The Oscars don’t reveal full voting results beyond who won. Still, it was universally accepted that Timothée Chalamet and Ariana Grande were surely the runners-up for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress in the 2024-2025 awards season. A year later, history could very well repeat itself or be avenged twice over, now that Chalamet is following his “A Complete Unknown” awards run with a new one for “Marty Supreme,” and Grande is literally picking up where she left off from “Wicked” with “Wicked: For Good.”
Both “Marty Supreme” and “Wicked: For Good” are in an unusual and almost frustrating position right now. Each of them has received rave social media reactions in their first screenings for very tailored audiences, which have also seemed to validate Chalamet and Grande as current favorites for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, respectively. They have also seemed to validate assumptions that “Marty Supreme” and “Wicked: For Good” are near guarantees to get in the Best Picture category, whether or not that means they can challenge frontrunners like “One Battle After Another,” “Hamnet,” and “Sinners.”
But because “Wicked: For Good” will not allow full reviews and scores to come out until two days before its release, just like its predecessor, and “Marty Supreme” is still keeping a review/score embargo under wraps for an unknown time until its Christmas release, it’s harder to place where exactly they stand in the Best Picture ranks right now – and whether their scores will lock Chalamet and Grande in even harder or make them more vulnerable down the line. Yet the assumption remains that because Chalamet and Grande came so close last year, they will have less of a problem finishing the job this time, regardless of how their films turn out.
For one thing, Chalamet doesn’t have a big early-season favorite like Adrien Brody to try and rally against this time, as he starts out as the favorite instead. For another, Grande doesn’t have another competitor from another Best Picture-nominated musical like Zoe Saldana to contend with this time, either, as she starts out as the musical favorite instead. Both are also benefiting from massive early chaos in their categories, as Leonardo DiCaprio is pretty much the only other preseason Best Actor favorite that hasn’t tumbled off yet, and the Best Supporting Actress field beyond Grande is so volatile and uncertain, multiple contenders from “One Battle After Another,” “Sentimental Value,” and even “Marty Supreme” could all cancel each other out before they can get to Grande.
There’s also a weird sense that Chalamet and Grande are overdue anyway, despite their youth and relatively short acting careers. Chalamet isn’t just seen as overdue for losing with “A Complete Unknown,” but also for losing with “Call Me by Your Name” and for becoming one of the few bankable human actors in Hollywood over the last few years. Grande has hardly paid as many dues as an actor since “Wicked” was her first big screen leading role, yet her loss to someone from a more highly controversial musical last year and the presumption that she and “Wicked: For Good” will stick the landing this year would open the door for a collective/make-up win this time.
Both Chalamet and Grande are beloved Gen Z icons in their respective ways, worshipped by hardcore fans online and beyond, and would make the 2025 Oscar-winning acting quartet one of the youngest in recent memory if they both won. Given their fanbases, it certainly wouldn’t hurt Oscar ratings if they were both in contention again, let alone if they were both the favorites to win this time around. And if one or both were to win, it would make a fair amount of history after their defeats last year.
It is a rare thing for actors to get nominated multiple years in a row, though it is rarer to win after not doing so the first time. In this century, the only ones to do that are Anthony Hopkins in 2020 for “The Father” after losing in 2019 for “The Two Popes,” Colin Firth in 2010 for “The King’s Speech” after losing in 2009 for “A Simple Man,” Renee Zellweger in 2003 for “Cold Mountain” after losing in both 2002 for “Chicago” and in 2001 for “Bridget Jones Diary,” and Russell Crowe in 2000 for “Gladiator” after losing in 1999 for “The Insider.” However, Hopkins was nominated for Best Supporting Actor the year before winning Best Actor, and neither Firth nor Crowe were real threats to win the first time they were nominated. And while Zellweger may be the closest potential analogy to Grande, at least when it comes to her 2002 and 2003 seasons, she ultimately won for a Civil War drama instead of another musical, let alone the same one.
Grande is an outlier for many reasons, as the very rare performer likely to be nominated twice for the same role in the same franchise, let alone one in contention two years in a row. As such, pundits are still split on whether that will hold her back more than it helps her, especially if “Wicked: For Good” isn’t substantially bigger and better reviewed than “Wicked.” However, neither question can be answered until the review/score embargo is lifted and the movie is released on the same week.
By comparison, Chalamet has a more conventional and much easier path, given that “Marty Supreme” appears to be the furthest thing from “A Complete Unknown” and might well have far better reviews – if the biggest raves from its surprise NYFF screening are actually the consensus. “A Complete Unknown” surged big before nomination morning last year and then completely fell off by Oscar night, with Chalamet’s SAG win the only sign that he was truly close to knocking off Brody. But if “Marty Supreme” is indeed a top-five film from the start, Chalamet can ride the wave from there, even if he isn’t playing a famous musician.
Still, when Chalamet lost last year, it was to someone who was in at least a top-three movie, whereas his top competitor this year might well be someone from the likely Best Picture winner in DiCaprio and “One Battle After Another.” However, DiCaprio is already a past winner, like Brody, and Brody was able to work a “comeback” narrative since his last win and Oscar campaign, which was way back in 2002. Without those advantages, DiCaprio might be much more beatable – and, ironically, if Teyana Taylor beats Grande in Best Supporting Actress and secures an acting win early for “One Battle After Another,” that might clear things up for Chalamet faster.
Since other Best Actor preseason favorites like Jeremy Allen White, George Clooney, Dwayne Johnson, and Daniel Day-Lewis have fallen down the charts, and others like Wagner Moura, Ethan Hawke, Michael B. Jordan, Joel Edgerton, and Lee Byung-hun are only fighting to get nominated right now, the path has already been clearing for Chalamet. But until “Marty Supreme” actually has real high scores to back up its social raves, and proves the Academy is ready to embrace a hyperkinetic Josh Safdie film in a major way, Chalamet still has a lot to prove – just like Grande still has a lot to prove until “Wicked: For Good’s” review and box office numbers come in.
In one sense, since Chalamet and Grande were virtual runners-up last year, it should be far easier to go a step further in much easier fields this year. In another, getting back to the Oscars a second year in a row and then avenging the past season’s loss is hardly that easy; otherwise, more than four people would have done so over the last 25 years. And for two actors who are hardly veterans, such as Hopkins, Firth, Zellweger, or Crowe, and who represent two films that are still uncertain of being among the top three or five this season, the obstacles can still pile up.
By this time next month, “Wicked: For Good” will have its reviews and box office questions answered, “Marty Supreme” will probably have a larger sample size of reactions, and the first major votes of Oscar season will be looming. Once everything revs up from there, seeing Chalamet and Grande at the center of the Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress races again may look like the same old story – but will one or both of them have the same old ending?
Are you currently predicting Timothée Chalamet and Ariana Grande to win Oscars for their performances in “Marty Supreme” and “Wicked: For Good?” Or do you believe someone else will prevail? What did you think of their nominations last year. Please let us know in the comments section below and on Next Best Picture’s X account and check out the team’s latest Oscar predictions here.
You can follow Robert and hear more of his thoughts on the Oscars & Film on X @Robertdoc1984
