From what I’ve heard, we can expect to see one get the harder Oscar push, at least early on.
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Warner Bros.
For Warner Bros., the year 2025 has seen an embarrassment of riches. After breaking box-office records with a string of $40 million openings, the studio released Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another, which just bolstered its status as the season’s most formidable Oscar contender by sweeping the first week of precursor awards. And if, for some reason, One Battle stumbles before the finish line, the title that’s best positioned to likely win in its stead is another Warner Bros. movie: Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, which, like OBAA, has shown up everywhere it’s needed to this season.
It’s not unusual for a studio to juggle multiple Best Picture contenders; Neon and Netflix could also place a couple in the Oscar ten this year. But what is unique about Warner’s situation is that its two contenders also happen to be the top two candidates overall, Nos. 1 and 1A in the Best Picture race. Each has a solid case for being considered the film of the year, as they’re both critically acclaimed hits that reflect the turbulent times of 2025. (Sinners has the additional benefit of being the only non-IP entry in the year’s ten highest-grossing movies and its own killer narrative around Coogler’s innovative rights deal.)
Despite their many similarities, the films took very different paths to the Best Picture field. One Battle’s front-runner status came from the top down, its greatness anointed by critics and tastemakers before the general audience could see it. Meanwhile, Sinners’s awards bona fides were established from the bottom up, thanks to the passion of regular viewers.
The same firm of Oscar strategists handles all of Warner’s films, which means the campaigns are essentially competing against themselves. Luckily, that’s not a problem just yet. At the nomination stage, there are plenty of seats at the table for both movies. Still, it does raise the question of how best to allocate resources like time, money, and attention, especially since both are expected to be strong players in categories like Picture, Director, Actor, and Supporting Actress. Which film is the bigger priority?
From what I’ve heard, we can expect Sinners to get the harder push, at least early on. The thinking goes that One Battle came essentially presold as an “awards movie,” due to Anderson’s status as a beloved and influential auteur. (He placed three films on the New York Times’ Best Movies of the 21st Century list.) Meanwhile, an action-horror epic like Sinners will have to overcome the same hurdle that blockbusters such as Everything Everywhere All at Once (and, less successfully, Barbie) had to clear on their way to the Oscars stage: the sense that being more commercial necessarily equates to less prestigious.
Coincidentally, that approach also aligns with the awards-season personalities of the artists in question. Neither Anderson nor his star, Leonardo DiCaprio, are known for being intense campaigners; recall that for Killers of the Flower Moon two years ago, Leo seemed relieved to cede the spotlight to co-star Lily Gladstone. This was borne out at Monday night’s Gotham Awards. While Coogler made multiple appearances onstage on behalf of his cast, who received one of the Gothams’ tribute awards, Anderson kept a low profile even while winning Best Picture at the end of the night. (He gave a short speech in which he expressed his desire to head straight to a bar.) Leo didn’t show at all, though he did make the rounds at a few NYC screenings and Q&As in the run-up.
The theory that Sinners is facing a steeper climb for recognition may also explain both films’ Golden Globes placements. Sinners has enough juke-joint numbers — sequences that are central to both its plot and themes — to have been eligible as a musical, but the vampire flick chose to compete in the seemingly harder lane of drama, where a win over Hamnet would carry plenty of weight. At the same time, PTA’s of-the-moment take on fascism and resistance could have slotted One Battle into the drama field, but the front-runner will make room for Sinners by competing as a comedy. Team OBAA, though, will tell you that the Pynchon adaptation was conceived as a comedy from day one, so there was never any chance of it running in the drama category at the Globes.
This kind of give-and-take will disappear once we get into phase two, when each race can have only one winner. From there, I suspect a cold-blooded realpolitik to prevail: The campaigns will throw their weight behind whoever looks likeliest to win. (My back-of-the-envelope handicapping would be OBAA in Picture and Director, Sinners in the craft categories — though watch for who gets the push in Supporting Actress.) Still, this is a Champagne problem that many studios would be lucky to have. This Oscars season can be considered a victory lap for WB chiefs Pam Abdy and Michael De Luca, who took a risk on a pair of auteur-driven passion projects blending weighty themes with crowd-pleasing sensibilities.
