Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations introduced January 17, 2025. Closing voting is February 11-18, 2025. And eventually, the 97th Oscars telecast shall be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air reside on ABC at 7 p.m. ET/ 4 p.m. PT. We replace our picks all through awards season, so maintain checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.
This season, the Academy shortlist for Finest Unique Rating has expanded from 15 to twenty titles, and now as much as three composers shall be allowed to obtain the Oscar. By way of the race, “Dune: Half Two” (Warner Bros.) was dominated ineligible as a result of composer Hans Zimmer used greater than the allotted 20 % of the pre-existing themes and music from his Oscar-winning “Dune” rating. Nonetheless, Zimmer remains to be very a lot within the race along with his rating for “Blitz” (Apple TV+).
Different fall/vacation contenders embrace “Emilia Pérez” (Netflix), “Gladiator II” (Paramount), “Conclave” (Focus Options), “Nosferatu” (Focus Options), “Depraved” (Common), “Queer” (A24), “Joker: Folie à Deux” (Warner Bros.), and “Nickel Boys” (Amazon MGM Studios). They’re joined by two animated hopefuls: “Inside Out 2” (Pixar/Disney) and “The Wild Robotic” (DreamWorks/Common).
“Blitz,” from British director Steve McQueen, considerations Londoners through the Blitz of World Struggle II in 1940. The harrowing drama focuses on a younger bi-racial boy (Elliott Heffernan) despatched to the countryside for safekeeping however instantly runs away and makes an attempt to reunite along with his mom (Saoirse Ronan) and grandfather (Paul Weller) again residence in London. For composer Zimmer, it is a deeply private film since his mom was evacuated from Germany and spent the conflict years in London. Thus, he was aware of her tales about residing in Mayfair, with all of the bombs dropping round her. Zimmer mirrored on his childhood when composing the rating. He constructed it from a toddler’s perspective of terror and chaos, opening with an orchestra of youngsters’s recorders.
“Emilia Pérez,” the genre-defying crime musical from Jacques Audiard, finds Zoe Saldaña’s disgruntled lawyer serving to the titular Mexican cartel chief (Karla Sofía Gascón) with intercourse reassignment surgical procedure to evade seize and affirm her gender. The operatic rating by Clément Ducol and Camille conveys the surreal mix of household drama, narcotics thriller, and musical (with a splash of comedy). The rating got here to them in an experimental means after writing the songs. It blends with the dialogue, lyrics, and general soundscape.
“Joker: Folie à Deux,” Todd Phillips’ musical thriller, picks up with Arthur/Joker (Joaquin Phoenix) dealing with the loss of life penalty for a number of murders and hanging up a delusional romance with Girl Gaga’s Harley Quinn whereas incarcerated in Arkham Asylum. Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir follows up her Oscar-winning “Joker” rating by drawing out the tonality of Arthur’s internal anguish by strings with a custom-built “string jail,” which seeps into the songs which might be his try to interrupt free.
“Conclave,” Edward Berger’s follow-up to “All Quiet on the Western Entrance,” is a psychological thriller wherein Ralph Fiennes’ Cardinal searches for a successor to the deceased Pope, who harbored a darkish secret. “All Quiet” Oscar-winning composer Volker Bertelmann delivers a rating that varies from sacral items to thrilling, energetic compositions for pressure and sensitivity.
“Gladiator II,” Ridley Scott’s sequel to his Oscar winner, takes place twenty years later, when Lucius (Paul Mescal), the previous inheritor to the Empire, is pressured to enter the Colosseum as a ruthless gladiator. There, he faces Pedro Pascal’s Roman basic, Marcus Acacius. Harry Gregson-Williams’ rating embodies the non secular essence of the unique movie whereas making a recent sound for Lucius, who required a flexible melody that conveys his love, management, rage, and vengeance. Distinctive instrumentation included a baritone violin, electrical cello, and primitive horns that assist recall historic Rome.
Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu” reworks the legendary silent vampire movie by F.W. Murnau with Invoice Skarsgård because the notorious Rely Orlok, Lily-Rose Depp as Ellen Hutter, and Nicholas Hoult as her husband. Robin Carolan, the director’s go-to composer, captures the extreme terror and dread in addition to the tragedy and doomed romanticism of this gothic re-imagining. He combines large-scale orchestral work with genuine Japanese European instrumentation and unnerving sound design.
“Nickel Boys,” RaMell Ross’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, explores two Black youngsters (Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson) who change into wards of a barbaric juvenile reform faculty in Jim Crow–period Florida. Composers Alex Somers and Scott Alario lean into the movie’s sensory expertise with an experimental musical method: They captured a kids’s choir with cassette recorders, tape delays, and subject recordings from the set to create an ethereal and textural sonic setting that underscores the darkish tragedy.
With “Challengers,” director Luca Guadagnino tackles the aggressive nature of tennis as a love triangle involving former tennis prodigy-turned-coach Zendaya, her husband and slumping tennis champ Mike Faist, and low-circuit tennis participant Josh O’Connor, her ex-lover and his former greatest pal. Composers Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross present the proper driving, thumping, techno rating to accompany the new, super-sweaty, aggressive motion on the tennis courtroom.
“Inside Out 2,” the animated sequel from director Kelsey Mann, launched the hyperactive Nervousness (Maya Hawke) as the most recent and most resonant emotion for 13-year-old Riley (Kensington Tallman). Pixar’s first feminine composer, Andrea Datzman, gives a rating that musically embodies the emotional rollercoaster, mixing melodic themes, intimate harmonies, and various pop-punk rock, wrapped round lush orchestrations.
“The Wild Robotic,” directed by Chris Sanders, is an animated sci-fi journey that finds robotic Roz (Lupita Nyong’o) washed ashore on an uninhabited island and should adapt and reside among the many animals, together with Brightbill (Equipment Conor), an orphaned gosling chook, and a fox named Fink (Pedro Pascal). Kris Bowers’ rating musically captures the convergence of Roz’s private journey of survival and transformation with the sense of neighborhood that she witnesses among the many animals on the island. The rating additionally shares musical DNA with the unique track “Kiss the Sky,” carried out and co-written by Maren Morris.
As for the remainder: “Megalopolis,” Francis Ford Coppola’s $120 million epic, is about in a New York-like metropolis referred to as New Rome. After an accident destroys the decaying metropolis, an architect (Adam Driver) with the ability to manage time makes an attempt to rebuild it as a utopia by his miracle-building materials, Megalon, however is met with resistance from the previous guard. Go-to composer Osvaldo Golijov gives a lush rating harking back to the good Miklós Rózsa.
“The Piano Lesson” (Netflix), Malcolm Washington’s adaption of the August Wilson play starring John David Washington and Samuel L. Jackson, explores the lives of the Charles household in Melancholy-era 1936 Pittsburgh and the significance of the cherished household heirloom: a piano carved by their enslaved ancestor. Composer Alexandre Desplat, the grasp of melancholy, is ideal for scoring this story about legacy and self-worth.
In “Depraved,” Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the Broadway musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, composer John Powell scores in collaboration with Schwartz. It’s in regards to the unlikely friendship between Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), a misunderstood woman with inexperienced pores and skin, and the favored Galinda (Ariana Grande), who finally change into the Depraved Witch of the West and Glinda.
“Queer,” Guadagnino’s much-anticipated adaptation of William S. Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical novella about disconnected homosexual American expatriates in post-World Struggle II Mexico Metropolis, finds heroin consumer William Lee (Daniel Craig) falling for the a lot youthful and enigmatic Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Their romance turns into an odyssey crammed with psychedelic surrealism and nice tenderness that finally takes them to the Ecuadorian jungle. Little question Reznor & Ross will rating this with a complementary musical odyssey.
