The Brutalist and Emilia Pérez Lead Oscar Nominations: See Full List

The 2025 Academy Awards have finally unveiled their Oscar nominations, a process that had been complicated and repeatedly extended in terms of its voting window because of the devastating wildfires that have plagued Los Angeles in the last month. When the dust cleared, the biggest winners in terms of total nominations are largely that films that were expected: Netflix’s Emilia Pérez leads the way with 13 separate nominations, closely followed by Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, which secured 10, and smash hit Broadway musical adaptation Wicked, which also scored 10. Other highly lauded films included papal thriller Conclave and Timothee Chalamet’s A Complete Unknown, both with 8 nominations, including Best Picture. The rest of the Best Picture field, meanwhile, is rounded out by Anora, Nickel Boys, I’m Still Here, Dune: Part Two, and in a good moment for the genre crowd, Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance. Surprisingly absent from the Best Picture fold was Jesse Eisenberg’s A Real Pain, a film that many took as a shoo-in for nomination. Even more surprisingly, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers was shut out entirely, not scoring a single nomination in any category, even in Original Score, where it just won a Golden Globe.

Best Director also rewarded the unconventional sight of a horror movie receiving industry plaudits, as Coralie Fargeat was nominated for The Substance in this category as well. Also nominated: Brady Corbet (The Brutalist), Jacques Audiard (Emilia Pérez), Sean Baker (Anora) and James Mangold (A Complete Unknown). Each of those filmmakers has also been nominated in at least one other category, ranging from screenplay, to editing, to even songwriting in the case of Audiard and Emilia Pérez.

The latter film is certainly one of the year’s most divisive and polarizing film topics. Our own review of Emilia Pérez was lukewarm at best, and certainly not in the same league as our assessment of The Brutalist, which went on to headline Paste‘s 50 best movies of 2024. Audiard’s film has been held up by some critics and audiences as a vital trans fable in a time when the trans community is under ideological and existential attack, but others–including many trans viewers–felt the film was more insulting than affirming in both its musical depiction of transition and its portrayal of its Mexican setting. The film will no doubt inspire 2024’s biggest Oscar arguments.

As for the acting categories, Best Actor features a race between Timothée Chalamet (A Complete Unknown), Adrien Brody (The Brutalist), Ralph Fiennes (Conclave), Colman Domingo (Sing Sing and Sebastian Stan (The Apprentice). The latter is something of a surprise, as The Apprentice, an account of the monstrous early life of Donald Trump, didn’t receive any other nominations aside from acting categories, where Jeremy Strong was also nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Roy Cohn. In Best Actress, meanwhile, The Substance again shines with a Best Actress nomination for star Demi Moore, joined by Karla Sofía Gascón (Emilia Perez), Mikey Madison, Anora, Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here) and Cynthia Erivo (Wicked). Gascón’s nomination comes with an important historical footnote, as she is the first openly transgender individual nominated for an Academy Award.

Pleasant surprises among the nominations that we quite enjoyed at Paste this year range from the horrific Danish The Girl With the Needle, which scored an Oscar nomination in the International Feature Film category, to Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl in the Animated Feature Film category, to the likes of No Other Land and Black Box Diaries in the Documentary Feature Film category.

The full list of Oscar nominations for performers and films can be viewed below.

Actor in a Supporting Role

Yura Borisov, Anora
Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Edward Norton, A Complete Unknown
Guy Pearce, The Brutalist
Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice

Actress in a Supporting Role

Monica Barbaro, A Complete Unknown
Ariana Grande, Wicked
Felicity Jones, The Brutalist
Isabella Rossellini, Conclave
Zoe Saldaña, Emilia Pérez

Animated Short Film

Beautiful Men
In the Shadow of Cypress
Magic Candies
Wander to Wonder
Yuck!

Costume Design

A Complete Unknown
Conclave
Gladiator II
Nosferatu
Wicked

Live Action Short Film

A Lien
Anuja
I’m Not a Robot
The Last Ranger
The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent