The Biggest Snubs and Surprises of the 2025 Oscar Nominations

Nominations for the 97th Academy Awards, scheduled to take place on Sunday, March 2, arrived on Jan. 23 after multiple delays owing to the Los Angeles wildfires. The devastation is likely to cast a shadow over the remainder of this awards season, but in keeping with the spirit of Tinseltown, the show must, and will, go on.

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Following a largely predictable awards season dominated by Oppenheimer, 2025 is looking a lot more open. Though Wicked, Emilia Pérez, and Conclave have been viewed as frontrunners, debates have surged around the Oscar-worthiness of a popcorn blockbuster like Wicked and issues of trans and Mexican representation in Emilia Pérez. Would enough people sit through The Brutalist‘s 3.5-hour-plus runtime to vote for it? Would Fernanda Torres and Demi Moore’s momentum carry them from Golden Globes wins to Oscar nods? (Spoiler: it did!)

Now we have our answers, as delivered by Rachel Sennott and Bowen Yang on Thursday: Emilia Pérez leads the way with 13 nominations, just one short of the all-time record of 14, followed by Wicked and The Brutalist, each of which received 10 nods. As with any year, some names we’d expected to hear weren’t uttered, though in some cases that opened the door for a pleasant surprise. Here are the biggest snubs and surprises of the 2025 Oscar nominations.

Surprise: Monica Barbaro for Best Supporting Actress

Was this one a shock? Absolutely not. Barbaro is radiant as a young Joan Baez opposite Timothée Chalamet’s Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. But this was a competitive category, and Barbaro’s inclusion could only come at the expense of several other strong candidates: Selena Gomez in Emilia Pérez (sparing us the escalating online stan wars between Selenators and Arianators); Danielle Deadwyler as the strongest feature of the otherwise underperforming The Piano Lesson; Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as the warm and loving grandmother in Nickel Boys; Margaret Qualley as the perfect young clone to Demi Moore’s old crone in The Substance; and a late-surging Jamie Lee Curtis for The Last Showgirl.

Surprise and Snub: I’m Still Here sneaks in for Best Picture…and Sing Sing misses

Many of the films that ended up with a Best Picture nod felt like locks, but a handful were floating on the bubble until Thursday. I’m Still Here, Walter Salles’ based-on-a-true-story drama about a family during Brazil’s military dictatorship, was largely expected to score two nominations, for Best International Feature and Best Actress for Fernanda Torres, who won the Golden Globe earlier this month. But its presence among the top 10 was a surprise feather in the cap of the critically acclaimed film. Unfortunately, something else had to go, and Sing Sing, despite its Best Actor nod for Colman Domingo, ended up missing.

Snub: Denis Villeneuve for Best Director

As expected, Dune: Part II got nominated for Best Picture and picked up a slew of below-the-line awards, and yet the mastermind behind the visually stunning epic, Denis Villeneuve, was snubbed for Best Director. This is, in fact, the second time that Villeneuve has been passed over for awards directing the Dune series. Does the Academy think these movies direct themselves? Some prognosticators believe that Dune will eventually get the Lord of the Rings treatment, sweeping the awards when the third and final entry, Dune Messiah, comes out, just as Return of the King did in its time. But book readers know that the third installment, unlike the last entry in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, is deeply strange and not particularly uplifting. It’s possible that Villeneuve will never get acknowledged for achieving critical and commercial success adapting a book series that was considered impossible to bring to the big screen.

**Snub: Challengers gets completely blanked**

The delightful ménage à trois tennis film Challengers should have been showered with awards based on director Luca Guadagnino’s creative use of phallic foods alone. But the Academy doesn’t always reward genius in its time. Perhaps Guadagnino’s decision to heavily campaign for his other 2024 film, Queer, undercut Challengers’ chances. Perhaps Zendaya’s starry turn in Dune: Part II overshadowed her work in a smaller, less serious, but equally fun movie. Perhaps we, as a culture, will not fully appreciate Josh O’Connor’s smug grin until he fulfills his destiny to play James Bond. But prognosticators expected Challengers to at least snag a nomination for Justin Kuritzkes’ steamy screenplay or a nomination for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ addictive synth-heavy score, which won a Golden Globe just a few weeks ago. Turn on the soundtrack loud and rage against the injustice.

