Oscar Nominations 2025: Biggest Snubs and Surprises

Not everybody’s a winner — and some, shockingly, aren’t even contenders. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominations for the 97th Oscars this morning, and as usual, there were yelps of joy throughout the land: Big up The Brutalist! Viva Anora! You got in for Best Picture, Nickel Boys! Way to make history, Karla Sofía Gascón! There were also gasps, as a few didn’t-see-that-coming shocks spiced up some key categories. And there were screams of agony, as the inevitable disappointments surfaced over the names not called by Bowen Yang and Rachel Sennott at the podium. Here are the big snubs and surprises in this year’s Oscar nominations.

SNUB: Best Actress, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths

This one hurts. Teaming up again with her Secrets & Lies director Mike Leigh — you may remember that 1996 film did nab her a Best Supporting Actress nomination — the British actress gave one of the most stunning performances of the last decade, much less this past year, as a one-woman wrecking crew who makes life miserable for those around her. Jean-Baptiste swept a lot of critics group’s awards and made the Critics Choice and BAFTA lineups, and a lot of us hoped the Oscars were next. A hard truth to swallow, indeed.

SURPRISE: Best Director, Coralie Fargeat, The Substance

The Best Director category went more or less as people expected, with Brady Corbet, Jacques Audiard, and Sean Baker securing slots. Some wondered whether James Mangold or Denis Villeneuve would be the wildcard inclusion — Congratulations, Mr. Mangold. And it was assumed that Edward Berger, whose terrifically trashy Conclave was a lock for Best Picture, would be No. 5. Instead, French director Coralie Fargeat swooped in and deservedly took the last slot, much to our delight. The film also made it into the Best Picture category as well. Apparently, her story about a Hollywood actor determined to do anything to stay young and relevant resonated with even the most squeamish of voters.

SNUB: Best Picture, A Real Pain

It was a truth universally acknowledged that Kieran Culkin would be one of the five nominees for Best Supporting Actor, given the sheer amount of love for his take on a shiny, happy stoner on a trip with his cousin. Kudos to write-director and co-star Jesse Eisenberg as well for his Best Original Screenplay nomination. But most of us thought that this funny, moving, thoughtful riff on the road movie would be among the 10 films picked for Best Picture, and — no offense to most of the ones who did make it in — the fact that it was left out feels like a glaring mistake. That title now doubles as a description of our feelings on the matter.

SURPRISE: Best Picture, I’m Still Here

So many film lovers were crossing their fingers that Fernanda Torres would make it into the Best Actress nominees, even if that meant a “so sorry, maybe next time” for popular potential contenders like Pamela Anderson for The Last Showgirl (or worse, for stunning performances like Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s in Hard Truths). Her portrayal of a woman navigating decades of life under a military dictatorship is a hell of a showcase, to be sure. Yet the inclusion of Walter Salles’ political drama in the top category was, frankly, a bit of a jaw-dropper. There was precious little chatter about the film other than main performance, even with positive word-of-mouth on the fest circuit. Still, this is the first Brazilian film to make the Best Picture category, and we’re stoked that a whole new audience of viewers are about to catch up with it now.

SNUB: Best Actress, Nicole Kidman, Babygirl

What, no love for a woman of a certain age who finds sexual liberation, one glass of milk at a time? There are committed performances, and there’s Kidman’s all-or-nothing interpretation of a CEO diving headfirst into an affair with a younger man in Halina Reijn’s conversation-starter of a romantic melodrama. It’s such a vulnerable, naked-in-every-sense-of-the-word interpretation of female desire that we understand why some voters might have felt too much like voyeurs watching her play this character, and responded accordingly. But if this isn’t career-best work from an actor who’s never been afraid to go deep and go dark, and who’s so beloved by many inside and outside the Academy, it’s damn near close. And that makes this snub feel particularly heinous.

SURPRISE: Best Actor, Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice

Like so many critics, pundits, and wags, we’d assumed that a biopic about the early years of the most divisive political figure in recent memory — not to mention one in which the main character rapes his wife — was more or less dead in the water even before the results of November’s election. The fact that Stan was nominated for his portrayal of Donald Trump given the current climate may double as a passive-aggressive protest vote, but who the fuck cares! Stan is bringing it in this role; ditto Jeremy Strong, who scored a Best Supporting Actor nod this morning for his role as Trump’s Satanic majesty Roy Cohn. As someone on social media was saying, it’s simply wild that such a portrayal of a sitting president, which neither outright demonizes him nor does him any favors, could earn the person behind said portrayal a possible gold statuette. Only in America!

SNUB: Best Score, Challengers

But Emilia Pérez‘s score gets in? Hmm. Our heartfelt apologies Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. We knew Challengers would be a, er, challenge to sell to voters in a stacked year like this, but we had assumed that their absolute banger of a score would be not just a nominee but a frontrunner. What else to say, but: 40, love.

SURPRISE: Best Supporting Actor, Yura Borisov, Anora

This one wasn’t the biggest surprise of this morning’s announcements, but it was definitely one of the best. The Russian actor is sort of the stealth MVP in Sean Baker’s sex-worker screwball comedy, especially when he becomes a more prominent presence in the second and third acts — and his soulful thug-slash-confidante to the title character is part of what the movie work so beautifully. Borisov’s name had been floated in early chatter around who might make the grade for this category, but it still felt like a long shot. A reminder: Sometimes long shots pay off. We’re so jazzed he’s in here.

SNUB: Best Supporting Actor, Denzel Washington, Gladiator II

OK, so this may be more of a personal disappointment. The Best Supporting Actor section was always going to be a crowded one, and people were mixed overall about Ridley Scott’s sequel to his 2000 Oscar-winner. But, come on! The Best Supporting categories have always been about rewarding outside-the-box performances, be they funny (Kevin Kline in A Fish Called Wanda, Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny), crazy-quirky (Kevin Spacey in The Usual Suspects) or scene-stealing and outrageous (Joe Pesci in Goodfellas, Dianne Wiest in Bullets Over Broadway). All of those adjectives describe Denzel Washington’s extraordinary DGAF take on a Roman empire power player. Long after we’ve forgotten most aspects of this blockbuster, we’ll remember Denzel lacing cunning and menace into throwaway lines, giddily yelling “More wine!” before pumping a drinking partner for intel and camping it up with a severed head. We knew he likely would not get nominated. But the omission still feels like a crime.

From Rolling Stone US.