With last year’s slow-roll Oppenheimer sweep, the leading Oscar contenders seemed to have sewn up their wins long before the ceremony began. This edition of the Academy Awards has been quite the compelling scramble by comparison, as half a dozen movies have gained and lost supposed front-runner status over the past few months. A couple of smash hits at the box office (Wicked and Dune: Part Two) scored a clutch of nominations, while comparatively cult hits The Substance and Emilia Pérez have commanded their own factions of support. (Emilia Pérez’s chances at the big trophies appear to have slipped in recent weeks, however, because of external controversies.) But the real battle for Best Picture has been among a handful of well-received grown-up dramas, none of which has risen above the rest as the obvious pick: Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, and Conclave.

The four movies do not feel like traditional Oscar favorites, though A Complete Unknown (a music biopic about Bob Dylan) and Conclave (a gossipy drama about the selection of a new pope) come closest. The Brutalist, an epic tale of a Hungarian architect struggling for artistic freedom in postwar America, is the kind of grand-scale drama that evokes past Best Picture winners such as The Godfather, but the film’s knotty subject matter and extended length have made it polarizing. Anora, meanwhile, has leapt into the driver’s seat just ahead of Sunday’s ceremony with some crucial award-season gains. The downside is that the shaggy romantic dramedy, about a sex worker’s turbulent love affair with a Russian oligarch’s kid, might be too raunchy for the average Academy voter’s tastes.

Keeping in mind the unusually diffuse nature of this year, here are my best guesses as to who will triumph in the eight most competitive categories at the 2025 Academy Awards—and who I believe deserves the accolades.

Best Actress

Nominees: Cynthia Erivo (Wicked), Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Pérez), Mikey Madison (Anora), Demi Moore (The Substance), Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here)

Although Madison fits a conventional Oscar-winning mold in this category—the ingénue coming into her own—this trophy is likely Moore’s to lose. Her performance in The Substance earned her the Best Actress prize at the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Critics Choice Awards this year, three of the four biggest precursor ceremonies. (The other major event is the BAFTA Film Awards, handed out by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, which gave its nod to Madison.) Moore’s work in the gooey, extreme horror satire was lauded for both its bravery and its meta-narrative; the film comments on the brutality that aging actresses face in Hollywood, which is something that’s certainly affected Moore’s own career. Her heartfelt, proud speeches on the campaign trail have doubtless helped as well.

I think her biggest competition comes from Torres, whose subtle but devastating turn in the Brazilian historical drama I’m Still Here—as a woman whose husband was “disappeared” by the military dictatorship running the country—vaulted the movie to a surprise Best Picture nod. But Moore’s name recognition should carry her over the line.

Who Will Win: Demi Moore

Who Ought to Win: Fernanda Torres

Best Actor

Nominees: Adrien Brody (The Brutalist), Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave), Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice)

Since The Brutalist’s release, Brody has been the front-runner for his intense work as the fictional architect László Tóth. It’s a comeback role of sorts for the onetime Best Actor winner, who has gone through major career ups and downs since his surprise win (for The Pianist) two decades ago. Brody is wonderful in the role and could easily take the award; still, I have wondered whether the fact that he already has an Oscar will work against him—repeat winners in this category are rare. That could leave space for Chalamet, who has received plaudits for his convincing Bob Dylan impersonation—including the SAG Award, in the last major ceremony before the Oscars—and is one of Hollywood’s most captivating young leading men.

I think every nominee in this category is very strong, but my personal pick is Stan. He delivered two wonderfully distinct performances in The Apprentice (as a younger Donald Trump) and A Different Man (a brilliantly surreal indie comedy) in 2024; he deservedly won the Golden Globe for the latter last month.

Who Will Win: Timothée Chalamet

Who Ought to Win: Sebastian Stan

Best Supporting Actress

Nominees: Monica Barbaro (A Complete Unknown), Ariana Grande (Wicked), Felicity Jones (The Brutalist), Isabella Rossellini (Conclave), Zoe Saldaña (Emilia Pérez)

The Emilia Pérez blowback has largely focused on the social-media postings of its lead actress, Gascón. Meanwhile, her co-star Saldaña has been the predicted Supporting Actress winner since awards season began in earnest, and she’s never really lost momentum. Saldaña arguably had the most difficult role in the French-made, Spanish-language crime musical, anchoring much of its complex exposition; she’s also a well-known Hollywood figure who has appeared in some of the industry’s biggest franchises (Avatar, Marvel, and Star Trek).

