Joey Magidson
Last week, the 78th Cannes Film Festival came to a close. With it, a point in the season has been passed. Regardless of how much Cannes factors into the eventual Oscar race, it feels like a good moment to assess the early awards season field. Now, that doesn’t mean that festival flicks are headed to the Academy Awards, but rather that it just brings us to a point where some of the notable potential contenders have actually been seen. So, today I present updated predictions, along with some thoughts on what we got out of Cannes in 2025.
The success of Anora last year certainly puts some extra attention on the prize winners this year. Sean Baker‘s film became one of the very rare Palme d’Or winners to go all the way to Best Picture at the Oscars. That almost never happens, especially recently, though with the changing Academy membership, the movies they’re considering are continuing to evolve. So, even before Cannes began this year, there was attention being paid.
Keep in mind, last year could be an outlier. Again, that sort of success story is a real rarity, so history suggests that most of the Cannes award winners won’t translate to Oscar. At the same time, so much about awards season, and especially who decides on the Academy Awards, is evolving, largely for the better, so it could just be the start of a new normal.
Historically, Cannes sometimes does birth an Oscar juggernaut into the world, though last year really was something else entirely. For example, going back a ways, the success of No Country for Old Men springs to mind. So does, as it turned out to a slightly lesser degree, a film like Parasite. Just three years, the Best Picture nominees included movies from the fest like Elvis, Top Gun: Maverick, and Triangle of Sadness. Two years ago, we had Anatomy of a Fall, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Zone of Interest getting nominated. Last year, obviously Anora won it all, while other nominated (and in some cases, honored) movies were The Apprentice, Emilia Pérez, Flow, The Girl with the Needle, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, and, of course, The Substance. However, it’s far from a sure thing in most years. Usually it takes another festival or the precursors to really establish where we’re at, contender-wise. That’s just the name of the game.
This year, we don’t have any surefire contenders, at least at this point, but there are several titles to pay attention to as the season progresses. Film-wise, Sentimental Value is the movie that seems like it could be a play for a Best Picture nomination, as well as in several other above the line categories. Depending on how Netflix handles this latest Richard Linklater collaboration, Nouvelle Vague has a chance to hit with voters. On a more targeted level, Jennifer Lawrence in Best Actress for Die My Love and Wagner Moura in Best Actor for The Secret Agent present possibilities. One other notion? Highest 2 Lowest could be too much of just a mainstream effort, though if that’s not the case, Spike Lee could wind up in the thick of the race. As for the Palme d’Or winner in It Was Just an Accident? It seems like an uphill battle, but who knows?
Remember, it’s still very early. My last predictions article (found here) may look pretty similar to this new one, but that’s the nature of the beast right now. Cannes helped a bit with some small changes, but I’m remaining very conservative, though still trying to tell a story with my nominees. That certainly can change, in terms of being conservative, but it won’t be for a bit, since nothing concrete, Oscar-wise, usually happens in the summer.
As always, you can see my newest crack at advance Oscar predictions here at Awards Radar. We shall see, but this list is sure to change once again when I give it another update, likely in a month or so. Until then, the usual suspects from the initial ranking still loom fairly large, give or take the aforementioned newfound Cannes contenders…
Stay tuned for an update to these Oscar predictions as the summer continues!
Very excited for Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent. Hopefully, I won’t have to wait very long for it in my neck of the woods lol
Once I found out it was the same filmmaker who did Bacarau, I felt the same!