This morning, nominations for the 98th Academy Awards were announced, honoring the best in film from 2025. Generally, the films chosen fit in neatly with the narratives and nominations from this season thus far, but, as always, there were shocks and surprises to be found all over the nomination list. Let’s take a look at some of the biggest takeaways from this year’s nominations.
“Sinners” Ascends To The Heavens
Without a doubt, the most headline-grabbing news of the day that even the normies will be talking about is “Sinners” absolutely blowing past the all-time nomination record. Ryan Coogler’s blockbuster grabbed an astounding 16 nominations, easily beating the previous record of 14 held by “All About Eve,” “La La Land,” and “Titanic.” Of course, it’s helped by the addition of the brand new Best Casting category, but even if that weren’t here, it would’ve still beaten the record (not to mention, if the Best Sound category were still divided into two, it likely would’ve received nominations in both). It’s an astounding performance for the film in many respects, least of all because it’s a horror movie released in the first half of the year, two factors that usually mean a film is not to Oscar voters’ tastes. Clearly, this Academy was a huge fan of the hit movie.
“One Battle After Another” earned the second-most nominations, with a very respectable 13 mentions. Its misses in categories like Best Actress and Best Makeup & Hairstyling prevented it from setting a record as well. After that, there’s a trio of films that received nine nominations each: “Frankenstein,” “Marty Supreme,“ and “Sentimental Value,“ followed by “Hamnet“ with eight. Every other Best Picture nominee – “Bugonia,” “F1,” “The Secret Agent,“ and “Train Dreams“ – earned four nominations.
The Academy Gets Spooky (Finally!)
But it wasn’t just the success of “Sinners” that showed that this Academy might be more welcoming to horror films than they’ve previously been. “Frankenstein” also made it into the Best Picture and eight other categories. Not to mention, Amy Madigan got a not-unexpected-but-still-exciting nomination in Best Supporting Actress for her gleefully villainous turn in “Weapons.” In fact, three of the acting categories feature classic horror characters: there’s Madigan’s witchy Aunt Gladys, in addition to Michael B. Jordan’s portrayal of a vampire in “Sinners” in Best Actor, and Best Supporting Actor nominee Jacob Elordi as the famous monster in “Frankenstein” (and arguably, Best Actress nominee Emma Stone’s character in “Bugonia” undoubtedly has some horrific elements). And over in Best Makeup & Hairstyling, horror was recognized with a whopping three nominations. “Frankenstein” and “Sinners” made it in there for their creature and gore effects, and the Norwegian body horror “The Ugly Stepsister” received a very cool nomination for its nasty reinterpretation of “Cinderella.”
Best Casting’s Big Debut
The nominations in the brand-new Best Casting category went about as most had predicted. It’s entirely made up of Best Picture nominees, with the only semi-surprise being the recognition for the casting of the large ensemble of “The Secret Agent.” Only time will tell how the rest of the Academy votes for this award. Will it just go to the Best Picture winner? Will it recognize the most impressive ensemble of the year, as the top prize at the Actor Awards does? Or will the actual casting of individual actors be the deciding factor?
It Was Just A Disappointment
For the first time since the 2021 Oscars, the Palme d’Or winner from the Cannes Film Festival didn’t receive a Best Picture nomination. That film this year is “It Was Just an Accident,” from Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi. After feeling like something of a frontrunner in both Best International Feature and (arguably Best Original Screenplay for a good portion of the season, the film underperformed on nomination morning, receiving mentions in only those two categories but not Best Picture or Best Director. This also prevented Neon from receiving three Best Picture nominations, with the indie studio being recognized instead for two of its other Cannes acquisitions, “The Secret Agent” and “Sentimental Value.”
Norway’s Big Day
In terms of general performance, the film that did the best compared to its expectations is “Sentimental Value.” The Joachim Trier family drama got nine nominations, popping up in practically every category it possibly could, including a surprising mention in Best Film Editing (although this author correctly predicted it, not to brag!) Oscar experts had been cautious as to the film’s overall prospects ever since it failed to earn a single nomination from SAG-AFTRA’s Actor Awards. It came roaring back with four acting nominations, including a somewhat surprising mention for Elle Fanning, who failed to even make the BAFTA longlist.
[Insert Racing Metaphor Here]
Without a doubt, the most unexpected Best Picture nominee is “F1,” making this the second film by director Joseph Kosinski to receive a citation in this category after “Top Gun: Maverick.” The action blockbuster is arguably the most commercial of the Best Picture nominees, with its $600+ million global box office gross easily the highest among the top award-nominated films. It’s the only one of the ten nominees not to receive any other above-the-line mentions, with its three nominations coming in the Best Film Editing, Best Sound, and Best Visual Effects categories. Its Picture nomination makes it a serious threat to win in at least two of those (nothing is likely to come close to beating “Avatar: Fire and Ash” in Best Visual Effects). Most recent Best Picture line-ups include one film that receives only additional mentions in the craft categories, such as “Dune: Part Two,” “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Nightmare Alley,” and the racing movie “Ford v Ferrari.” So, although its nomination was perhaps the most surprising of all ten Best Picture nominees, it certainly fits in with a recent trend.