I would love to see a career win for Rossellini (doing a lot with a little in Conclave), and I thought Grande handled the humor of her Wicked role with aplomb. I was most astonished by Barbaro’s work as Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown, however, which somehow met the impossible challenge of replicating the folk singer’s incredible voice and stage presence.

Who Will Win: Zoe Saldaña

Who Ought to Win: Monica Barbaro

Best Supporting Actor

Nominees: Yura Borisov (Anora), Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain), Edward Norton (A Complete Unknown), Guy Pearce (The Brutalist), Jeremy Strong (The Apprentice)

This is another field where basically every nominee would be a deserving winner. Pearce, like Brody, is experiencing something of a career renaissance following his turn in The Brutalist; he plays the preening, villainous patron of Brody’s character. Norton played against type as the well-meaning Pete Seeger in A Complete Unknown. Strong’s interpretation of Roy Cohn in The Apprentice was tragicomic and frightening stuff. Borisov, a Russian actor, was the standout of the great ensemble in Anora. But the award has belonged to Culkin since A Real Pain debuted at Sundance more than a year ago; his emotionally overwrought, acidly funny turn and voters’ carried-over appreciation for Succession have seen him scoop up every major trophy ahead of the Oscars.

Who Will Win: Kieran Culkin

Who Ought to Win: Guy Pearce? Jeremy Strong? Edward Norton? Take your pick!

Best Original Screenplay

Nominees: Sean Baker (Anora); Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold (The Brutalist); Jesse Eisenberg (A Real Pain); Moritz Binder, Alex David, and Tim Fehlbaum (September 5); Coralie Fargeat (The Substance)

This race seems to be a 50–50 split, based on which films have won this prize elsewhere. On the one hand, prognosticators have deemed Anora the Best Picture favorite, so it should pick up additional trophies on the way to the big one. (It’s up for six total at the Academy Awards; Editing is another category it could secure.) On the other hand, A Real Pain is the kind of smarty-pants, dialogue-heavy stuff that often wins for Screenplay; plus, it’s written by the film’s director and star, Jesse Eisenberg, who’s already a known Oscar quantity. I think A Real Pain will edge the win—but I don’t feel confident about it.

Who Will Win: A Real Pain

Who Ought to Win: Anora

Best Adapted Screenplay

Nominees: James Mangold and Jay Cocks (A Complete Unknown); Peter Straughan (Conclave); Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, Léa Mysius, and Nicolas Livecchi (Emilia Pérez); RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes (Nickel Boys); Greg Kwedar, Clint Bentley, Clarence Maclin, and John “Divine G” Whitfield (Sing Sing)

Unlike any of the films in its sister category, Conclave looks to have Adapted Screenplay in the bag. Straughan translated Robert Harris’s best seller into a tightly wound, effectively plotted little thriller that’s all in the dialogue. As a work of adaptation, it’s neat yet not particularly ambitious stuff, following the contours of the book closely. I’d be much more excited by recognition for Nickel Boys, which found an unconventional and bold way to bring the author Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer-winning novel to the screen.

Who Will Win: Conclave

Who Ought to Win: Nickel Boys

Best Director

Nominees: Sean Baker (Anora), Brady Corbet (The Brutalist), James Mangold (A Complete Unknown), Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez), Coralie Fargeat (The Substance)

The only question when it comes to Best Director is whether it’ll diverge from Best Picture—as is more and more common at the Oscars these days. It’s happened four times in the past 10 years. This year’s race is so tight—Corbet and Baker have both won at the other big events thus far—that I’ll cautiously predict a split, with Corbet’s maximalist approach triumphing here. I wouldn’t be stunned by Baker winning the Oscar, though; in fact, he has the chance to win four trophies total (Picture, Director, Screenplay and Editing). He’d be a solid choice for any of them.

