Oscars Nominations Are Delayed Amid Fires, But Here’s The Observer’s List

Wendy Ide

Best picture

My shortlist (my winner first)

• Nickel Boys

• All We Imagine As Light

• Anora

• Conclave

• Nosferatu

The absence of an unstoppable awards juggernaut such as last year’s Oppenheimer makes for a bracingly unpredictable race this season. I wouldn’t bet against the unexpectedly broad appeal of Edward Berger’s elegant, acidic papal thriller Conclave: a deserving winner. But my pick is RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys – a bold, visionary adaptation of a Pulitzer prize-winning novel that nailed me to my seat and shook me to my core.

Best director

• RaMell Ross – Nickel Boys

• Payal Kapadia – All We Imagine As Light

• Sean Baker – Anora

• Edward Berger – Conclave

• Coralie Fargeat – The Substance

It’s not perfect, but Coralie Fargeat deserves an Oscar for somehow managing to get her undiluted, demented vision for The Substance on to the screen. That said, the more conservative members of the Academy might take issue with a movie in which someone vomits up an entire human breast. Equally risk-taking in its way, however, is RaMell Ross’s daring approach to storytelling in Nickel Boys: the outstanding directing achievement of the year.

Best actor

• Ralph Fiennes – Conclave

• Hugh Grant – Heretic

• Adrien Brody – The Brutalist

• Eddie Peng – Black Dog

• Colman Domingo – Sing Sing

Eddie Peng is unlikely to get a nomination for his understated, practically dialogue-free turn as a recently released ex-con in Guan Hu’s gorgeous Black Dog, but it’s a performance that I found endlessly fascinating. Hugh Grant has more of a chance of a nod for his deliciously malevolent magnetism in Heretic. But my choice, and my prediction for the Oscar, is Ralph Fiennes’s restrained but rich performance in Conclave.

Best actress

• Fernanda Torres – I’m Still Here

• Demi Moore – The Substance

• Naomi Scott – Smile 2

• Mikey Madison – Anora

• Shahana Goswami – Santosh

Performances in genre cinema tend to be overlooked by the Academy voters: Demi Moore’s committed turn in The Substance could take the top prize, but Naomi Scott’s blistering performance in Smile 2 isn’t even in the conversation. But for me, Fernanda Torres is the winner, for the empathy and quiet intelligence of her work in Walter Salles’s I’m Still Here.

Best supporting actor

• Craig Tate – Nickel Boys

• Kieran Culkin – A Real Pain

• Simon McBurney – Nosferatu

• Yura Borisov – Anora

• Stanley Tucci – Conclave

Another year, another debate about what constitutes a supporting performance. Kieran Culkin is deservedly a frontrunner for his extraordinary work as a wounded, witty dropout in Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain. But for me, he’s a co-lead in the film. I was blown away by Simon McBurney, incendiary and insane in Nosferatu. But my choice is Craig Tate, whose single-scene performance in Nickel Boys utterly broke me.

Best supporting actress

• Carrie Coon – His Three Daughters

• Elizabeth Olson – His Three Daughters

• Natasha Lyonne – His Three Daughters

• Sunita Rajwar – Santosh

• Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor – Nickel Boys

There’s a strong possibility that the three excellent, interconnected performances in Azazel Jacob’s His Three Daughters will cancel one another out, with voters unable to pick one over the others. I would be happy to see any of them win, but Carrie Coon’s brittle, barely contained aggression as the oldest and angriest of the three is one that has stayed with me.

Best documentary

It’s heartening to see that some of the more experimental of the year’s documentaries have made it on to the shortlist: Mati Diop’s lyrical, inventive Dahomey was a favourite of mine, as was Gary Hustwit’s generative portrait of Brian Eno. But my standout is Johan Grimonprez’s Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, an extraordinary, ideas-packed essay film that weaves together the cold war, colonialism, jazz and much more.

