We are ending our live coverage now but keep an eye out on irishtimes.com for Donald Clarke’s reaction to the 2025 Oscar nominations and the lack of recognition for Irish talent.
Here’s a quick recap of the best picture nominees:
Anora
Nominees Mikey Madison as the spirited Ani and Yura Borisov as hired heavy Igor are the heart of Sean Baker’s story about an impulsive marriage between a young sex worker and the useless son of an oligarch. Some stretches are hilarious, others desperately sad. Standard Hollywood fairytale tropes are turned on their head throughout, but who believed in them anyway?
The Brutalist
Adrien Brody plays a fictional Hungarian-Jewish mid-century architect who survives the Holocaust, emigrates to the US and becomes a heroin addict while designing a public institute for Guy Pearce. Released in Irish cinemas tomorrow, The Brutalist is three hours and 35 minutes long and – in brilliant news for those of us with rubbish bladders – there’s an intermission.
A Complete Unknown
I found myself tapping my toes throughout this Bob Dylan biopic and not just because I went to see it in an icebox of a cinema (I’m looking at you, Cineworld). Even the trailer had me nodding and thinking the best actor award is Timothée Chalamet’s to lose. His fellow nominees Edward Norton and Monica Barbaro are, ahem, electric in this too – even if their characters are not.
Conclave
Edward Berger’s Conclave, adapted from Robert Harris’s novel by Peter Straughan, stands a good chance in best adapted screenplay, its odds not harmed by a recent MAGA-style backlash. It’s a classily produced and performed title – semi-ridiculous, but compelling. Like the vote-gathering campaigners in this papal election thriller, it could even come from behind to clinch best picture.
Dune: Part Two
The appearance of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune sequel on this list confirms 2025 as a great Oscars for Timothée Chalamet, while co-star Zendaya will likely bring some youth interest to “the telecast” if she attends. The sandy space epic claimed its best picture nod on the back of nominations for production design, sound, cinematography and visual effects.
Emilia Pérez
This intentionally “operatic” Spanish-language musical set in Mexico, directed by a Frenchman and largely starring actors who aren’t Mexican has its detractors, but it also has the virtue of standing out. It’s a touch nonsensical, plot-wise, but just sort of sweeps you along. Netflix co-chief executive Ted Sarandos will be the happiest man on the night if this triumphs.
I’m Still Here
The title of this film is what I scream out loud whenever I’ve been stuck to my desk chair for 10 hours, but that’s not what it’s about. Set in 1971, this Brazilian historical drama from Walter Salles follows a woman seeking the truth behind the disappearance of her husband while trying to keep her family together. Best actress nominee Fernanda Torres is Brazil’s second ever acting nomination – the first being her mother, Fernanda Montenegro.
Nickel Boys
The extremely powerful Nickel Boys, an adaption of Colson Whitehead’s novel of the same name, has the distinction of being shot from a first-person perspective. Director RaMell Ross and cinematographer Jomo Fray pull off the technique to the benefit of this heartbreaking film about a black teenager sent to the abusive Nickel Academy reformatory school.
The Substance
Body horror has not historically been the most popular genre among Academy Award voters, but Coralie Fargeat’s grotesque satire of the beauty industry struck a chord with members of an industry no stranger to cosmetic alterations. The heartwarming aspect of its success mostly concerns the first nomination ever – and possible win – for Demi Moore.
Wicked
Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande received their expected best actress and best supporting actress nominations for their roles in this enjoyable if overlong film adaptation of half of the stage musical, which is in turn an adaptation of novelist Gregory Maguire’s revisionist take on The Wizard of Oz. Within the industry, a win – any win – for a blockbuster like Wicked would be, as the song goes, popular.
Catch up with the full list of Oscar nominations here.
Apart from the sad absence of Irish interest, here’s some of points of note from the nominations today:
- Emilia Pérez, Jacques Audiard’s musical about a trans Mexican gangster, leads the way with 13 nominations and has broken the record for the most Oscar nominations earned by a film not in the English language. (The overall record is 14, tied between All About Eve, Titanic and La La Land). Karla Sofía Gascón has made history by becoming the first trans actor to be nominated in the acting categories.
- There were no real surprises in best actress, best supporting actress and best supporting actor, but not everyone was tipping the wonderful Sebastian Stan for a best actor nod. Some thought he might sneak in for his role in A Different Man, but he has instead been nominated, as Donald Clarke predicted, for playing another Donald in The Apprentice, guaranteeing some Trump-themed content on the night.
- The Apprentice also picked up a supporting actor nod for Jeremy Strong, but he will likely lose out to his former Succession co-star Kieran Culkin, who plays a difficult (and troubled) holiday companion to perfection in A Real Pain. Irish production company Tailored Films is, incidentally, among the producers of The Apprentice, so they’ll be happy that the film has garnered some recognition, as will supporter Screen Ireland.
- Wicked and The Brutalist – two very different films – got 10 nominations each and both are likely to convert some of them on the night, possibly even including best picture. The Substance also picked up a best picture nomination, while Coralie Fargeat becomes the ninth woman to be nominated for best director in the 97-year history of the Oscars.
