Oscar Predix: Which actors will have big years?
Wednesday, July 2, 2025 at 2:32PM by Nathaniel R
Jonathan Bailey in WICKED FOR GOOD
This post's titular prompt question is not quite the same as "Who will be Oscar nominated this coming winter?" but having a big year in your career never hurts in gaining awards traction... or at least momentum for a future year. Will Jonathan Bailey's suddenly A-list career (with two potential giant blockbusters in a span of five months) convince Oscar voters that his SAG nomination last year should be mirrored with an Oscar nod for Best Supporting Actor? Will Sinners cultural dominance this spring help Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo land their first overdue Oscar nods early next year or will the zeitgiest move on?
These are just a couple of the questions I've been asking myself about the upcoming Oscar races for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor but there's more after the jump...
Ethan Hawke as diminutive musical theater giant Lorenz Hart in BLUE MOON
Will Andrew Scott's current rapid trajectory as a highly prestigious actor land him an Oscar nomination via Blue Moon in which he plays composer Richard Rodgers of Oklahoma! fame. He surely wasn't that far from the shortlist for All of Us Strangers two years back. He won an award at Berlinale for his performance but the lead is actually Ethan Hawke playing his former musical theater partner Lorenz Hart? Will SPC campaign well enough to make them both happen?
And speaking of building on momentum or "afterglow" from past triumphs, will the Jeremys (Allen White & Scott) be able to capitalize on their recent statue/nomination triumphs (Emmys, Globes, Oscars, etc) to be up for Oscars together as star and manager in the Bruce Springsteen bio Deliver Me From Nowhere ?
Lewis Pullman in THUNDERBOLTS*
Since we know very little about the upcoming Mona Fastvold movie Ann Lee (from much of the team behind The Brutalist) other than that's it's a musical about the religious leader Ann Lee (played by Amanda Seyfried) I'm also curious what Lewis Pullman's role will be like. If it's a good size and meaty role can he capitalize on being so much better than he had any right to be, and turning so many heads in Marvel's Thunderbolts*?
Harry Melling and Alexander Skarsgård in PILLION
A final fanciful Nordic question I've been asking myself is how will mainstream awards bodies react to the gay BDSM romance Pillion which was a hit at Cannes. The subject matter is certainly out there for Oscar voters but they've been loosening up. I'm not predicting that everyone's favourite 6'4" Swede Alexander Skarsgård will land a nomination for playing a leather daddy BUT how absolutely miraculous would it be if both he and his always employed ever reliable father Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value) are nominated simultaneously at Hollywood's big show? They've both worked with everyone at this point. Parent and child pairs have been up in the same year before (Walter & John Huston, Laura Dern & Diane Ladd, Harold and Karl Kress, Terry & Oorlagh George) but it's never happened that both were up for separate films and it's never happeend in acting either for father & son (Diane Ladd & Laura Dern are the only mother/daughter pair ever nominated simultaneously and it was for their duet in Rambling Rose).
These are the type of thought exercizes that are great fun to play early on when anything appears possible before it flattens out later in the year with group-think and the depressing reality that a lot of people just don't watch very many films and focus on just seven or so at year's end. After all that I realize I've said very little about the lead actors, so I'll leave that for your chart perusal.
SEE THE CHARTS FOR BEST ACTOR AND BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR.
What questions have you been asking yourself about the forthcoming male acting competitions?
Reader Comments (19)
Jessie Buckley may be Supporting in Hamnet. The novel is very much framed from Shakespeare's perspective.
I really wish Deliver Me from Nowhere would go nowhere! It looks bad, and I like Bruce Springsteen and liked A Complete Unknown. Also, I feel Jeremy Allen White is just not very interesting or charismatic.
I hope you are correct and Hawke gets a nomination, he's so underappreciated.
Jeremy Scott (rather than Strong) would have been an intriguing choice to play Jon Landau. ;-)
Some more ideas:
I've been wondering if any of the guys of Nuremberg will get across to awards... I mean a gang of Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Michael Shannon, Leo Woodall, Richard E.Grant...
Nathaniel, you seem to not have any faith in them? :)
Also wondering if Adam Driver besides these great women in the new Jim Jarmusch movie will stand out.
Miles Teller, Colman Domingo and the main guy in Michael Jackson biopick, Colin Farrell in the new Edward Berger film (with Tilda).
I liked Jack O'Connell the most out of supporting men in Sinners. Ed Harris in Long day's journey into night.
Steve Buscemi in Klara and the sun, Robert Pattinson in Borgli's "The drama", if it will be completed
+ any of the men in "House of Dynamite"?
No to Jonathan Bailey who didn't do anything that spectacular in the first Wicked and he's overexposed now.
No to Jeremy Allen White someone who the internet and Hollywood is trying to make happen,these biopics offer nothing new to the table,has Bruce lived that interesting of a life outside of his music.
Nuremberg is getting a prime release date has a stacked cast and is what Oscar loves,might surprise.
Sinners could go either way,a box office play only,maybe good for the casting nomination
Timothee is getting back to back nominations and Gwyneth should buy her dress now.
I don't see one Battle After Anothe really happening sesp not for the actors.
It's time to welcome Clooney back
Dwayne and Emily seem like sure best on paper but who knows,The Rock is no actor.
Mescal is a good actor but not a star yet,he badly let Gladiator II down.
I can take of leave Alexander Sakrsgaard.