Mark Kermode

Best film

• The Substance

• Anora

• Love Lies Bleeding

• Nickel Boys

• All We Imagine As Light

The Brutalist, Emilia Pérez and Wicked are all hotly-tipped best picture contenders that I enjoyed enormously – albeit in different ways. But in a year of such head-spinning treats as Anora and Love Lies Bleeding, the sheer cinematic exuberance of The Substance was matchless. It’s a mind-boggling body-horror fable that (like Julia Ducournau’s 2021 gem, Titane) takes a satirical, Cronenbergian stab at modern life with jaw-dropping results.

Best director

• Coralie Fargeat – The Substance

• Sean Baker – Anora

• Rose Glass – Love Lies Bleeding

• RaMell Ross – Nickel Boys

• Payal Kapadia – All We Imagine As Light

Visionary work from the likes of RaMell Ross and Payal Kapadia make this a particularly competitive year, and I’d love to have found room for Nosferatu director Robert Eggers. The Oscar will probably go to Brady Corbet (The Brutalist) or Sean Baker – both fine choices – although I can’t imagine a more deserving winner than French film-maker Coralie Fargeat, who makes good on the visceral promise of 2017’s Revenge – and then some!

Best actor

• Dev Patel – Monkey Man

• Daniel Craig – Queer

• Adrien Brody – The Brutalist

• Colman Domingo – Sing Sing

• Hugh Grant – Heretic

Adrien Brody is on course to pick up his second Oscar, although he has stiff (if overrated) competition from Timothée Chalamet in A Complete Unknown. For me, it’s a toss-up between the interiority of Daniel Craig in Queer and the physicality of Dev Patel in Monkey Man. Patel, who also directed, co-wrote and co-produced, isn’t an Oscar contender, but gets my vote for going the extra mile, in every sense.

Best actress

• Mikey Madison – Anora

• Cynthia Erivo – Wicked

• Lily-Rose Depp – Nosferatu

• Marianne Jean-Baptiste – Hard Truths

• Karla Sofía Gascón – Emilia Pérez

Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley made a terrific double-act in The Substance and I’d have included both in any other year. But 2024 gave us everything from Cynthia Erivo raising the roof in Wicked to Marianne Jean-Baptiste poignantly seething in Hard Truths, and Lily-Rose Depp lending real bite to Nosferatu. As for Mikey Madison, her eponymous turn in Anora is pure bottled lightning. She dances through the role with delirious aplomb.

Best supporting actor

• Yura Borisov – Anora

• Jeremy Strong – The Apprentice

• Denzel Washington – Gladiator II

• Carlos Diehz – Conclave

• Adam Pearson – A Different Man

While Bill Skarsgård chilled as Count Orlok in Nosferatu, the most genuinely vampiric performance of year was Jeremy Strong’s unsettling portrayal of Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn in The Apprentice. Meanwhile Carlos Diehz quietly stole the show in the star-studded papal thriller Conclave. But it’s Yura Borisov who wins the day for me, brilliantly building on his complex role in 2021’s Compartment Number 6 as Igor in Anora.

Best supporting actress

• Zoe Saldaña – Emilia Pérez

• Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor – Nickel Boys

• Michele Austin – Hard Truths

• Katy O’Brian – Love Lies Bleeding

• Monica Barbaro – A Complete Unknown

Monica Barbaro’s portrayal of Joan Baez is the best thing about A Complete Unknown yet she seems unlikely to feature in the Oscar nominations, as does Katy O’Brian for her iron-pumping performance in Love Lies Bleeding. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is a safer bet for her superbly empathetic role in Nickel Boys, but bookies’ favourite Zoe Saldaña deserves the statuette for what is effectively an all-singing, all-dancing co-lead in Emilia Pérez.

