Oscar Winner Predictions 2025

It was another barely above average year for me in terms of predicting the Oscar nominations. My only perfect categories were Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay, but I managed to pick four out of five in plenty of the others, so not too shabby. Predicting the winners might be slightly easier. Many of the minor categories have clear front-runners, though not always so clear that an upset is out of the question. The acting categories, on the other hand, are the least clear-cut they've been in a while. The only one I'm confident about is Jessie Buckley winning Best Actress for Hamnet. The other three are mostly toss-ups between two, or sometimes three, candidates.

Of course, everyone's talking about the intense contest between Sinners and One Battle After Another. They are each poised to win their respective Screenplay categories, and it looks like One Battle and Paul Thomas Anderson have the momentum to take Picture and Director, but it would not surprise me if Sinners and Ryan Coogler end up besting them. In fact, I think the not-as-rare-as-it-used-to-be Picture/Director split is a very real possibility with PTA winning Director and Sinners taking home Picture. The reverse seems less likely but I wouldn't rule it out entirely.

Just like the nominations, it's very possible that Sinners will overperform. It only won 3 BAFTA awards - Original Screenplay and Original Score, both of which I'm predicting (along with Casting). Its other BAFTA win was for Wunmi Mosaku, but the BAFTAs naturally tend to favour British performers, so I don't expect she will win the Oscar. By the same token, I think Sinners resonates much more deeply with the American voting body than it does with the Brits, so there's a decent chance the Academy gives it more awards than BAFTA. Production Design and Costume Design are strong candidates, maybe even Song.

With all that said, here are my predictions for who is going to hear their name called out on Oscar night. What do you think?