Hawke maybe a critics pick.
I too think Stellan is a sure thing,Sandler is a big question mark but i've a feeling they are going to love his film
Stellan Skarsgaard seems like the frontrunner but last year around this time many said that another overdue long time veteran actor was the front runner and didn't even get a nomination- Samuel L Jackson.
It seems that a lot of the internet's boyfriends are in the mix this year: Bailey, Jordan, Mescal, O'Connor, Chalamet, Cumberbatch, White, etc. They can't all get in.
Honestly I feel most confident at the moment about Wagner Moura. Yes it is a foreign film, but Oscar has embraced them more heartily in recent years. He can be the "discovery" nomination despite working for years. Also after the success of I'm Still Here, I think Brazil can pull off back to back nominations in acting.
Colman Domingo, The Running Man
Josh Brolin, The Running Man
Javier Bardem, F1
Billy Crudup, Jay Kelly
Lakeith Stanfield, Die My Love
Tom Bateman, Hedda
Nicholas Pinnock, Hedda
Question marks right now for me are Miles Canton and Diego Luna. I see Canton as a co-lead- Sinners is just as much his story as it is of the Smoke/Stack Twins. But he will be campaigned as supporting but will Lindo take all the oxygen from that film? Luna's role in the play is the secondary male- Tonatiuh unquestionably has the bigger male role. There is even talk that Jennifer Lopez might go lead. Does Luna go supporting or will he go lead since he is the bigger name?
I don't think the Safdies could have picked two more physically dissimilar actors for their solo joints if they tried.
I will always be rooting for Andrew Scott to get the awards. In the span of a couple of years, he was painfully denied a BAFTA/Oscar nomination and unfairly lost at the Emmys and the Olivier. What the hell is everybody doing? Award him!
Anyways, he's also in the 3rd KNIVES OUT movie and isn't he in that new movie with Michelle Williams? Though there's no release for that one yet... but imagine if it came out this year as well?
Denzel and Wright? I wasn't expecting much since the original is Kurosawa's masterpiece and one of the best films ever, but apparently Lee made it his own joint.
Ahead of the actress charts: Lemme share that I saw Spider Woman at Sundance and (in addition to being a long, frustrating slog) Jennifer Lopez’s acting is very, very poor in key moments. If she couldn’t get nominated for being *good* in something (Hustlers) I can’t imagine her getting nominated for that performance. I didn’t talk to a single person who was impressed.
I also feel like the film is going to struggle to find an audience…word of mouth will not be kind to it, and who is it for?
I think i'll do the final 5 just guesswork
Jeremy Allen White real person,hot actor not that I see the appeal
George Clooney a welcome back nod,title role,a hunch it's going to be good
Wagner the Fernanda Torres love was very real last year,I think she was runner up
Timothee Chalamet afterglow,the hottest thing on the planet regards to movie stars,the Leo factor?
Dwayne Johnson trailer looked good and they do love stars destarring
Stellan Skarsgard it's one of those career noms that could bring a win
Adam Sandler edging into respectabilty for years and actors want it to happen remember Hustle
Garfield i'd say overdue a win and the Julia effect will boost his chances
Strong adored by actors,method man,only gets in if his lead actor does
One of the guys from Nuremberg most likely Crowe.
If there is an overdue actor this year, I expect it is Ethan Hawke. Should have won for First Reformed but didn't even get nominated. Seems like time to reward him, he's been brilliant but overlooked for years.
I wonder if Sinners can overcome the Academy genre bias and the early release.
Academy Award Nominee Dwayne Johnson? Sounds so strange.
Mr Ripley -- Nuremberg was announced just after i had completed all these charts so I will have to rethink for next update.
It seems weird that Jack O'Connell isn't getting many mentions for Sinners. He's a great villain, and Oscar does occasionally go for that sort of thing. But if they do put Miles Caton in supporting (please don't, he's a lead!), it would be hard to push him, Lindo, and O'Connell all for noms.
These are ones that I’ve read about and thought “Ooo, I want to see this”, hoping the film will be released and be good.
- Al Pacino in Lear Rex: I’ve got to give Pacino credit for his never failing artistic enthusiasm and ambition. Pacino plays Lear, and Peter Dinklage plays the fool.
- Andrew Scott as Richard Rodgers in Blue Moon.
-Mark Rylance as Satan in The Way of the Wind, director Terrance Malick.
-Tony Leung in Silent Friend (the movie is told from a tree’s perspective?!? Must see)
- Chiwetel Ejiofor in Children of Blood and Bone
- Benedict Cumberbatch and Ncuti Gatwa in The Roses
- Oscar Isaac in In The Hand of Dante, director Julian Schnabel
- Adam Driver in Father Mother Sister Brother, directed by Jim Jarmusch
- Paul Mescal in Hamnet
-Jeffrey Wright in Highest 2 Lowest
-Samuel L. Jackson in Afterburn
Hi, Nath. Great to do these predix.
Btw, Paul Mescal in Hamnet.
Unless they make a full rewrite of the script, in the original novel he's 100% supporting (And not even a dubious case, full supporting turn. He disappeared in long trenches of the second and third act).
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It's interesting to consider how a big year commercially can translate to awards buzz. For some of these actors, this might be their chance to create an Escape Road from being typecast. I'm curious to see if the voters will embrace some of the more unconventional roles this year.