Best original score

• Clément Ducol, Camille – Emilia Pérez

• Volker Bertelmann – Conclave

• Chanda Dancy – Blink Twice

• Tamar-kali – The Fire Inside

• Cristobal Tapia de Veer – Babygirl

British composer Raffertie (AKA Benjamin Stefanski) was eligible for The Substance but annoyingly absent from the 20-strong Oscar shortlist from which I’ve drawn my selection. Of those still in contention, French musicians Camille Dalmais and Clément Ducol’s songs and score for Emilia Pérez are a standout – operatic pastiche with heart and soul. Alongside Wicked and British indie Chuck Chuck Baby, we’re in an excitingly diverse era of screen musicals.

Ellen E Jones

Best picture

While there’s no meaningful comparison to be made between box office behemoths such as Wicked and irreverent indies such as Kneecap, it would be gratifying to see all shades of cinema represented among the year’s nominees. Yet even within a diverse field, The Brutalist stands aloft, like a cathedral on a hill. From the propulsive opening credits, it’s clear this immigration epic is going places.

Best director

• RaMell Ross – Nickel Boys

• Jane Schoenbrun – I Saw the TV Glow

• Rich Peppiatt – Kneecap

• Brady Corbet – The Brutalist

• Payal Kapadia – All We Imagine As Light

Other Oscar-winning films set in the segregated south have sought to soothe historical pain with story convention. In Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross uses his camera to embody a first-person perspective which, when applied to Black American lives, is nothing short of revolutionary. So while all my nominees demonstrate the distinctive vision of true greats, it’s Ross for the best director win.

Best actor

• Adrien Brody – The Brutalist

• Daniel Craig – Queer

• Ethan Herisse – Nickel Boys

• Ralph Fiennes – Conclave

• Timothée Chalamet – A Complete Unknown

Little Timmy pulls it out of the bag, delivering an often persuasive, intermittently moving interpretation of the young Bob Dylan. But simply surpassing low expectations should not secure the win. That goes instead to Brody, for being perhaps the only actor with the marble-hewn facial features and epic emotional range necessary to make a mark on The Brutalist’s vast, decade-and-continent-spanning canvas.

Best actress

• Marianne Jean-Baptiste – Hard Truths

• Kristen Stewart – Love Lies Bleeding

• Pamela Anderson – The Last Showgirl

• Mikey Madison – Anora

• Cynthia Erivo – Wicked

Halle Berry remains the first and only Black woman to win in this category, but Cynthia Erivo’s Wicked performance may yet defy both gravity and precedent to secure her the statuette. An even more satisfying plot twist, perhaps, would be a win for Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, 28 years after she lost out for another powerhouse performance in Leigh’s 1996 film Secrets and Lies.

Best supporting actor

• Yura Borisov – Anora

• Josh O’Connor – Challengers

• Guy Pearce – The Brutalist

• Denzel Washington – Gladiator II

• Franz Rogowski – Bird

There’s something callously unsupportive about the way Denzel Washington blows nominal lead Paul Mescal off the screen in Gladiator II, so I’d like to see this one go instead to Franz Rogowski, a compellingly corvid presence in Andrea Arnold’s overlooked magical-realist fable Bird. He doesn’t stand a chance, of course; but the equally interesting Yura Borisov does, for his turn as Anora’s stooge turned suiter, Igor.

Best supporting actress

• Joan Chen – Dìdi

• Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor – Nickel Boys

• Zoe Saldaña – Emilia Pérez

• Carrie Coon – His Three Daughters

• Isabella Rossellini – Conclave

The Academy has had a thing for nuns, ever since Ingrid Bergman in 1945’s The Bells of St Mary’s (see also Dead Man Walking, Doubt etc) so it would be near-heretical if Bergman’s daughter doesn’t get a nod for Conclave. A better, overall winner would be Joan Chen for her tender portrayal of maternal sacrifice in Sean Wang’s sweetly specific, semi-autobiographical coming-of-ager Dìdi.

