2025 Academy Award nominations: All the snubs, surprises and successes

Welcome to the midpoint of awards season! After two delays as Los Angeles grappled with the aftermath of devastating wildfires, this year’s Oscar nominations have finally been announced.

One of the most perplexing trajectories of the season has been Netflix’s Spanish-language musical, *Emilia Pérez*, once again dominating with 13 nominations, making it the most-nominated foreign-language film of all time (sorry, *Parasite*). Star Karla Sofía Gascón also made Oscar history, becoming the first openly trans woman to receive an Oscar nomination. Despite mixed reviews and even public condemnation from advocacy groups, this unconventional film seems unstoppable.

Close behind are the three-and-a-half-hour post-war drama, *The Beast*, and the glittering Broadway adaptation, *Wicked* (talk about your Elphaba and Glinda pairings), each with 10 nominations. In just over a month, we’ll know who will ultimately triumph in this year’s awards race, but until then, let’s delve into the snubs, surprises, and successes of the 2025 Oscar nominations.

Surprise: Only one “nepo baby” made the cut for Best Supporting Actress. Two years ago, scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis won the award for her (admittedly excellent) performance in *Everything Everywhere All at Once*, with many arguing the award should have gone to her co-star, Stephanie Hsu, for her (even more excellent) performance. Many commentators were holding their breath for a repeat this year, with Curtis receiving BAFTA and SAG nominations for her turn as a Las Vegas showgirl in Gia Coppola’s *The Last Showgirl*. But despite her pedigree and the Academy’s fondness for her, Curtis is absent from the 2025 category. Alas, also absent is fellow nepo baby Margaret Qualley, for her superb and repulsive performance in *The Substance*—surprising, considering she received a Golden Globe nomination.

The final nepo baby to make the cut is Isabella Rossellini for *Pope’s Election*, but she’ll have to beat out Zoë Saldaña’s Golden Globe-winning performance in *Emilia Pérez*. Success/Snub: *Dune: Part Two* is a mixed bag. Poor *Dune: Part Two*, cursed by its March 2024 release date, which is early in the awards season. Recency bias is the only explanation for why James Mangold for *A Complete Stranger* would make the Best Director shortlist over Denis Villeneuve for his masterful work on this sci-fi epic.

*Dune: Part Two* quietly slipped into the Best Picture category, a victory for all spice-heads, but it’s in the technical categories where it really shines. Australian cinematographer Greg Fraser won Best Cinematography for the first *Dune* in 2021, and he’s once again received a well-deserved nomination in the category, making him our best chance for an Aussie to take home gold. The film also snuck into the nominations for Production Design, Sound, and Visual Effects—here’s hoping a sandworm makes an appearance on the night to accept the award.

Snub: *Challengers*’ score is a no-show. In a just and fair world, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s sharp and stylish score for the tennis-throuple film *Challengers* would have taken up all five slots in Best Original Score. Especially considering the Golden Globes handed them the entire award. But in the most obvious sign that the Academy voters have no ears, the duo didn’t even make this year’s nominations! Which is even more shocking if you’ve heard any of the music from *Emilia Pérez*, and their labored, stilted, and awkward dialogue put to song.

In the wake of Reznor and Ross’s unjust snub, I’m throwing my support behind *Wild Robot*, whose central score ranked very, very high on my 2024 Spotify Wrapped. Surprise: *The Substance* makes up for all of the horror snubs of the past 20 years at the Oscars. It’s a good day for horror girls. *The Substance* has managed to secure a Best Picture nomination, the first time a horror film has achieved this since *Get Out* in 2017. Coralie Fargeat’s gory parable is so bold and brazen that even the Academy’s historic hatred of horror couldn’t stop it.

Not only that, but Fargeat has also broken into the Best Director category, a category historically unkind to both horror films and female directors. Of course, Demi Moore has taken her rightful place in the Best Actress nominations, with her moving and powerful speech at the Golden Globes all but carving her name onto an Oscar. *The Substance* also received two other well-deserved nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Makeup and Hairstyling. While *The Substance* may not be for everyone, it is incredibly encouraging to see a horror film that fully immerses its audience in blood and gore be rewarded with success.

Success: It’s slime time, baby! Best Animated Feature has been pretty much locked in for the past few months, but there were rumblings that *Moana 2* might slide into the category thanks to its billion-dollar box office takings. In a category crowded with studio behemoths and award winners, it seemed likely that Australian Adam Elliot’s sad stop-motion animation *Snail’s Memory* might be squeezed out. But local animation fans are cheering, as the snail has left a trail of slime all over *Moana 2*, securing a spot in the top five. While *Snail’s Memory* is still unlikely to beat *Inside Out 2* or Golden Globe winner *Flow*, hey, Aussies have come from behind to take gold before.

Snub: *Real Pain*’s regret. There were about eight films that were shoe-ins for Best Picture in this year’s Oscar nominations, leaving two spots open for alternates. Jesse Eisenberg’s beautifully crafted comedy *Real Pain* was always in the conversation but unfortunately missed the cut. It wouldn’t have been out of the question for *Nickel Boys* (which has received rave reviews for its technical and emotional achievements) and *I’m Still Here* (on the strength of its Golden Globe win) to take the final two spots, but it easily could have been *Real Pain*. Not only is it a brilliant and quiet meditation on how generational trauma trickles down, but at a tight 90 minutes, it also would have been the only Best Picture nominee under two hours—a win for the attention-challenged cinephiles. Luckily, *Real Pain* wasn’t completely snubbed: Kieran Culkin is a strong contender for Best Supporting Actor, and Eisenberg has a shot at Best Original Screenplay.