My Oscar choices and predictions.
The 98th Academy Awards, Sunday, March 15th at 4:00 PM, on ABC, and streaming on Hulu
I believe that works of art cannot be judged, as part of their design lies in the perception of the beholder. Each of us brings a different mental algorithm as we observe, and that’s what makes art resemble life in fine detail. Moviemaking is a team sport – every film is a product of the communal blood, sweat, and tears of all involved. The Oscars are a chance for filmmakers and actors to applaud some of the best work of their colleagues.
There are ten nominations for the Best Picture made in 2025, and each deserves the prize.
BUGONIA
Bugonia takes our collective hubris down a few notches. Many of us run from one task to another, barely considering our time here on this planet and our relationship with our surroundings, which are recorded here by cinematographer Robbie Ryan, sometimes fleeting, sometimes vivid, always bold with deep colors, the visuals draped in sound. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, with Emma Stone, Jesse Plemons, and Aidan Delbis, this film is a poem, a symphony, an avant-garde painting in a film. There is comedy in this dark storytelling that inspires us to laugh at ourselves – one of Lanthimos’ greatest superpowers.
F1: THE MOVIE
This movie envelopes you in a racecar with precise point-of-view shots that make you feel you are driving the car, moving at a breakneck pace. The soundtrack by Hans Zimmer emotionally amplifies the emotions of driving at 200mph at nine 2023 Formula One Grand Prix events worldwide. Brad Pitt shines as a driver who is aging out of his sport, as does Damson Idris as a young contender. Legendary racer Lewis Hamilton is featured and is one of the producers. “Slow is smooth and smooth is slow” is the mantra in the film, a Zen balance in the mind-boggling concentration it takes to conquer the Formula 1.
FRANKENSTEIN
The prolific Jacob Elordi is the unexpectedly sympathetic monster here, brought to life by tortured Dr. Frankenstein, played by Oscar Isaac. The dramatic visual backgrounds are lit by bright whites and bold colors and underscored by Alexandre Desplat’s orchestral score. The “Creature” is ghastly and frightening, but Elordi brings a plaintive humanity to him that we can identify with as he begins to sense the world as would a baby and a toddler. The creature pleads with his maker in agony, “I cannot die. And I cannot live alone.”
HAMNET
This is the story of William Shakespeare’s wife, two daughters and son, Hamnet, who are left behind in their English country cottage by the bard as he makes his way to London to write and stage his plays, By “reading between the lines of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets,” the film’s writers and its director, Chloe Zhao, take much literary license in painting a detailed history of Shakespeare’s family life. Jessie Buckley (nominated for Best Actress) is perfectly cast as “Agnes,” who really “wears the pants” in the family while dad is off pursuing his artistry in London. Jacobi Jupe is superb as the son “Hamnet.”
MARTY SUPREME
Get ready to run and run and run – you will feel it physically as you experience Marty Supreme, loosely based on the true story of a self-made table tennis champion in early 1950’s New York City, and convincingly brought to life by Timothee Chalamet as “Marty” (nominated for Best Actor). The performance of Odessa A’Zion as Marty’s impassioned girlfriend is a highlight. Chalamet notes that the film is “about sacrifice in pursuit of a dream…and to not take no for an answer.” Both Chalamet and the movie emit a breathless intensity, as if being pursued by an unimaginable force.
ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER
This is another movie where all the characters are breathlessly on the run, through a torturous and complex plot that has members of diametrically opposed schools of politics and belief escaping from and clashing with one another. The film features breakout performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Teyana Taylor, Sean Penn, Chase Infiniti, and Benicio del Toro. It’s an action film and a psychological study of mass proportions that highlights the fear, the anger, and the humor of the human predicament in today’s world.
THE SECRET AGENT
This Brazilian film is the only one I have not seen. It takes place in 1977 and involves a tech expert who returns to his hometown and finds it has changed in many ways. The movie is said to be well worth seeing.
SENTIMENTAL VALUE
This is a classic European-style film that focuses on relationships. It’s a cinematic tone poem featuring a house as the central point of view. Deep performances by Stellan Starsgaard, Renate Rensve, Inga Lilleaas, and Elle Fanning take place in detailed rooms of this venerable home in a Norwegian seaside town, a home that has witnessed the intimate machinations of so many relationships within its walls that it harbors a sense of immortality.
SINNERS
Wow! Sinners will pick you up and drop you into the symphonic painting of a tumultuous time and place in our country’s history, as it paints a gigantic mural of the Black culture in the Jim Crow South, the Mississippi Delta of the early 1930’s. It will take you on a zipline through hell with an intense staccato carried out by the camera work, the editing, and the cast. It’s a mob movie with warring factions poured into a fiery hot bowl of disparate cultures. Michael B. Jordan plays both roles of twins “Smoke” and “Stack,” and young Miles Caton plays “Sammie,” the focal point of the story. This is a history lesson and a jazz/ blues dance concert all at once.
TRAIN DREAMS
This exceptionally beautiful film that plays out against the historical backdrop of a young United States after the Civil War. The filmmakers recreate for us the open lands and nascent towns of our country in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. The fictional story follows the life of “Robert Grainier,” born in the 1880’s, an orphaned child who never knew his parents nor a settled life. We experience the land through him as he grows up, travels by railroad, and joins logging crews, living among the trees. He marries, builds a home, has a child, and experiences unthinkable tragedy. Joel Edgerton as the understated Grainier delivers a resounding performance, his resilience mirroring that of the beautiful country that surrounds his life. This film may resurface in your mind whenever you escape your busy life and survey the vast world around you to contemplate our life on this planet and our relationship to its inhabitants.
An extraordinary movie will haunt your memory forever emotionally and visually, with its beauty, its terror, its sorrow, its soul, its hysterics, its ability to make you laugh – the impact is cathartic. The films nominated for this year’s Oscars may do just that.
Who do I think will win Best Picture? Probably Sinners or One Battle After Another, which both deserve the prize.
Who would I vote for? Train Dreams.
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.