Who Will Win: Brady Corbet

Who Ought to Win: Sean Baker

Best Picture

Nominees: Anora, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Pérez, I’m Still Here, Nickel Boys, The Substance, Wicked

At first, Emilia Pérez came across as the lead contender because it was the biggest nomination-getter. But swirling controversy, combined with its generally divisive status among critics and audiences, has taken it down a notch. Then, I figured The Brutalist told the kind of old-school story that would resonate most with voters; its distributor A24’s canny campaign also put it in theaters late in December, traditionally an awards-season sweet spot, and made it quite the hot ticket. In just the previous few weeks, though, Anora won a bunch of big trophies—from the Critics Choice Awards, the Producers Guild, and the Directors Guild—that seemingly marked it as the easy Academy favorite. A final wrinkle has now come late in the race: The dependable, likable Conclave won two significant trophies, the BAFTA for Best Film and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble, akin to “best movie” from that voting body. Could that film sneak in as the consensus pick ahead of the spikier material surrounding it? I’ll still pick Anora by a nose, but it’s a bet worth hedging.

The best movie of the year, of course, is RaMell Ross’s innovative, inventive, deeply empathetic Nickel Boys—which got two deserved nods. But the film might have kept some voters at a distance with its unusual storytelling approach, as its critical acclaim hasn’t helped it earn many prime honors.

Who Will Win: Anora

Who Ought to Win: Nickel Boys

For months, the actor Karla Sofía Gascón had been reaping the rewards of leading a prestigious film. She plays the title character in Emilia Pérez, about a Mexican cartel boss who transitions into a woman and seeks to build a more virtuous life. The Spanish-language musical has faced waves of backlash since its release last year—but it has also found a devoted fan base among awards bodies.

Gascón was one of its anchors: She delivered an impassioned speech dedicated to the trans community at the Cannes Film Festival, where she shared the Best Actress prize with her castmates. When Emilia Pérez won the Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy last month, Gascón movingly addressed the audience. She made history shortly thereafter, becoming the first openly trans performer to earn an Oscar nomination. A relative unknown in the United States, the Spanish actor personified a message of tolerance and acceptance; Emilia Pérez, despite all of the criticism surrounding it, looked to have elevated a star who matched the heroism of Emilia Pérez herself.

But her momentum soon came to a halt. A journalist discovered an array of Gascón’s tweets dating back to 2016 that contained racist language and crude jokes about a range of marginalized communities. In response, the actor stopped following the typical awards-season playbook: She posted defensive updates on Instagram, sent a long-winded statement without the assistance of a public-relations team to The Hollywood Reporter, and personally scheduled a lengthy, tearful interview on CNN en Español. Gascón became Hollywood’s persona non grata, just under a month before the Academy Awards ceremony.

[Read: A film impossible to have mild feelings about]

The actor’s trajectory represents one of the most dramatic implosions of an awards run in Oscars history. Twists and gaffes happening at the tail end of a race—for which this year’s voting round ended on Tuesday—are nothing new. (Gascón’s fellow Best Actress nominee Fernanda Torres weathered her own controversy this season; a clip of her wearing blackface in a comedy sketch resurfaced last month. The I’m Still Here star responded by releasing a measured apology.) But the nature of Gascón’s fall is unusual. Rarely has a nominee’s curated image—that of a righteous up-and-comer, applauded by an industry eager to demonstrate its tolerance—so thoroughly differed from the one conjured by her personal online accounts. Her case is a fascinating look at how industry status can collide with the social-media era: In spite of the awards season’s purported aims to celebrate cinema, a performer’s off-screen narrative can matter just as much as their work.

Gascón’s diminished chances of winning a trophy arguably resulted not so much from the resurfacing of her bigoted tweets, but mainly from the way she diverged from established public-relations guidelines. Oscar campaigns tend to be carefully controlled endeavors, and Netflix, Emilia Pérez’s distributor in the United States, has one of the most experienced awards-strategy teams in Hollywood. The streamer had helped turn Gascón from an unknown in the U.S. into a contender—and on the same day that her old posts garnered attention, Netflix circulated her official apology. “As someone in a marginalized community,” read the standard-issue statement, “I know this suffering all too well and I am deeply sorry to those I have caused pain.”

