Can Sean Baker Sneak Into the Race?

Oscar Futures Keeping pace with Hollywood’s perpetual awards horserace. Sign up for the newsletter here. And nine other unanswered questions hovering over this Academy Awards season. Photo: NEON
While Oscar hopefuls spend October jetting off to regional film festivals in the Hamptons, Mill Valley, and Middleburg, for the rest of us the month functions as a brief pause for breath. Almost all of the major contenders have screened, but they remain cosseted away in industry bubbles, unseen by the public at large. That ends this weekend, when Sean Baker’s Palme d’Or winner Anora opens in New York and Los Angeles. To commemorate the occasion, here are ten questions — one for each of GoldDerby’s top ten Best Picture contenders — that remain unanswered in this “phony war” period of the 2025 Oscar season.
1. What makes us so sure this is the year the Academy embraces Sean Baker?
Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson has been throwing cold water on Anora enthusiasts by noting that — while the movie’s undoubtedly great — Sean Baker’s previous films The Florida Project and Red Rocket were pretty great, too, and garnered only a single Oscar nomination between them. The assumption that this time will be different rests on two data points: Anora’s Palme d’Or win, which was awarded by a jury of nine people, and its third-place finish at TIFF, which is another way of saying the Canadians liked it almost as much as they liked The Life of Chuck.
2. How many minutes will it take for out-of-context screenshots from Emilia Pérez to start going viral on social media?
And which angle of outrage will have the most valence: that the movie is a trans-empowerment narrative written and directed by a cis man, or that it’s a tale of Mexican-cartel violence made by a Frenchman?
3. Similarly, who will be most offended by Conclave …
Right-wing Catholics or members of a certain underrepresented community, who will find the movie gives them a different kind of representation than they bargained for?
4. Can The Brutalist survive on a preferential ballot?
One of the best pieces of awards-season wisdom I’ve ever heard came from a veteran campaign strategist, who told me that in the era of the preferential ballot, “most likable” beats “grandest achievement” nine times out of ten. That’s gonna be tough for a dour colossus like The Brutalist, which might as well be wearing a T-shirt that says “ASK ME ABOUT MY GRAND ACHIEVEMENT.” Can Brady Corbet’s film follow the same path as Oppenheimer without the benefit of a $900 million gross?
5. Can A24 bring back Sing Sing?
The heartfelt indie had a reportedly well-attended Academy screening in New York this week, and, in a move I don’t think I’ve ever seen before, its campaign also scheduled a fresh round of fall press screenings, almost as if the film had not already been released. The plan here appears to be to reprise the CODA playbook, and like that film, Sing Sing should benefit greatly from getting its entire cast together on the trail.
6. Will the Brits power Blitz?
Steve McQueen’s war epic is the movie equivalent of jellied eels: While American critics are damning Blitz with faint praise, their British counterparts are breaking out their OEDs to find synonyms for “masterpiece.” (“Among the greatest war films ever made,” says the Telegraph.) Will the Academy’s considerable Brit contingent put their stiff upper lips behind Saoirse Ronan and make the four-time nominee a real threat in the Supporting Actress race?
7. Can Dune: Part Two equal its predecessor’s trophy count?
As the only big blockbuster in the 2022 Oscar race, Dune ran away with almost every single craft trophy. This year will bring more competition from Gladiator II, Wicked, Blitz, and others. In these circumstances, repeating the original’s six-trophy haul will be a tougher assignment, even if Part Two outdoes its predecessor’s ten noms by getting Denis Villeneuve into Best Director.
8. Does Scott Feinberg know something about September 5 that we don’t?
Ask most pundits about September 5, a docudrama about an American news crew grappling with the Munich hostage crisis, and they’ll peg it as a borderline Best Picture nominee that could sneak into Original Screenplay and maybe an acting race. Then there’s Scott Feinberg, who has used his perch at The Hollywood Reporter to herald the film as the second coming of Argo, and the current Best Picture front-runner. Feinberg’s coverage of September 5 has been hyperbolic enough — declaring that it “blew the roof off of” Venice and Telluride, when the actual response was more low-key positive — to raise eyebrows all across the internet. Is he just being a contrarian, or are the rest of us mired in groupthink and unable to see the potential here?
9. Can Nickel Boys keep the art-house streak going?
The Academy’s taste can be thermostatic. After the auteur-heavy lineup at the 2018 Oscars, voters fell hard for Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody the following season, then gave Parasite Best Picture the very next year. Last March’s Oscars ended with challenging titles like The Zone of Interest and The Boy and the Heron winning gold. A bold, unsparing experiment like Nickel Boys will be hoping the art-house love is an enduring shift within the Academy and not a one-year trend.
10. Will history repeat with Gladiator II?
As my colleague Joe Reid explored on his podcast This Had Oscar Buzz, one reason a summer blockbuster like Gladiator was such a potent Oscar player was that many of the stately awards vehicles of fall 2000 — Pay It Forward, The Legend of Bagger Vance, All the Pretty Horses — utterly face-planted. This season hasn’t seen quite so many misfires, but a consensus is forming that the quality of the overall crop is lower than last year. Can Sir Ridley take advantage of a weakened field a II’nd time?
Oscar Futures: When the Moon Hits Your Eye Like a Big Cabbage Pie, That’s Anora
Every week between now and January 17, when the nominations for the Academy Awards are announced, Vulture will consult its crystal ball to determine the changing fortunes in this year’s Oscars 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.