Best production design

• Suzie Davies – Hard Truths

• Suzie Davies – Conclave

• Adam Stockhausen and Anna Pinnock – Blitz

• Judy Becker – The Brutalist

• Craig Lathrop – Nosferatu

Wicked will probably win it, but in a year of spectacular horror and musical fantasias, it’s worth celebrating the subtler, but equally creative, production design on modern dramas such as Hard Truths, where Pansy’s sparse home is a study in self-inflicted misery. Having also proved her range with the mesmerising symmetry of Conclave’s cloisters, Suzie Davies would make an especially worthy winner this year.

Guy Lodge

Best picture

• No Other Land

• All We Imagine As Light

• Anora

• Babygirl

• The Brutalist

In 97 years of the Oscars, no documentary has ever been so much as nominated for best picture. That’s unlikely to change imminently – though the timely, shattering Palestinian-Israeli collaboration No Other Land has a strong claim to be called the film of the year – but it remains a major blight on the awards’ credibility.

Best director

• Brady Corbet – The Brutalist

• Payal Kapadia – All We Imagine As Light

• Mike Leigh – Hard Truths

• Halina Reijn – Babygirl

• RaMell Ross – Nickel Boys

Biggest isn’t always best, but sometimes you have to marvel at the sheer scope and scale of something: Corbet had already showed his chops in his first two films behind the camera, but his 215-minute American epic of art versus capitalism (on a budget of just £8m) sees the 36-year-old actor turned director successfully bidding for major auteur status.

Best actor

How fickle are the fortunes of awards season: last year, Cillian Murphy was the season’s golden boy, sweeping up trophies en route to the Oscar for Oppenheimer. This year, he gave an even better performance as a conscience-plagued family man in this delicate Claire Keegan adaptation – but the film is small, its US distributor has limited campaign dollars, and Murphy has received nary a mention.

Best actress

Marianne Jean-Baptiste – Hard Truths
Nicole Kidman – Babygirl
Mikey Madison – Anora
Renate Reinsve – Armand
Naomi Scott – Smile 2

There’s no consensus frontrunner yet in the year’s most competitive acting race: different industry pundits will tell you that any of Mikey Madison, Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, Demi Moore or Cynthia Erivo is the one to beat. I just hope Mike Leigh’s sharp, tart return to form isn’t too comparatively unglamorous to keep Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s bruising tour de force out of the final five.

Best supporting actor

• Adam Pearson – A Different Man

• Yura Borisov – Anora

• Mark Eydelshteyn – Anora

• Simon McBurney – Nosferatu

• Drew Starkey – Queer

After seeing Anora in Cannes, I thought Mark Eydelshteyn’s brash, hilarious performance as a dim Russian playboy would make noise in this category – but so far, the precursor awards have all singled out his quietly brooding co-star and compatriot instead. Sometimes understatement pays. I’d be hard pressed to choose between them, so I’m plumping for the ingenious, wittily self-referencing Adam Pearson.

Best supporting actress

• Michele Austin – Hard Truths

• Anna Baryshnikov – Love Lies Bleeding

• Toni Collette – Juror #2

• Trine Dyrholm – The Girl With the Needle

• Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor – Nickel Boys

Buzz in the supporting races this year is centred on big names in leading roles that have been strategically demoted to increase their shot at a win – see Ariana Grande, Zoe Saldaña, or Kieran Culkin over in supporting actor. It’s an unfair ploy that risks robbing film-enriching character actors such as Michele Austin (or Anna Baryshnikov, burning bright in just a couple of scenes) of deserved recognition.

Best international feature

• Universal Language

• Dahomey

• The Girl With the Needle

• Santosh

• Vermiglio

Where is All We Imagine As Light in the already-announced shortlist, you ask? Arguably the year’s most acclaimed film is ineligible – again raising the question of why the Academy delegates the first stage of selection in this category to national committees that often prioritise politics over art. Its absence probably ensures a win for France’s buzzy but dubious Emilia Pérez, though I’m rooting for Canada’s utterly singular Universal Language.