying to make one’s vision a reality under the employ of someone who truly doesn’t understand nor care, and the balance an artist faces in what they have to compromise and what they simply can’t.
László’s convictions prove to be his most admirable traits, as well as among his most damning, when he refuses to make any wiggle room in his construction projects. At that point, you ask yourself, would it be right for him to do so considering he’s under someone else’s employ? Or would that be sacrificing a core piece of who he is and what his art stands for? Especially considering the underlying classism and racism of the establishment he works for, which gradually goes from subtle to blatant and culminates in acts of pure evil. It’s all these layers piling on top of one another that makes The Brutalist as massive in its story as it is in its visual scale, which itself holds your eyes’ attention throughout the beefy duration. The film only falls short in building a connection between the audience and László’s actual work. For a film partially about architecture, we don’t see nor learn that much about the field. But for how high The Brutalist aims and how hard it swings, it’s staggering to see how many of those swings are solid hits.
4. Conclave
Now we’re in all-around excellent territory. From this point on, every ranked film would make my own personal Best Picture list. Starting with Conclave, a Vatican drama/thriller in which Cardinal Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes) is charged with managing the secretive, sequestered process of electing a new Pope after the death of their current one. He’s thrust into the middle of underhanded strategies, secrets, and scandals that threaten the very core of his belief altogether. I know, an electoral process getting dirty? Who woulda thought? Obviously, the parallels to actual politics are inevitable and intentional as Lawrence basically takes on the role of any sane voter – few as there may be – who wants to make the right choice but is constantly assaulted by different notions of what that choice is, how it should be made, and how much of a place he even wants to have after a point.
There’s such a thing as having a good agenda but bad means of making it happen, and Conclave demonstrates how easy it is for that to blur with all-around bad eggs vying for power. Setting it in the church environment hammers the point home even harder when these supposedly pure-hearted people start besmirching each other in the name of faith. But in a broader sense, the film is about the burden that well-meaning people face when healthily questioning their own values. As the film so beautifully puts it, certainty is the enemy of acceptance when new changes come about. When you “know” the right answer, you shut yourself out to progress, a message that’s again made even stronger in this setting. In one of the most politically fraught times possibly ever, Conclave is a grounding work that speaks to the pain and importance of challenging what you believe in.
3. Dune: Part Two
In a perfect world, Dune: Part Two would’ve come out in 2023 as planned, late in the year and comfortably within Academy voters’ short attention spans. A staggering achievement on every single level, this sequel to 2021’s Dune follows Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), a former royal who assimilates with the desert-dwelling Fremen to fight back against those who wiped out his family line, while coming closer to fulfilling a prophecy hailing him as an all-powerful messiah. What follows is the kind of movie that makes me grateful to have seen its initial run on the big screen, the same way people who grew up with Jurassic Park or Lord of the Rings in theaters must have felt back in those days. Dune: Part Two captures that same level of awe and majesty, but in its own strange, mysterious, heavily dramatic way. It is the textbook definition of cinema.
What especially puts Dune: Part Two a cut above its predecessor is the incredibly dense and thoughtful story of Paul’s ascension as a leader… whether it’s by his own hand or not. Because of the many levels of political and religious manipulation happening all around him, and his visions of future widespread genocide in his own name, every victory he achieves is marked with an extremely ominous asterisk. You marvel at the jaw-dropping visuals while dreading what they mean for everyone’s future. Chalamet again embodies his complex, conflicted character perfectly, Hans Zimmer delivers one of his best scores (which isn’t eligible as an Oscar nominee because the Academy Awards don’t like you), and Greg Fraser’s cinematography is the definitive showcase of what modern-day film is capable of. Whether you get into the spectacle or the storytelling, Dune: Part Two gives you an epic for the ages.
2. Anora
Anora is arguably the frontrunner to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and for very good reason. It may not have the grand scope of its competitors, but it’s just as grand on a pure character level. Anora Mikheeva (Mikey Madison) is a young sex worker yearning for a more lavish life, and she gets just that when she meets and impulsively marries Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a Russian oligarch. But when his parents send their people to break up the marriage, everything descends into chaos. In other words, what would have been your typical fairytale love story in other movies gets violently ripped to shreds after the first act. It’s clear from the start that Anora and Vanya, though possessing great chemistry together, are impulsively rushing their whirlwind romance, chasing the highs that come with their youth and frustrations.
Everyone in Anora has major flaws but is also a product of institutions they may not get to choose. Anora is at fault for jumping headfirst into a Cinderella romance despite the warning signs, but she’s also unjustly treated as an afterthought by Vanya’s family. Yet she manages to make a strange connection with one of their most kindhearted henchmen (Yura Borisov), which sneakily becomes the true heart of the film. Vanya is clearly the product of an elite, sheltered upbringing that never taught him any emotional responsibility, which is made sadder when you see the hints of the better person he could have been. Anora is dramatic, funny, exhausting in the best ways, and it provocatively touches on many different aspects of life in a way that’s both brutally honest and touchingly sympathetic, all the way up to the most silently devastating ending of the entire year.
But it doesn’t have closeups of Dennis Quaid’s mouth eating shrimp. So, it obviously can’t be ranked #1.
1. The Substance
I’d say a movie as grotesque as The Substance has no shot of winning Best Picture, but I would’ve said months ago that it has no shot of getting nominated. But thank goodness it was, because this horror film is right up there with the all-time greats of its genre. Demi Moore plays Elisabeth Sparkle, an aging actress who acquires a mysterious drug known as “the substance,” which creates a younger, “prettier” version of herself (Margaret Qualley). From there, Qualley’s version lives a life of adoration while Moore lets her days go by in sad silence. When the younger self needs to stick around longer (they switch every week), she starts sapping life from her original version, which leads to a savage takedown of unrealistic beauty standards, a creative metaphor of drug addiction, and a compelling character study of someone destroying herself to chase an endless high that just leaves her emptier. All topped off with an increasingly disgusting foray into pure body horror.
Moore and Qualley are brilliant in portraying different versions of the same person. Their mistakes and self-images are outwardly different but darkly reflect each other, and you can read so much into how deep their connection truly goes as “the same person.” And then if you’re a sick bastard, you can bathe in the buckets of blood and feast your eyes on the abominations that form as the film goes on, brought to life by effects and makeup that give Cronenberg films a run for their money. More than any other Best Picture nominee in this lineup, The Substance pushes its premise, and the capabilities of film, as far as it can go in such a twisted, unforgettable direction. It’s very weird, purposefully off-putting, and incredibly revolting, so I wouldn’t recommend it to just anyone. But if you’re on board for an ingeniously conceived, ruthlessly executed ride through Crazytown, The Substance may be the Best Picture candidate you can root for on Oscar night.
The 97th Academy Awards will take place on Sunday, March 2, 2025! Download our Oscars 2025 printable ballot sheet and read our predictions below!
