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Outtakes

Fearless Oscar Predictions 2025

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It is time! And whether you think Wicked was wonderful, Emilia Pérez was overrated or Nosferatu needed more love, one thing is certain. It will be tough for this year’s Oscar broadcast to reach the wild heights of last year. (Please bring back Nicolas Cage, Kate McKinnon and Ryan Gosling!)

In the meantime, here are our predictions for this year’s big winners:

Actress in a Supporting Role

For a while, it looked like Netflix’s big bet this year was going to make a big splash at Oscar. But as the race draws to a close, we think Emilia Pérez will content itself with just one win.

Should win: Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez

Will win: Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez

  • Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown
  • Ariana Grande, Wicked
  • Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
  • Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
  • Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez

Actor in a Supporting Role

What a great field this year. Each actor cut an unforgettable character.

Should win: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

Will win: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain

  • Yura Borisov, Anora
  • Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
  • Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
  • Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
  • Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

There were two real standouts in this field in 2024. We believe one of those two will go home empty handed, but the other will take home the Oscar.

Should win: Greg Kwedar, Clint Bentley, Clarence Maclin, John “Divine G” Whitfield, Sing Sing

Will win: RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes, Nickel Boys

  • A Complete Unknown: James Mangold and Jay Cocks
  • Conclave: Peter Straughan
  • Emilia Pérez: Jacques Audiard; in collaboration with Thomas Bidegain, Lea Mysius and Nicolas Livecchi
  • Nickel Boys: RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes
  • Sing Sing: Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley; story by Clint Bentley, Greg Kwedar, Clarence Maclin, John “Divine G” Whitfield

Writing (Original Screenplay)

What’s the old cliché —the film that should win best picture usually wins best screenplay instead? This year, we predict both awards go the same direction, but we’d love to see one messy piece of female rage get it instead.

Should win: Coralie Fargeat, The Substance

Will win: Sean Baker, Anora

  • Anora: Sean Baker
  • The Brutalist: Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold
  • A Real Pain: Jesse Eisenberg
  • September 5: Moritz Binder, Tim Fehlbaum; co-written by Alex David
  • The Substance: Coralie Fargeat

Documentary Feature Film

As is often the case, the Academy draws attention to five brilliant nonfiction films, each shining a light on a piece of reality that we would otherwise never see. Vital, brilliant, necessary art, each one of these. Any win is justified.

Should win: No Other Land

Will win: No Other Land

  • Black Box Diaries
  • No Other Land
  • Porcelain War
  • Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
  • Sugarcane

International Feature Film

Here’s another great and wildly varied category.

Should win: I’m Still Here

Will win: I’m Still Here

  • I’m Still Here: Brazil
  • The Girl with the Needle: Denmark
  • Emilia Pérez: France
  • The Seed of the Sacred Fig: Germany
  • Flow: Latvia

Animated Feature Film

This category is such a joy this year, with five of the year’s best features.

Should win: The Wild Robot

Will win: The Wild Robot

  • Flow
  • Inside Out 2
  • Memoir of a Snail
  • Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl
  • The Wild Robot

Actor in a Leading Role

Tough call here, but we’re thinking Chalamet’s SAG win gives him the edge over Brody.

Should win: Colman Domingo, Sing Sing

Will win: Timothee Chalamet, A Complete Unknown

  • Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
  • Timothee Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
  • Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
  • Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
  • Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice

Actress in a Leading Role

Should win: Demi Moore, The Substance

Will win: Demi Moore, The Substance

  • Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
  • Karla Sofia Gascon, Emilia Pérez
  • Mikey Madison, Anora
  • Demi Moore, The Substance
  • Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here

Best Director

Would we cry if Fargeat won this? Tears of joy, maybe. But the likelihood is low and, to be honest, the tightrope Baker walked to give his film an almost slapstick comedic tone (given that it’s a film about a group of mobsters who kidnap a sex worker) is a real testament to his mastery of the craft of direction.

Should win: Sean Baker, Anora

Will win: Sean Baker, Anora

  • Anora: Sean Baker
  • The Brutalist: Brady Corbet
  • A Complete Unknown: James Mangold
  • Emilia Pérez: Jacques Audiard
  • The Substance: Coralie Fargeat

Best Picture

The Substance has a real shot, with Conclave as the upset possibility.