The events of this week revealed yet another thing Sinners and One Battle have in common. Now that Warner Bros. looks set to be acquired by Netflix, films like these — lovingly crafted cinematic experiences made to be seen on the big screen — could look very different after 2026.
Photo: Cindy Ord/Getty Images
On Monday night, I braved the zucchini chips and Parmesan chunks of Cipriani Wall Street to report live from the season’s first schmoozefest, the 35th-Annual Gotham Film Awards. What I saw was a ceremony struggling to balance its indie-film roots with the inexorable pull of the Oscars industrial complex.
The Gothams have always prided themselves on being the starting gun for awards season, but in recent years, an event created to spotlight independent film has leaned further into its status as an essential stop on the Oscars pole dance. Two years ago, the Gothams removed their budget cap, allowing films that cost over $35 million to compete for the first time. Tribute awards that used to go to obscure-but-beloved figures in the New York indie scene now go to blockbusters like Sinners and second-tier studio contenders like After the Hunt and Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. This tension between Old Gothams and New Gothams revealed itself in offhand moments, as when Sinners’s Delroy Lindo went off script mid-tribute to insist that his director, Ryan Coogler, was “an independent filmmaker at heart.”
Every week between now and January 22, when the nominations for the Academy Awards are announced, Vulture will consult its crystal ball to determine the changing fortunes in this year’s Oscar race. In our “Oscar Futures” column, we’ll let you in on insider gossip, parse brand-new developments, and track industry buzz to figure out who’s up, who’s down, and who’s currently leading the race for a coveted Oscar nomination.
Photo: Courtesy Warner Bros.
Two years ago, Oppenheimer was such an irrefutable front-runner that critics’ groups felt their powers would be put to better use elsewhere and threw their weight behind Killers of the Flower Moon instead. One Battle appears to hold a similarly dominant position, and yet, this time around, the tastemakers at the Gothams, the NYFCC, and the NBR all tipped for PTA anyway. What’s the difference? I’d say the answer lies somewhere in the gap between $330 million and $70 million — the films’ respective box-office hauls.
Photo: Adolpho Veloso
The little engine that could? When Netflix bought the backwoods travelogue out of Sundance, fans feared the gentle movie would be overshadowed by the streamer’s buzzier contenders. Instead, Clint Bentley’s film has chugged along, showing up at the NBR, AFI, and Critics Choice lists while also tying for the second-most Independent Spirit Awards nominations and topping our own Bilge Ebiri’s year-end list. However, the bigger awards-season spotlight has also brought a few high-profile pans, with one critic calling the film “a redwood-scale slab of kitsch.”
Avatar: Fire and Ash, Frankenstein, Hamnet, It Was Just an Accident, Jay Kelly, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sentimental Value, Sinners, Train Dreams
Photo: Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images
With all three acting winners absent, Panahi was the belle of the ball at the Gotham Awards, where he took every award he was nominated for. The wins were even more notable for coming hours after the dissident filmmaker was sentenced to prison in absentia by Iran’s Revolutionary Tribunal. Without being too crass about it, Panahi’s personal story has added an urgency and stakes to his campaign that few others can match. He followed up his big night at the Gothams with Best Director honors from the NYFCC and international-film recognition from the NBR and AFI. It Was Just an Accident appears the title to beat in International Film, while Panahi himself looks locked in for spots in Director and Original Screenplay.
Photo: Karwai Tang/WireImage
Panahi’s rise has sapped momentum from Neon’s other big foreign-language contender, which is now playing second fiddle to its stablemate. Some pundits have begun to drop Trier from their Oscars predictions, but I still think the Euro factor gives him an edge over competitors like Josh Safdie in this international-friendly category.
Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another; Ryan Coogler, Sinners; Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident; Joachim Trier, Sentimental Value; Chloé Zhao, Hamnet
Photo: Warner Bros./Everett Collection
Now that Marty Supreme has paddled its way into the Best Picture field, the stage is set for a Best Actor race of historic proportions. Leo vs. Timmy. Gen X vs. Gen Z. Twunk vs. Twink. Chalamet feels like the hip pick right now, but remember that in a close race, the tie usually goes to the film with more Best Picture heat. Four of the last five winners of the top Oscar have also taken home a lead-acting trophy, and there’s every chance that — as was the case at the NBR this week — Best Actor could go Leo’s way as part of an OBAA sweep.
