In one of the most unpredictable Oscar seasons in recent memory, the Oscar nominations announcement on Thursday morning felt like it was going a litt
In one of the most unpredictable Oscar seasons in recent memory, the Oscar nominations announcement on Thursday morning felt like it was going a little too according to plan. Sure, there were the subtle trend lines, like the overperformance of A Complete Unknown or the curious misses for Dune: Part Two (more on those in a moment)—but generally the Academy seemed to be going everywhere we predicted it would. This included the snubs of previous winners like Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman, and the first-ever nominations for industry veterans like Isabella Rossellini and Guy Pearce.
But that feeling did not last, because this year is just too weird. The Academy was bound to throw us a substantial shock or two. Below we break down the 10 snubs and surprises that have us scratching our heads—starting with the biggest, most thrilling upset of the day.
SURPRISE: I’m Still Here for Best Picture
The Academy always leans a bit more international than other voting bodies like the PGA or SAG. But still, the best-picture nomination for I’m Still Here seems to have come out of nowhere—that is, if you didn’t have your ear to the ground here in Los Angeles. Last fall, the Brazilian drama from Walter Salles was playing like gangbusters to any Academy member who saw it; they’d rave about it to anyone who would listen. The problem? As with any non-English-language title, it was challenging getting that movie to the top of screener piles, no matter how great its word of mouth.
That changed when Fernanda Torres won the Golden Globe for best actress in a drama over megastars Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman, vaulting her to the front of a competitive Oscar race—and signaling to Academy members that her movie was worth paying attention to. (Torres was also nominated by the Oscars today for best actress.) Distributor Sony Pictures Classics put the pedal to the metal for the final campaigning sprint of 2025, and it paid off spectacularly, as the film overtook some substantial competition for a best-picture nomination. It keeps the Oscars’ trend toward international cinema moving in the right direction, and finished out this morning’s nominations announcement with a riveting, surprising bang. —David Canfield
SURPRISE: A Complete Unknown Overperforms
I had a mantra going into our Little Gold Men Oscar predictions episode: Do not underestimate A Complete Unknown. Even still, seeing the film nominated for best costume design—a competitive category—in one of the morning’s earliest announcements took me by great surprise. From there, the Bob Dylan biopic kept boosting its tally: In supporting actress, where Monica Barbaro leaped ahead of substantial names like Jamie Lee Curtis; in directing, where James Mangold scored his first-ever nomination in the category; and more. The movie has been a hit with both critics and audiences, and has been surging with the industry, scoring top nominations from SAG, DGA, and more. It’s clearly beloved in Hollywood. Does that make it a candidate to go all the way for best picture? Maybe, maybe not. But one thing’s for sure: Timothée Chalamet is in it to win it. —DC
SNUB: Hard Truths Falls on Hard Times
Hard Truths—and specifically Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s performance in the Mike Leigh movie—was one of the most critically acclaimed films of the season. After Baptiste, who was Oscar-nominated once before for Secrets & Lies in 1997, won the New York Film Critics Circle award and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association award, it seemed like there was a chance she’d make the best-actress five. But a very crowded category (where Nicole Kidman and Angelina Jolie also missed out) and the fact that Jean-Baptiste didn’t land a couple key nominations on the way made her chances dim in the weeks leading up to the announcement. In the end, Hard Truths didn’t land a single nomination—though there was some hope it might surprise in original screenplay as well—in one of the bigger disappointments of this year. —Rebecca Ford
SNUB: Challengers
Filmmakers asked for their favorite movies of 2024 had all kinds of answers, but one of the most common was Challengers. (Indeed, it was one of the most-cited films on IndieWire’s survey.) It’s challenging to pinpoint where the campaign for this film went wrong, given how much industry goodwill there was around Luca Guadagnino’s steamy character drama, but it’s clear that an April release—and distributor Amazon MGM’s awards focus on Nickel Boys, which paid off—did it no favors in the Oscar conversation.