Should win: Anora

Will win: Anora

  • Anora
  • The Brutalist
  • A Complete Unknown
  • Conclave
  • Dune: Part Two
  • Emilia Pérez
  • I’m Still Here
  • Nickel Boys
  • The Substance

The Academy Awards are Sunday, March 2nd, live on ABC and Hulu with Conan O’Brien hosting.

New In Theaters

Brighton Beach Memoir

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Anora

by Matt Weiner

Sean Baker doesn’t shy away from seamy subcultures, and the worthiness of people trying to get by outside of conformity. Yet it hasn’t been until his Palme d’Or winner Anora that he has found one group without any redeeming qualities. This shocking and depraved group of people is, in this case, the jet-setting global elite.

Anora “Ani” Mikheeva (Mikey Madison) is no stranger to high rollers at her luxe Manhattan strip club. But there’s wealthy, and then there’s wealthy. When a party of Russians ask for a dancer who speaks their language, Ani becomes an object of desire to Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn, pitch perfect as a manic boychild whose naivete can turn on a dime from charming to something nearing sociopathic disinterest).

Vanya has taken up residence in his Russian oligarch parents’ Brighton Beach mansion. He is in America to study, but spends his days playing video games and his nights partying into oblivion—anything to avoid being sent back to Russia to join the family business. His relationship with Ani quickly escalates, from sex work outside the club to becoming an exclusive escort to an impromptu Vegas marriage.

This being a Baker fairytale, Ani’s whirlwind rags-to-riches marriage is only the beginning of her Cinderella story. What follows is a comically grotesque odyssey through the Russian-dominant Brighton Beach, as Vanya eludes his new bride and a superb supporting cast of family fixers and toughs sent to get the marriage annulled before more shame is brought on the Zakharov family.

With the callow Vanya on the run, Baker instead focuses on the chaos and damage (both physical and emotional) left in his wake. And while this is a deserved star turn for Madison, who is electric and enthralling, she is just one of the victims of Vanya’s selfishness.

She joins—or rather is dragooned into—the evening’s hunt for Vanya by a trio of Russian and Armenian strongmen, led by the beleaguered Orthodox priest Toros (Karren Karagulian, a Baker mainstay in his best role yet).

For much of their night together, Baker pulls off a risky balance between outright comedy and what is, essentially, the kidnapping of a sex worker by three large, powerfully connected men. None of this would work without Baker’s characteristic empathy for everyone. And it certainly wouldn’t feel so easy-going were it not for the relationship between Ani and the silent strongman Igor, played by Yura Borisov with a standout turn that nearly rivals Madison’s.

Baker’s most memorable characters are often wrestling with the American dream, and Baker himself seems like a Rorschach test for your own baggage: both pointed critic and secret optimist. Even at his most hopeful, though, there’s always a catch. Save the very few who can buy their way to hedonic bliss, carving your own real-life fairytale ending won’t look like it does in a Disney movie.

New In Theaters

Full Frontal and Funny

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Red Rocket

by Christie Robb

Mikey Saber (Simon Rex) is like an ill-trained golden retriever—all smiles and charm until he starts humping your leg and pissing all over the furniture.

In Sean Baker’s Red Rocket, Mikey makes a hangdog reappearance in his hometown of Texas City, Texas. He left 20 years before with hopes of making it big out in Los Angeles—as a porn star. That didn’t exactly turn out well for him and now he finds himself broke and on the doorstep of his ex Lexi (Bree Elrod), begging to be let back inside.

He’s a fast talker who makes a good elevator pitch, and despite a history that you can just tell is littered with drama and bad vibes, Lexi lets Mikey move in—provided he contributes to the rent and does some chores around the house.

From here, Mikey tries to pick up the pieces of his life and start over. Unfortunately, the stigma against sex workers limits his employment prospects. So he hooks up with an old boss and starts peddling weed to make ends meet.

Baker (Tangerine, The Florida Project) has made a comedy this time out, albeit a black one. Once Mikey catches a glimpse of the pert 17-year-old server Strawberry (Suzanna Son) at the local Doughnut Hole, he embarks on a mission to pimp her out to the porn industry.

She’s smart, sex-positive, and down to be filmed, but Mikey is full of lies, promoting unrealistic expectations that give the comedy a touch of a tragic undertone.