But soon afterward—and reportedly without clearing her plans with Netflix—Gascón went rogue. She sent The Hollywood Reporter an additional statement claiming that her tweets were misunderstood, at times even by herself. (“Sometimes I, myself, am not even aware of having written something negative,” she wrote.) She shared thoughts on Instagram about her words being taken out of context. And she scheduled the CNN en Español interview, during which she argued that she’d done nothing wrong. She also claimed that her co-stars—including Zoe Saldaña, the Supporting Actress Oscar front-runner—supported her “200 percent,” despite no public evidence that they shared her sentiments. “I have not committed any crime, nor have I harmed anyone,” she said. “I am not a racist, nor am I anything that all these people have taken it upon themselves to try to make others believe I am.”

The more Gascón tried to salvage her reputation by herself, the more those associated with the film pulled away from her. Shortly after Emilia Pérez nabbed 13 Oscar nominations—the most of any movie this year—Netflix began removing billboards in Los Angeles that singled her out; the company has reportedly restricted her access to the team’s travel funds, making it harder for her to attend more precursor award ceremonies. Gascón responded to comments from the film’s director, Jacques Audiard, about her “self-destructive approach” by pledging on Instagram to stay silent going forward. Earlier this month, Netflix’s chief content officer, Bela Bajaria, addressed the scandal, calling the controversy “a bummer.” (The company is also “reevaluating” its strategy for vetting actors’ social-media accounts, she said.)

[Read: The Oscars have left the mainstream moviegoer behind]

Gascón’s attempt to control her image is singular in its audacity. None of her fellow awards contenders this season has made such bold, unfiltered moves while trying to convince Academy voters that they’re worthy of a trophy. Even before her tweets resurfaced, the Emilia Pérez star had begun deviating from the film’s standard promotional press campaign by chiding Torres’s social-media strategy. Criticizing another nominee’s tactics is an inadvisable step for someone on the Oscar track; the act can come off as combative, and the Academy can penalize attacks against fellow contenders. “There are people working with Fernanda Torres tearing me and Emilia Pérez down,” she claimed in an interview. “That speaks more about their movie than mine.” Gascón later retracted the remarks and explained that she wasn’t targeting her competitor, but merely trying to admonish “toxicity and violent hate speech on social media.” And then, when her past social-media posts came up, she completely ignored the rules of how to face a blowback. She could have followed in Torres’s footsteps—the I’m Still Here actor had just demonstrated how effective sticking with a standard mea culpa can be—yet once again, Gascón diverged from the norm.

Not everyone follows the Oscars playbook, of course. But the other most unconventional campaign this year is notable because it’s so thoroughly unlike what Gascón is doing. Timothée Chalamet, who’s up for his performance as Bob Dylan in the musical biopic A Complete Unknown, certainly seems to be defying the rules of typical press tours, surprising his look-alikes at a contest in New York City and riding a Lime bike onto the red carpet at a premiere, among other antics. Chalamet’s efforts have worked in part because he is an established, controversy-free celebrity, a household name with movie-star appeal. If anything, his well-received run so far, even if he doesn’t win the Oscar, underlines what made Gascón’s Hail Mary fail: Chalamet’s calculated, personality-driven stunts evoke the youthful renegade appeal of the cultural icon he played, courting chatter but not criticism.

Meanwhile, Gascón’s defensive behavior, by turns rebellious and inflammatory, undid the storyline she and Netflix had cultivated for months: that the actor intimately understood why Emilia Pérez succeeded with so many awards-season voters, many of whom are Gascón’s peers. Gascón’s character in the film is supposed to epitomize the human capacity for good, and for overcoming flaws with grace. After the actor’s tweets resurfaced, she emphasized that “light will always triumph over darkness” in her Netflix-approved apology; the statement repositioned Gascón as remorseful about her past, just like Emilia had been. But if Gascón appeared to exemplify the film’s message early in its journey toward Oscar glory, she has come to embody a different narrative—that of a shocking, largely self-inflicted public collapse. It’s not the kind that tends to win someone an Oscar.