Still, one would’ve surely thought that a nomination for best score or original screenplay was in the cards. The movie had landed on several Oscar shortlists, and scribe Justin Kuritzkes pounded the pavement for months to get the word out. In the end, here was the uncommon example—for this era of awards season anyway—of a critically acclaimed, widely seen movie considered a little too popcorn for the Academy to take seriously. It didn’t get a single nomination. Maybe we needed a Wicked-level promo tour? —DC
SURPRISE: The Wild Robot Breaks the Animation Curse
Films nominated in the animation category often have a tough time getting nominated in other categories. It happens, but not as often as it should. But this year, The Wild Robot, Universal’s pretty story about a robot who becomes the adoptive mother of an orphaned goose, also earned nominations for best score and best sound. (We would argue that it should have also gotten in for best song for the gorgeous “Kiss the Sky,” but whatever.) An animated film has yet to win best sound (though The Incredibles won best sound editing in 2004 when the category was still split into two segments), but animated films have fared well in best score, with wins for many Disney classics like Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and Pocahontas. And more recently, Soul won in 2020. —RF
SNUB: Nickel Boys in Best Cinematography
As someone who fell challenging for Nickel Boys from the very beginning, going all the way back to its Telluride premiere over Labor Day weekend, I’m thrilled and relieved to see the drama crack the best-picture lineup after a dicier run on the precursor guild circuit. (The movie was snubbed by the PGA and SAG.) And it’s not a huge shock, in the end, that the film was not nominated for its cinematography, given that the American Society of Cinematographers didn’t include Nickel Boys among its top seven movies of the year. But still, it must be said: Few if any were as deserving in the category as Jomo Fray for his groundbreaking first-person lensing, working in close harmony with director RaMell Ross. The actors spoke of Fray almost like he was also a character in the movie, as they were tasked with looking direct-to-camera to complete the film’s sophisticated vision of subjectivity. That Fray made the approach feel lyrical as opposed to gimmicky speaks to his skill. A shame that couldn’t have been included in the Academy’s embrace. —DC
SNUB: A Real Pain Stumbles in Best Picture
For months now, it’s been a foregone conclusion that Kieran Culkin will win the Oscar for best supporting actor for A Real Pain. So his nomination was not a surprise. When Jesse Eisenberg also got a nomination for original screenplay, it seemed like A Real Pain was landing as it should this morning. But then came a surprise: A Real Pain missed out on a best-picture nomination. Instead, I’m Still Here and The Substance both landed somewhat surprising nods as films. They both had mighty momentum in the final weeks leading up to voting, which probably gave them the boost they needed to outshine A Real Pain. But as we mentioned, the good news for A Real Pain is that it’ll likely still be represented on the winners stage by Culkin on March 2. —RF
SNUB: Daniel Craig Loses Out
The final slot in the best-actor race was always a wild card, but it seemed increasingly likely that Daniel Craig, for his bold performance in Queer, might grab that spot. He won the National Board of Review’s best-actor award, and was also nominated for a Golden Globe, the Critics Choice, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. But in the end, he lost out on the Oscar nomination to Sebastian Stan, whose gutsy performance as a youthful Donald Trump in The Apprentice gained the appreciation of Academy voters. Stan has been everywhere this awards season, due to the fact that he’s been running campaigns for two films—and after winning at the Globes for his other film, A Different Man, he was sure to mention The Apprentice as well onstage. It probably helped that the man he portrays in The Apprentice was very much on the minds of voters these past couple months, and it doesn’t hurt to honor this very critical take on Trump. —RF
SURPRISE: Wicked Dances Into Editing
Wicked was expected to perform well in nominations, and it did, landing 10 total. It appeared in many of the categories we expected, including picture, actress, and supporting actress, as well as below-the-line categories like production design and costume design. But its editing nomination—getting in over the likes of Dune: Part Two—wasn’t one we saw coming. Though maybe we should have, since the Academy also nominated Emilia Pérez in that category. Clearly, there’s an admiration for the editing in these two musicals. —RF
SNUB: Conclave’s Edward Berger in Best Director
It’s long felt this season like there were six directors battling it out for five slots. All of the DGA nominees became Oscar-nominated filmmakers, though, except for Conclave’s Edward Berger—marking the second time he’s missed out on a nomination in the category despite his movie going on to a best-picture nod and a slew of other nominations. (His last one was All Quiet on the Western Front.) What happened here? Well, the Oscar nominee that the DGA snubbed, Coralie Fargeat, always felt like someone the directing branch of the Academy would go out on a limb for. The Substance is the kind of visionary, stylish, brazen—and, it must be said, European—filmmaking that this highbrow group of voters prefers to recognize. Conclave, by contrast, may have actually been punished for its commercial success. The Academy’s directors can get a little snobby—remember when they snubbed Denis Villeneuve for the first Dune? Conclave emerged this fall as an improbable audience hit, despite its refined visuals and controlled tension. The film performed well enough overall today that the snub doesn’t clever too much, but still: Berger is already feeling way overdue for his first nod here. —DC
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