All of this is set against 2016 DNC and RNC convention speeches that make reoccurring cameos on the TVs in the background, underscoring the hogwash that Mikey is spouting.

Quotable and frequently laugh-out-loud funny, Red Rocket finally answered a question I had floating around the back of my mind for years—exactly how much bouncing would be involved when a well-endowed naked man runs full-out on a city street.  

New In Theaters, Slider

Tragic Kingdom

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The Florida Project

by Hope Madden

Full of the raucous rhythm of an unsupervised childhood, The Florida Project finds power in details and tells an unadorned but potent story.

Co-writer/director Sean Baker follows up his ambitious 2015 film Tangerine with another tale set gleefully along the fringes of society. Where Tangerine used weaves, stilettos and spangles to color the Christmas antics of Hollywood hustlers, here Baker fills the screen with bold colors and enormous, cartoonish images to create a grotesquely oversized playground.

The film begins with as perfect a movie opening as you will ever see.

Six-year-old Moonee (an astonishing Brooklynn Prince) wastes her summer days wandering the Orlando strip surrounding her home, a vivid purple bargain motel catering less to Disney World tourists than to tenants who can’t afford the security deposit world of traditional housing.

When she’s not out finding adventures with her besties Jancey (Valeria Cotto) and Scooty (Christopher Rivera), Moonee’s probably hustling wholesale perfumes to tourists with her mom Halley (Bria Vinaite).

The one true grown up in the mix, motel manager Bobby, is played with charm and tenderness by Willem Dafoe.

Baker’s many talents include an ear for authentic dialog, a knack for letting a story breathe and an eye for visual details that enrich a tale. But maybe what’s most striking is his ability to tell fresh but universal stories. We all remember elements of unbridled recklessness in our childhood, although very few of us grew up the way Moonee does.

Baker creates a bridge into Moonee’s life, revels in her freedom and bravado, but keeps us always aware of the dangerous edges when you’re blurring childhood and adulthood.

It’s the concept of childhood and adulthood that preoccupies Baker and his story, set in this absurd, low-rent amusement park of a world. As Mooney’s mother, Vinaite offers a fierce mixture of childishness all her own as well as street-savviness. Halley keeps the ugliness of the world away with her own whimsy, and Vinaite’s onscreen chemistry with Prince is authentic and full of tenderness.

As much as Tinsel Town was the perfect backdrop for the struggling glamour of Tangerine, the shadow of Disney World is almost too perfect a setting for the grinding poverty and perverted innocence of The Florida Project.





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Block Party

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Tangerine

by George Wolf

“Merry Christmas Eve, bitch!”

Holiday greetings from Tangerine, an irresistibly wild dive into the dramatic lives of two transgender hookers in LA.

It’s the night before Christmas, and creatures of the night are stirring. The manic Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriquez) has just gotten out of jail and is looking to reconnect with Chester (James Ransone), her boyfriend-slash-pimp. But when her best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) lets it slip that Chester’s been unfaithful with a “fish” (“yes, a real woman, bitch, with a vagina and everything!”), Sin-Dee sets out to track them both down and demand some answers.

Meanwhile, local cabbie Razmik (Karren Karagulian) is eager to resume his business relationship with Sin-Dee, and he ignores his extended family during a Holiday get-together to focus on his secret life. Offended, Razmik’s mother-in-law hits the streets on her own quest to uncover exactly what it is her son-in-law is hiding.

Filming the entire movie via iPhone on location in West Hollywood, director/co-writer Sean Baker has not only created an authentic, in-the-moment slice of life, but also a film that nearly explodes with vitality.

Most of all, Tangerine feels urgently original. The “iPhone movie about transgender hookers” angle may get attention, but Baker’s storytelling is rock solid. There are amateurish moments to be sure, but the film becomes downright artful, pulling you completely into its world with unforgettable characters you care about almost instantly.

Beyond the craziness of daily life “on the block,” Tangerine is also genuinely moving. We feel for Alexandra as she struggles to attract an audience for her Christmas Eve nightclub performance, and ache for Sin-Dee when a hateful act from a carload of assholes leaves her unable to hide the vulnerability underneath her defiant personality.

It’s brash and daring, funny, subversive, insightful and poignant. Really, there are countless reasons to see Tangerine.

Pick one.

Verdict-4-0-Stars