Aunt Gladys Casts A Spell
Given her performance thus far in the precursors, it was hardly a surprise that Amy Madigan was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for “Weapons.” But the fact that it was essentially guaranteed to happen should be celebrated as an indication of the Academy’s current, more expansive tastes. A performance like this would likely never have been nominated even as recently as a decade ago. She ended up being the film’s lone nomination after it missed potential mentions in Best Casting and Best Original Screenplay, which makes her path to victory a bit more difficult, but the Academy’s tastes and typical voting patterns continue to change with each new year, so she certainly can’t be counted out.
We’re So Very Sorry, Baby
Best Original Screenplay yielded two non-Best Picture nominees: “Blue Moon” and “It Was Just an Accident.” There was room for the two films thanks to the exclusion of “F1” and “The Secret Agent,” which are the only Best Picture nominees not cited for their writing. And although the film received a notable shout-out from Julia Roberts on the Golden Globes stage, it wasn’t enough for “Sorry, Baby” to receive a nomination here for Eva Victor’s debut film.
It’s Fashion Week On Pandora
Many were predicting “Avatar: Fire and Ash” to receive a single nomination in Best Visual Effects, which made some nervous for its chances to win. It avoided that fate by earning an additional nomination, but in a very unexpected category: Best Costume Design. Virtually nobody anywhere was even considering this as a potential nominee, and with good reason. There’s never really been a nomination like it. The closest previous nominee for comparison is Colleen Atwood’s Oscar-winning work for “Alice in Wonderland.” Still, even that had far more physical costumes than the mostly digital outfits of “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” This marks the second nomination in this category for Deborah L. Scott, who previously won for another collaboration with James Cameron: “Titanic.”
The Music Branch Snubs Synths
Fans of “Challengers” already know this. Outside of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s win for “The Social Network,” the music branch seems to have an aversion to nominating predominantly electronic music in Best Original Score. “F1,” “Marty Supreme,” and “Sirāt” all failed to be nominated here, despite those films doing generally well this morning. The hard-to-predict fifth nomination slot was instead filled by the sweeping score of “Bugonia,” written by previous nominee Jerskin Fendrix.
Lots To Mourn For “Wicked”
Perhaps the most shocking news of the day was the complete shutout of “Wicked: For Good.” After the previous film “Wicked” received 10 nominations and two Oscar wins, many assumed that its sequel would still earn at least some craft nominations, despite its significantly lower critical reception. But no, the film didn’t receive a single Oscar nomination, not even in categories that sometimes recognize non-Best Picture nominees like Best Costume Design, Best Makeup & Hairstyling, and Best Visual Effects. Not even either of the two new songs by three-time Oscar-winner Stephen Schwartz made it in. It’s a stunning fall from the previous film’s high-flying success.
The Most Predictably Unpredictable Categories
As always, Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song proved to be two of the hardest categories to predict correctly. Several notable documentaries didn’t make the cut, including “Cover-Up” (directed by previous winner Laura Poitras), “2000 Meters to Andriivka” (directed by previous winner Mstyslav Chernov), and critical favorite “My Undesirable Friends: Part I – Last Air in Moscow.” Instead, we saw more American nominees than usual, with “The Alabama Solution,” “Come See Me in the Good Light,” and “The Perfect Neighbor.” As usual, the Sundance Film Festival is well-represented here, with all five of the nominees having premiered at the famous independent film fest.
“Come See Me in the Good Light” was a particularly surprising inclusion, especially given that many were predicting it to miss a nomination in Documentary Feature but score a mention in Best Original Song for “Salt Then Sour Then Sweet,” penned by musicians Sara Bareilles and Brandi Carlile, along with the late subject of the documentary, poet Andrea Gibson. The Song category had a fair mix of expected tunes, like “Golden” from “KPop Demon Hunters,” “I Lied to You” from “Sinners,” and Diane Warren’s annual nomination for “Dear Me” from her bio-documentary “Diane Warren: Relentless.” “Train Dreams” also scored a nomination for Nick Cave’s titular song, and most surprisingly, “Sweet Dreams of Joy” made it in for the little-seen documentary “Viva Verdi!” That song ranked low – if not dead last – on most prediction lists of the eligible contenders (that sound you hear is thousands of Oscar nerds frantically searching for a way to watch it). But Oscar lovers know to always count on the music branch to deliver surprises. And of course, this is one of several categories where “Wicked: For Good” was passed over.
The Academy Wants Nothing To Do With “No Other Choice”
Most pundits saw the writing on the wall and, despite its critical appreciation and precursor performance, many correctly predicted Park Chan-wook’s latest masterpiece, “No Other Choice,” to be passed over for a nomination in Best International Feature. That category is made up of four films from Neon, which also distributed “No Other Choice” (“The Voice of Hind Rajab” is the sole non-Neon nominee). This continues the distressing trend of this category – and the Oscars in general – having a bizarre aversion to South Korean films. To this day, “Parasite” remains the only film from that country to be nominated here (and of course, it won). It was also passed over in Best Adapted Screenplay. Park’s previous film, “Decision to Leave,” was similarly blanked by the Academy, despite also being widely praised. It’s a strange, upsetting pattern that the Academy needs to correct.
What were your biggest surprises from this morning’s Academy Award nominations? What do you think will ultimately triumph at the Oscars? Please let us know your thoughts on our X account. Click here for more upcoming awards season dates, here for the most recent tally of awards season winners, here for our precursor tracker, and here for our current Oscar predictions.