Photo: Neon/Everett Collection
As with One Battle After Another and It Was Just an Accident, The Secret Agent is benefiting from tastemakers’ preference for timely portraits of anti-authoritarian resistance. So, too, from Neon’s skillful juggling of its handful of international entries. While It Was Just an Accident and Sentimental Value get wider pushes, the indie studio has smartly focused on Best Actor as the most favorable territory for The Secret Agent to contest. This strategy paid early dividends when Moura won Best Actor from the NYFCC and may pay off further — perhaps even at the Golden Globes, which boasts significant Brazilian membership. Could the surging Moura power The Secret Agent into the Best Picture conversation? It’ll help that, as critics make their year-end lists, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s film has been well-represented.
Timothée Chalamet, Marty Supreme; Leonardo DiCaprio, One Battle After Another; Joel Edgerton, Train Dreams; Michael B. Jordan, Sinners; Wagner Moura, The Secret Agent
Photo: A24
The NYFCC and the NBR both sprung for Byrne’s turn as a mom frazzled by an unstable living situation and her daughter’s mysterious illness. (According to the Globes, it’s a comedy!) Byrne is probably benefiting from the widespread assumption that Best Actress is Jessie Buckley’s to lose, but nevertheless, these laurels should help her shore up her own spot and bring some more attention to this prickly little film.
Photo: Agata Grzybowska/FOCUS FEATURES
There are loss-losses and there are win-losses. Buckley missing out to Byrne in the tastemaker awards is a win-loss: Critics assume the Irish actress will saunter to victory without their help. But Hamnet getting left off the NBR’s top-ten list (really, a top 11) is a loss-loss and indicates support for Chloé Zhao’s film may be softer than we thought. I suspect this category could go the way of the 2023 Best Actor race, when critics who turned up their noses at The Whale spent the fall handing prizes to The Banshees of Inisherin’s Colin Farrell, only for Brendan Fraser to ultimately pull ahead once their fellow actors weighed in.
Jessie Buckley, Hamnet; Rose Byrne, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You; Cynthia Erivo, Wicked: For Good; Renate Reinsve, Sentimental Value; Amanda Seyfried, The Testament of Ann Lee
Photo: Warner Bros.
The tastemakers have set up a fascinating showdown here. The NYFCC and NBR handed Del Toro the awards-season equivalent of a few small beers, and judging by the delighted response I’ve seen to his victories, we could be looking at a critics group sweep for the sensei. At the same time …
Photo: Warner Bros.
Smart pundits I talk to maintain that Penn will cruise to victory once we get to the industry phase of the season. He’s simply got too much going for him: a physical transformation, plenty of huge choices, a chance to rebuke the leathery freaks in the White House. Funnily enough, Penn and Del Toro’s characters never interact in OBAA, so this race will give us the face-off we never saw in the film itself.
Benicio Del Toro, One Battle After Another; Delroy Lindo, Sinners; Paul Mescal, Hamnet; Sean Penn, One Battle After Another; Stellan Skarsgård, Sentimental Value
Photo: Warner Bros.
It really happened! Madigan was the kind of pick the NYFCC loves to give us in this category, so perfectly left-field the only reason not to do it would have been a fear of being too obvious. Next, she nabbed a spot at the Critics Choice noms. There’s room enough in this category to believe the industry could follow the tastemakers, but bear in mind one potential snag: Madigan could be behind Sinners’s Wunmi Mosaku — who won the Gotham, though she wasn’t there to accept it — and OBAA’s Teyana Taylor in Warner’s priorities here. Can we at least get a Melissa Leo–style “Consider” billboard for Aunt Gladys?
Photo: Mubi
Last year, Elle Fanning won the NBR’s Supporting Actress prize for A Complete Unknown, though it was her co-star Monica Barbaro who ultimately broke through with Oscar. This year, Fanning’s co-star was the one who got the NBR honor. What this means for the balance of power in the Sentimental Value Supporting-Actress universe remains to be seen, but I think — with Stellan Skarsgård possibly being overshadowed by the OBAA guys — there’s a world where Lilleaas turns into the film’s strongest acting play.
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, Sentimental Value; Amy Madigan, Weapons; Wunmi Mosaku, Sinners; Ariana Grande, Wicked: For Good; Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another