- Who, apart from Kneecap, was snubbed? Well, Denzel Washington may have still entertained hopes of a nomination for Gladiator II. There was a lot of eleventh-hour love for Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s performance in Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths as well, but nothing doing. But Conclave’s Edward Berger not getting the nod for best director was perhaps the biggest surprise, and A Real Pain not getting a best picture nomination is A Real Shame.
Well, that’s a big disappointment for the Kneecap team, for the Irish film industry – and, presumably, for the next Minister for Culture now that we have a Government. Cancel the congratulatory press releases, there will be no “green wave” in contention at the Academy Awards this year. Personally, I blame Donald Trump. I’m not sure how he’s to blame, but I’m going to do it anyway.
Maybe we have grown too accustomed to Oscars success? Maybe Kneecap had a bit too much drug-fuelled anarchy for some conservative Academy members’ tastes? Or maybe it was just a super-competitive year?
Donald Clarke, our chief film correspondent, has posted on social media: “Kneecap was definitely on most prediction lists. So it not getting into international [feature] is a surprise – if not an absolute shocker. The five films picked were strong. Two best picture nominees there, which is very rare (though it did happen last year).”
Best director
- Sean Baker, Anora
- Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
- James Mangold, A Complete Unknown
- Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez
- Coralie Fargeat, The Substance
Best picture
- Anora
- The Brutalist
- A Complete Unknown
- Conclave
- Dune: Part Two
- Emilia Pérez
- I’m Still Here
- Nickel Boys
- The Substance
- Wicked
Best actor
- Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
- Timothée Chalamet, A Complete Unknown
- Colman Domingo, Sing Sing
- Ralph Fiennes, Conclave
- Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice
Best actress
- Cynthia Erivo, Wicked
- Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez
- Mikey Madison, Anora
- Demi Moore, The Substance
- Fernanda Torres, I’m Still Here
Disappointment for the Irish... with no nominations for Kneecap.
Best original song
- El Mal from Emilia Pérez
- The Journey from Six Triple Eight
- Like a Bird from Sing Sing
- Mi Camino from Emilia Pérez
- Never Too Late from Never Too Late
Best international feature
- I’m Still Here from Brazil
- The Girl with the Needle from Denmark
- Emilia Pérez from France
- The Seed of the Sacred Fig from Germany
- Flow from Latvia
Best original screenplay
- Anora
- The Brutalist
- A Real Pain
- September 5
- The Substance
Best adapted screenplay
- A Complete Unknown
- Conclave
- Emilia Pérez
- Nickel Boys
- Sing Sing
Best supporting actress
- Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown
- Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez
- Ariana Grande, Wicked
- Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
- Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
And we’re off...
Best supporting actor
- Yura Borisov, Anora
- Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
- Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
- Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
- Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice
So, it’s almost time. There’s a literal one-minute countdown on the BBC News Channel screen. Who will make the Oscars cut? Who needs to get on the phone to their stylist pronto? Which agents are getting fired? And who was busy on March 2nd anyway?
Best original song is – how will I put this – a category that engenders mixed feelings.
On the one hand, the many insipid and/or turgid choices over the years suggest members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are not the first people anyone should turn to for verdicts on music.
On the other, this is an award that has generated a decent smattering of Irish representation in over the years: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova won for Falling Slowly from the film Once in 2008 and there have been several other nominations.
Netflix will be upset if its Spanish-language musical Emilia Pérez doesn’t generate at least one nominee here, while Elton John, Lin-Manuel Miranda and much-nominated songwriter Diane Warren – who lost her beachfront Malibu home in the wildfires – are among the big names who could pop up here.
In the running, potentially, is Kneecap’s bilingual anthem Sick in the Head, credited to Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara, DJ Próvaí, Adrian Louis Richard McLeod, and Toddla T.
A nomination would have brought the fascinating prospect of Kneecap performing a song that contains the line “you’re a mad c***, Mo Chara” in front of 19.5 million US viewers. Alas, the Academy has, in its wisdom, cancelled all best song performances and will instead feature “personal reflections” from the songwriters.
This is not an easy year to predict the nominees of the biggest awards, never mind call who will be the actual winners on Oscars night. Best picture, in particular, is wide open, with The Brutalist, Emilia Pérez, Anora and Conclave all tipped at one point or other. Another question is whether The Substance’s Coralie Fargeat can become just the ninth woman in Oscars history to be nominated for best director.
Timothée Chalamet’s performance as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown seems to have the edge for best actor, and would be a popular choice, but it would be foolish to rule out a second best actor award for The Brutalist’s Adrien Brody.
For best actress, Demi Moore has the much-coveted “momentum” for her comeback role in The Substance, but again nothing is certain – at one point, it seemed Anora’s Mikey Madison was going to storm it.
I’d love to see A Complete Unknown’s Edward Norton take best supporting actor, but Kieran Culkin – riding a wave of acclaim after his turn as Roman Roy in television series Succession – is the closest thing to a lock for his role in Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, while best supporting actress may be a race between Emilia Pérez’s Zoe Saldaña and Wicked’s Ariana Grande.
One thing we now know about the ceremony is that the Academy is “thrilled” to bring back what it calls its “Fab 5″ moments. This is where a line-up of “individual film artists” – aka past winners – shower praise on the acting nominees before one of them is anointed and four of them are brutally dismissed.
This was cringe city last year and I predict it will be again this time.
Just two years after An Cailín Ciúin was nominated for the best international feature film Oscar, could Ireland be on track to receive what would be only its second-ever nod in this category?
Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Vanity Fair are all predicting that Kneecap will make the cut, while the film’s director, Rich Peppiatt, is among those gathering in Belfast for the announcement of the Oscar nominations – a high-risk move, but one that reflects a certain level of expectation.
It will be a huge achievement if the raucous and subversive Kneecap makes it to the final five from the 86 submissions in this category. Every year, many brilliant films do not make the final cut, with titles thought to be shoo-ins falling by the wayside as 15 shortlisted features become five.
This only highlights the significance of Colm Bairéad’s An Cailín Ciúin/The Quiet Girl in claiming Ireland’s first-ever nomination for what the Academy used to call best foreign language film. Only one other Irish submission has even made the 15-strong shortlist: Paddy Breathnach’s Spanish-language feature Viva, back in 2015.
If Kneecap’s semi-fictionalised account of the rise of the Belfast rap trio, written and directed by Peppiatt, makes it all the way to the Oscars, it would represent a remarkable feat for an energising comedy with a point to make throughout the hilarity. Already, people are talking about the “Kneecap effect” on interest in the Irish language.
Incidentally, sometimes success really does have many fathers: Kneecap’s cross-Border support comes from Northern Ireland Screen, the Irish Language Broadcast Fund, Screen Ireland, the BFI (awarding National Lottery funding), Coimisiún na Meán and TG4, among others.
This has not been a normal year for the Oscars. Today’s nominations broadcast was twice postponed and the voting window for members was twice extended as a result of devastating wildfires in Los Angeles that saw the city of dreams turn into the city of nightmares.
As I type this, there are reports that a new blaze has broken out in what is clearly a time of ongoing stress, shock and uncertainty.
But for now the show is scheduled to go on: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says the Oscars ceremony will go ahead at Hollywood’s Dolby Theater on Sunday, March 2nd – or in the early hours of Monday, March 3rd, in this time zone – and that they will “bring a sense of healing” to the film community.
The plan is that the ceremony, hosted this year by Conan O’Brien, will highlight “the strength, creativity and optimism that defines Los Angeles and our industry”, while also reflecting on recent events.
“We will honour Los Angeles as the city of dreams, showcasing its beauty and resilience, as well as its role as a beacon for filmmakers and creative visionaries for over a century,” say Academy chief executive Bill Kramer and president Janet Yang.
Not everyone is a fan of the showbusiness-as-usual approach, with novelist Stephen King, a member of the Academy, the most high-profile person to announce he will not be voting this year and that the awards should be cancelled. Could the simple fact of people in LA having bigger things to worry about at the moment affect the nominations?
As I wrote about in this week’s column on Hollywood in the age of wildfires and Donald Trump, the tensions within California’s most famous industry are unlikely to end with the announcement of best picture come Oscar night.
It’s Oscar time: welcome to our coverage of the announcement of the nominations for the 97th Academy Awards.
The pinnacle of the film awards season is upon us, and though it might struggle to compete with the Dáil for popcorn drama these days, the big reveal of the nominees carries its own intrigue.
Whose career is on the up to the envy of all their peers? Who will narrowly miss out on a much longed-for nod? Will Kneecap convert its shortlisting for best international feature into a nomination for Ireland? Will any Irish stars make it, against the odds, into the acting categories?
Over the past decade the likes of Kerry Condon, Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, Barry Keoghan and Saoirse Ronan have all got on to the final grid. Sadly, recent nominations for other major awards indicate that, barring miracles, there will be no Irish actors among the 2025 Oscar nominees.
But our chief film correspondent Donald Clarke reports that the Kneecap team, after an astonishing performance in the Bafta nominations, can now feel reasonably confident of a spot among the best international film nominees. Might they also compete for best original song? Watch out also for some potential Irish interest in the live action short category.
The countdown is on. From 1.30pm (Irish time), actors Rachel Sennott and Bowen Yang will announce the nominations live from the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.
In the meantime, here are some key reads on the backdrop to this year’s film shindig, plus the state of play for Hollywood and the Irish screen industry, starting with this set of nomination predictions from our chief film correspondent, Donald Clarke.
- Donald Clarke on Oscars 2025: What are the chances for Kneecap, Saoirse Ronan and Cillian Murphy?
- The Oscars aren’t fair. Just look at what’s happening to Cillian Murphy
- Screen industry boosts Irish economy by €1bn amid ‘drastic’ global change
- Show must go on in ‘great but very troubled’ Hollywood. But how?
