Oscars 2025: Who will win? The 10 nominees for best film

BarcelonaThe Oscars are back. The triumphant fanfare of Hollywood, the dresses and the bonfire of the vanities in all their glory. But also the films: masterpieces and not so masterpieces that compete for the most coveted award in an industry that strives to remain relevant in an era of algorithms and social media. We review the ten titles that are competing for the Oscar for best film, the big prize that will culminate the ceremony that takes place in the early hours of Sunday 2 to Monday 3 March at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

The figure of Bob Dylan and his elusive career is a material that does not fit into the typical stories of rise, fall and redemption of the biopeaks musicals. These are conventions that James Mangold's film cleverly avoids, limiting the story to the musician's early years in New York to portray the folk movement of the early 60s and the upheaval that Dylan's arrival represented. But A complete unknown It is intended to explain, above all, a musician's decision to take control of his art, even when this puts him at odds with his friends and his audience. Timothée Chalamet captures, in his performance, that enigmatic, indolent and mischievous air of the early Dylan, progressively possessed by charisma and withdrawn into his inner world. Will he win the Oscar? That, my friend, only the wind knows. Currently in theaters

Since the year of Parasites that a winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes was not so close to winning the Oscar for best film. After being ignored at the Golden Globes, Anora has turned the odds around and is emerging as the favourite thanks to the triple award wins from the producers', directors' and screenwriters' unions. The triumph ofAnora –Best film of 2024 according to ARA critics– it would also be that of the stubbornly independent cinema of the director, screenwriter and editor Sean Baker, whose raw material is the broken dreams of the disinherited of American society, especially sex workers. Baker always films them with empathy and humanity, but without condescension, like a more mischievous Pasolini who intertwines drama and comedy in a brilliant confluence. On demand from March 6th

To understand the horror of a political kidnapping in the context of a dictatorship, the unexpected scratch that it represents in the fabric of affections of a well-off middle-class family, Walter Salles chooses to first construct their daily life and domestic happiness. It is after the disappearance of the father of the family – the engineer and political activist Rubens Paiva – and the arbitrary torture of the mother, a Fernanda Torres full of dignity, who Even though I'm here takes on the personal and ideological journey of a protagonist whose life as she knew it was destroyed by the military government of Brazil. Her firmness and perseverance are the backbone of a denunciatory film that captures the spirit of Ken Loach's social cinema, which always supports his characters and points to the heart of injustice. Currently in theaters

Now that Hollywood has left the more or less sophisticated adult entertainment products in the hands of series and platforms, the few exceptions that are released in theaters always have a clear path to shine at the Oscars. This is the case of Conclave, one thriller ecclesiastical ofEdward Berger about the intrigues surrounding the election of a new supreme pontiff that deploys its plot twists and effects with a remarkable sense of spectacle and the dramatic solidity of the cast led by an excellent Ralph Fiennes. A consensus film –favorite of only a few, but second or third favorite of many–, it could benefit from the Academy's preferential voting system and, indirectly, from Worrying news about Pope Francis' health that arrive these days from the Vatican. Currently in theaters

Denis Villeneuve has taken over from Christopher Nolan as director of blockbusters of author to whom the Oscars always reserve a small space in the main category, which was precisely resized beyond the five titles due to the fact that The Dark Knight He was not nominated in 2009. Although testimonial, the nomination of Dune: Part Two It is a recognition of Villeneuve's effort to evoke the spectacularity of epic cinema from other eras, always putting digital effects at the service of the narrative. The charismatic photogenicity of Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya and the earthly counterpoint of Javier Bardem are the ingredients that round out this parable about the dangers of messianic leadership that resonates strongly in our political landscape. Available on Max and Movistar+

The descent ofEmilia Perez in the Oscar race Following Karla Sofia Gascon's racist tweets has unexpectedly limited the film's possibilities in Zoe Saldana (supporting actress) and in the original song The evil. From the presentation in Cannes, the trajectory of this narco musical has been as pamphlet-like as the plot of the film itself. Jacques Audiard. Beyond the extra-cinematic noise, there remains a film that jumps into the abyss without a safety net and that risks everything on a very daring premise. That said, the controversy has surely put in its place a work that is more effective than surprising, readjusting the public's expectations to the true measure of the film. Be that as it may, Emilia Perez has made history: The thirteen nominations They have broken the ceiling of non-English-speaking cinema and have paved the way for trans performers in the audiovisual industry. Currently in theaters

Never in the history of the Oscars has a film with horror scenes been nominated for best film gore as extreme as those of The substance. If this is already a reason to celebrate for any fan of the genre, even more so if the feast of blood and body horror from the movie Coralie Fargeat is at the service of a most incisive discourse on how women manage the aesthetic pressure on their bodies as they stop being young. A discourse that is also expressed through the interpretation of Demi Moore, a work of great generosity in which her character as an actress coming of age at a difficult time, feeds on the prejudices and expectations that the public has projected onto Moore over the last few decades. Available on Filmin and Movistar+

Yeah The substance represents an unprecedented milestone for terror gore At the Oscars, the presence of Nickel boys Among the nominees, the film is also surprising for its radical nature, the most experimental that academics have nominated for an Oscar since The tree of life (2011), by Terrence Malick. RaMell Ross films the friendship between two American teenagers who meet in a reformatory always through the subjective camera, now from the point of view of one, now from the other. It is not only an immersive resource, but a call to explore the beauty and horror of the situation of these boys with a clean and original look that translates into an audiovisual language the poetry of the novel by Terrence Malick. Colson Whitehead, Pulitzer Prize winner. Available on Amazon Prime

Now that the big names of 70s cinema are saying goodbye or entering the final stretch of their careers, we must celebrate the authors who, like Brady Corbet, are recovering the artistic ambition of that generation of American cinema. The brutalist It works as an epic about a Holocaust-surviving architect's struggle to make his way in postwar America, but also as a majestic fresco about the racist and exploitative soul of American society. Complex and meandering – what is its discourse on Zionism, really? – it is uncompromising adult cinema, a rare elderly in today's Hollywood. And an extraordinary Adrien Brody already has half an Oscar in his pocket thanks to his interpretation of a Holocaust victim, a record that already earned him a first Oscar in 2003 for The pianist. Currently in theaters

In its clear commitment to artifice and spectacle for all audiences, Wicked is the Oscar nominee that best fits into the genres of classic Hollywood. Logical, since it is still a direct prequel toThe Magic of Oz, emblematic and almost totemic work in a luminous and field to understand cinema. But, above all, Wicked It is an adaptation of a successful musical and, in this sense, it works as a refuge film for die-hard fans of musical theatre, transferring its musical and stage codes to the realm of digital cinema with a baroque and strident aesthetic. Whatever the case, it is typical Oscar material, and its leading role in this edition (it has ten nominations) is consistent with the nature of a gala that, in reality, is nothing more than a variety show. Currently in theaters