Snub: A slew of luminaries in the Best Actress category

While it’s always nice to see a fresh batch of names get their chance to vie for one of the big-five Academy Awards, it’s certainly a surprise when beloved, uber-famous potential picks like Nicole Kidman, Angelina Jolie, and Tilda Swinton get snubbed. Although Wicked’s Cynthia Erivo was previously nominated for Best Actress for 2019’s Harriet, this year’s other four nominees—Anora’s Mikey Madison, I’m Still Here’s Fernanda Torres, The Substance’s Demi Moore, and Emilia Pérez’s Karla Sofia Gascon (the first openly trans actor to ever be nominated)—are all Oscar nod first-timers. In addition to Kidman (perhaps shafted for Babygirl’s risqué subject matter), and Jolie and Swinton (both of whom lost momentum after missing nominations at other major ceremonies), Marianne Jean-Baptiste didn’t make the cut despite delivering what was touted by some as “the performance of the year” in Hard Truths.

Read more: The 10 Best Movie Performances of 2024

Surprise: The Apprentice makes a Comeback

Just a few months ago it was unclear whether the controversial Trump biopic The Apprentice would even get distribution in the U.S. as the now-president railed against his portrayal in the film. Now, Sebastian Stan has earned a nomination for his depiction of Donald Trump, and Jeremy Strong has snagged his first ever nomination for his portrayal of Trump’s real-life ruthless mentor, Roy Cohn. Due credit to Sebastian Stan who ran a stunning awards campaign. He turned other actors’ refusal to talk with him in Variety’s Actors on Actors videos into a talking point, essentially accusing Academy voters of cowardice. He successfully positioned The Apprentice as the resistance pick after Trump was elected president.

Snub: Denzel Washington for Best Supporting Actor

The actors in Gladiator II don’t exactly gel. Paul Mescal seems to be in a small, emotionally-wrought film, Pedro Pascal in an episode of something aking to The Mandalorian, while Denzel Washington is the ringmaster at a deranged and bloody circus. Denzel’s movie is the most entertaining. He is the reason to see the film. The go-for-broke performance could only be conjured by a movie star: He warps the film around him with his swagger and transforms stuffy dialogue into snappy one-liners. Alas, it was not quite enough to save Gladiator II from feeling like a retread—or to snag Denzel another Oscar nomination as the actor drops hints about retirement in the coming years.

Read More: Gladiator II Belongs to Denzel

Surprise: The Substance disrupts the balance

After winning the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy on Jan. 5, Demi Moore swiftly emerged as the Best Actress Oscar frontrunner for her arguably career-best turn as aging star Elisabeth Sparkle in French director Coralie Fargeat’s body-horror hit The Substance. Moore received her expected nod on Thursday morning, but it was the one-two punch of Fargeat and The Substance sliding into the Academy’s Best Director and Best Picture categories that earned some fanfare from horror enthusiasts. Not only is Fargeat this year’s sole female director nominee (and only the ninth in Oscars history), but a win would make her just the second director to ever achieve the feat with a horror film (the first being Jonathan Demme for 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs). Likewise, The Substance winning for Best Picture, while a longshot, would make it second to only Silence in the category.

Odds and Ends

Clarence Maclin, who participated in the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility before portraying a character with that same life experience in Sing Sing, didn’t make the cut for Supporting Actor. Indian drama All We Imagine as Light and filmmaker Payal Kapadia, which had been favored in the Best International Feature category and on the cusp of Best Director, respectively, did not receive nominations. Hugh Grant, who won a Golden Globe for Heretic, and Daniel Craig, who gave an all-time performance in Queer, were not among the Best Actor picks. Edward Berger was not included among the Best Director noms despite 10 nominations for his film, Conclave. And while The Wild Robot received three nominations, some hoped it would squeeze its way in for a Best Picture nomination, or a nod for its song “Kiss the Sky” performed by Maren Morris.