Best Picture Up Anora If you believe in Anora, it’s because you believe it marks a leveling-up for Baker, the critics’ darling known for his sensitive but never precious depictions of life on the margins. Critics like Dana Stevens call the movie “a crowd-pleaser, funny and sexy and raucous, while also being startlingly wise and tender.” That likability should ensure Anora plays well on the preferential ballot, but there’s also a real message here about class and labor. It wasn’t so long ago that the Academy snubbed another well-regarded strip-club dramedy in Hustlers, but I think the power of the Palme should compel even the snobbiest Academy member to consider Anora. Down Saturday Night By now it’s no longer breaking news whenever a would-be Oscar contender underperforms at the box office. It happens to lots of movies! Still, for a film that’s unlikely to get attention from critics’ groups, Saturday Night not making much of a splash in its first weekend wide narrows its path considerably. Current Predix A Real Pain, Anora, Blitz, The Brutalist, Conclave, Dune: Part Two, Emilia Pérez, Nickel Boys, September 5, Sing Sing
Best Director Up Sean Baker, Anora Long considered an avatar of artistic purity in the indie scene, Baker got his “welcome to the club” moment when he was awarded the Palme from a Cannes jury helmed by Greta Gerwig. Anora sees him developing the themes he’s worked with his whole career — particularly the way sex work lays bare inequalities that operate more subtly in the “straight” economy — while also showing off a propulsive new narrative energy. I’d be surprised if Gerwig’s fellow Academy members didn’t welcome Baker into their own club come January. Up Anna Kendrick, Woman of the Hour Because of the SAG strike, last year’s TIFF featured a bevy of projects directed by actors, and consensus had it that Kendrick’s true-crime drama was the only good one. That this retelling of serial killer Rodney Alcala’s appearance on The Dating Game is hitting Netflix over a year after its festival debut is a sign it probably won’t be an Oscar player, but still, not bad for the former scrappy little nobody. Current Predix Jacques Audiard, Emilia Pérez; Sean Baker, Anora; Brady Corbet, The Brutalist; Steve McQueen, Blitz; Denis Villeneuve, Dune: Part Two
Best Actor Down Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice As with Saturday Night, The Apprentice will not live or die based on its opening weekend. But a disappointing tenth-place finish does underscore the film’s biggest hurdle: Namely, who is going to sit down and watch a movie about Donald Trump right now? Which is an issue if Stan hopes to follow in the footsteps of the late, great Hannibal Lecter. Up Joaquin Phoenix, Joker: Folie à Deux In a stunning feat of investigative journalism, The Hollywood Reporter somehow got its hands on the Golden Globes placement for almost every single awards contender. With all the major male contenders competing on the Drama side of the ballot, the Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy award is there for the taking, and it would be hilariously Globes-y for the left-for-dead Phoenix to rise from the ashes and claim the trophy. Current Predix Adrien Brody, The Brutalist; Daniel Craig, Queer; Colman Domingo, Sing Sing; Ralph Feinnes, Conclave; Sebastian Stan, The Apprentice
Best Actress Up Mikey Madison, Anora “Sometimes a movie actually earns the old cliché of a ‘star-making turn,’ and I’m here to say that Sean Baker’s Anora is this year’s star maker,” declares Alyssa Wilkinson, who calls Madison “mesmerizing” as a Brighton Beach stripper who goes toe-to-toe with the Russian elite’s hired help. (They’re not sending their best.) The 25-year-old Madison fits squarely in the mold of a Best Actress winner from the 2010s, when ingenues like Jennifer Lawrence, Brie Larson, and Emma Stone routinely pulled gold. However, since the Academy began expanding its membership to include more women, seasoned actresses like Frances McDormand and Michelle Yeoh have ruled the category. It will be fascinating to see which way this race goes. Even Cynthia Erivo, Wicked Theater fans know that, besides being a powerhouse vocalist and an uncommonly empathetic performer, Cynthia Erivo is also a born poster. Thus they were not surprised this week when Erivo issued a powerful call-out over fans’ outrageous, offensive, and borderline defamatory move of … Photoshopping the Wicked movie poster to look like the Broadway version. In the words of Mark Harris, “She’s going to have a long season.” Perhaps the Wicked campaign can lean into their star’s distinctive online presence by putting Erivo in conversation with Joyce Carol Oates and Paul Schrader? Current Predix Karla Sofía Gascón, Emilia Pérez; Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Hard Truths; Angelina Jolie, Maria; Mikey Madison, Anora; Saoirse Ronan, The Outrun
Best Supporting Actor Up Mark Eydelshteyn, Anora It is illegal for a film critic to file an Anora review without describing Eydelshteyn as “the Russian Timothée Chalamet,” though anyone expecting the next Call Me by Your Name might be disappointed. As an oligarch’s son who “acts as if Spring Breakers were an educational documentary,” as Adam Nayman put it, his performance’s strengths lie more in madcap energy than in depth. Madison looks formidable enough to pull in someone alongside her, but considering the Academy’s feelings towards young men, I wonder if another of her co-stars might offer a more compelling alternative … Up Yura Borisov, Anora Borisov gradually comes to the fore in Anora’s second half, as his gruff goon becomes the heroine’s emotional foil. He’s giving a more subtle, reactive performance than Eydelshteyn, but perhaps one that’s easier to connect with. Having starred in the Finnish submission Compartment No. 6 a few years back, Borisov may also benefit from being more familiar to voters. Current Predix Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain; Clarence Maclin, Sing Sing; Guy Pearce, The Brutalist; Jeremy Strong, The Apprentice; Stanley Tucci, Conclave