“The Room Subsequent Door” (Warner Bros.) marks Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut with an adaptation of the novel “What Are You Going Via” by Sigrid Nunez. It’s in regards to the rekindling of a relationship between a conflict correspondent (Tilda Swinton), dying of most cancers, and a former co-worker (Julianne Moore). Go-to composer Alberto Iglesias might be counted on to offer his eclectic mix of melodic orchestral and atonal avant-garde types.
“The Brutalist” (Focus Options), from director Brady Corbet (“Vox Lux”), is a “Fountainhead”-inspired, 215-minute epic shot in 70mm, starring Adrien Brody as László Tóth, a Hungarian Jew and Auschwitz survivor who struggles as a visionary architect earlier than being provided an enormous venture by Man Pearce’s Lee Van Buren. Corbet tapped his pal, experimental British composer Daniel Blumberg, to deal with the rating following his free jazz flourish on “The World to Come.”
For Wes Ball’s “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” (twentieth Century Studios), which kicks off a brand new saga when apes rule, composer John Paesano pays tribute to Jerry Goldsmith’s iconic 1968 “Planet of the Apes” rating. Secret’s “Human Hunt,” which interweaves Goldsmith’s “The Hunt” theme. Paesano enhances the unique piano motif whereas modernizing the association. On the identical time, Paesano gives his personal melodic and percussive signature to the sci-fi journey.
“Higher Man” (Roadshow), from director Michael Gracey (“The Biggest Showman”), is a musical fantasy biopic about British singer Robbie Williams. The rating is by Batu Sener (“Harold and the Purple Crayon”), who’s beforehand labored in animation, together with the “Ice Age” franchise.
“Eden,”* Ron Howard’s survival thriller, explores a gaggle of Europeans searching for a brand new life within the harsh Galápagos Islands and getting sucked right into a thriller. The solid contains Jude Legislation, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Brühl, Sydney Sweeney, and Ana de Armas. Zimmer has yet one more Oscar-contending rating to point out off his inventive versatility.
“The Hearth Inside” (Amazon MGM Studios), the directorial debut of cinematographer Rachel Morrison, is a coming-of-age biopic about younger boxing phenom Clarissa “T-Rex” Shields (Ryan Future) coaching for the 2012 Summer time Olympics in London. The rating from composer Tamar-kali strikes a stability between Shields’ transformative journey and the rhythmic and percussive nature of boxing by strings, percussion, fashionable digital sounds, and brass.
“The Finish” (Neon), from Joshua Oppenheimer (“The Act of Killing”), is a post-apocalyptic musical with Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, and George MacKay as a musical household that sings and dances in an underground bunker after the tip of the world. The rating for this extravaganza is by Joshua Schmidt (“Midwestern Gothic”) and Marius de Vries (“NAVALNY”).
*This movie doesn’t but have a U.S. launch date.
Potential nominees are listed in alphabetical order; no movie shall be deemed a frontrunner till we now have seen it.
“Blitz” (Hans Zimmer)
“Conclave” (Volker Bertelmann)
“Emilia Pérez” (Clément Ducol and Camille)
“Gladiator II” (Harry Gregson-Williams)
“The Wild Robotic” (Kris Bowers)
“Higher Man” (Batu Sener)
“The Brutalist” (Daniel Blumberg)
“Challengers” (Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross)
“Eden” (Hans Zimmer)
“The Finish” (Joshua Schmidt and Marius de Vries)
“The Hearth Inside” (Tamar-kali)
“Inside Out 2” (Andrea Datzman)
“Joker: Folie à Deux” (Hildur Guðnadóttir)
“Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” (John Paesano)
“Megalopolis” (Osvaldo Golijov)
“Nickel Boys” (Alex Somers & Scott Alario)
“Nosferatu” (Robin Carolan)
“The Piano Lesson” (Alexandre Desplat)
“Queer” (Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross)
“The Room Subsequent Door” (Alberto Iglesias)
“Depraved” (John Powell)
