OSCARS LANDSCAPE 2025
97th Academy Awards on Sunday, March 2nd at 4:00PM Pacific Time
Though it is impossible to fairly judge a work of art in a contest, the Academy Awards do more than that. They bring attention to the countless hours of toil, heart and creative energy that is invested in filmmaking, and celebrate some of the best and brightest releases of the past year. Often, the choice of the winner for each category may be influenced by popular sentiment, politics and skillful marketing, but the bottom line is that there is an overwhelming convergence of creativity, life experience and skill that goes into each production. Moviemaking is absolutely a team sport. Each movie nominated is at the forefront of the year’s offerings of cinema.
From the list of ten nominations for Best Picture 2025, the following are well-deserving of the Academy Award.
Anora: Anora is a beautifully crafted, highly inventive story with a brilliant performance by Mikey Madison as young, inexperienced sex worker with a heart, as she navigates a rollercoaster of devious characters and daunting situations, using her infectious love for life and sense of comedy as a tool to bring chaos under control. It helps that director Sean Baker has an instinctive feel for storytelling and Madison’s relatively unknown co-stars Yura Borisov and Mark Eydelsheyn are naturals in front of the camera. Brilliantly directed by Sean Baker (nominated for Best Director), this story wraps you up and takes you on a glorious adventure, tugging on your heartstrings at the same time.
Wicked: I’ve been a huge Cynthia Erivo fan since I first saw the relatively unknown singer/actress in Bad Times at the El Royale (2018). She is one of those performers who effortlessly fills the screen with fireworks and is a hugely talented singer. Erivo (nominated for Best Actress) and Ariana Grande (nominated for Best Supporting Actress) are perfectly paired in Wicked. Director Jon M. Chu takes a story we all know and gives it saturating color, magnetic personalities, rhythm and that elusive seamless transition between dialogue and song. The characters, story, and the vivid settings are awe-inspiring.
Emilia Perez: Emilia Perez is a complete surprise. Zoe Saldana (nominated for Best Supporting Actress) drew me into the story. This is another musical that shifts smoothly between dialogue and song. Saldana is dynamic as “Rita,” and Karla Sofia Gascon (nominated for Best Actress) as “Emilia/Manitas” is literally a shape shifter. The story twists and turns with surprises and director Jacques Audiard (nominated for Best Director) makes sure the intensity is never lost. The mood is dark, deep and mysterious, often contrasting with the bright, rhythmic music.
Conclave: From the start, Conclave is a moviemaker’s movie. Director Edward Berger composes visuals that tell the story in perfect harmony with the sounds and the music. It’s a psychological thriller set on a grand plane, and at the same time it’s a soap opera of momentous proportions. The cast is extraordinary. Ralph Fiennes, as “Cardinal Lawrence” is nominated for Best Lead Actor. The ending will make you explore your own spirituality and contemplate the need for some kind of faith as a cornerstone for our mental wellbeing.
Nickel Boys: Nickel Boys is the “outsider” nominee for Best Picture. It’s based on a 2019 novel with roots in a true historical account of a reform school in Florida that operated for 111 years in the Jim Crow-era South. Director RaMell Ross and cinematographer Jomo Fray took a chance on unorthodox use of camera angles, placing many shots from the direct point-of-view of two boys who have been consigned to the school. This is not a flashy, high-budget film. It’s a profound story based on real history that immerses you in the world of a sensitive boy and then tears that world apart.
A Complete Unknown: To prepare for his work on A Complete Unknown, Timothee Chalamet (nominated for Best Actor) spent years immersing himself in the music, the person, the world of Bob Dylan. He embodies not only the personality but also the musical identity of the role, singing and playing every number, and does an amazing job at becoming this icon. James Mangold (nominated for Best Director) tells the story of Bob Dylan’s early years as a folk singer through music, gracefully and honestly. Edward Norton’s portrayal of singer Pete Seeger is so real it’s haunting. He’s nominated for Best Supporting Actor.
The Brutalist: This movie is a passion project for Brady Corbet (nominated for Best Director) who spent many years of his life devoted to bringing the film to the big screen. Adrian Brody (nominated for Best Actor) and an ensemble of incredible actors tell this story that follows Western World History from World War II through the mid-century.
Also nominated for Best Picture are Dune: Part 2, I’m Still Here and The Substance.
Other films that should win various awards on Oscar Night are Sing Sing, a docudrama based on the real Rehabilitation Through the Arts Program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility. It’s an important film that allows you to step inside a prison and see that many of the prisoners continue to forge meaningful lives inside, learning, thinking, and in this case acting and creating. Colman Domingo is nominated for Best Actor for his role as “Divine G.”
An ensemble mostly consisting of incarcerated or previously incarcerated men play the other characters with great sensitivity and candor. A Real Pain tells the story of two cousins who visit the site of a concentration camp in Poland near their grandmother’s ancestral home. Kieran Culkin is nominated for Best Supporting Actor in this haunting movie written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg that suggests that the horrors instigated by the Nazi’s in World War II continue to have an effect generations later.
Because of the excellent quality of films nominated for the 2025 Academy Awards, there will be many that deserve Oscars that will not receive them. I consider the nomination itself to be an award. So, let’s see this Sunday evening which artists and which works of art receive that Oscar statuette, bearing in mind that they are all worthy of the recognition and the ovation that keep the creation of cinema alive.
Kathryn Whitney Boole has spent most of her life in the entertainment industry, which has been the backdrop for remarkable adventures with extraordinary people. She is a Talent Manager with Studio Talent Group in Santa Monica. kboole@gmail.com
