The nominations for the 98th Academy Awards were announced today. Sinners (2025) by Ryan Coogler broke the record for most nominations for a single film. Sinners received 16 nominations, including Best Original Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture, all of which would go to Coogler, if he won them. Ruth E. Carter was nominated for Best Costume Design for Sinners. This is Carter's fifth Oscar nomination, making her the most-nominated Black woman in the history of the Academy Awards. Autumn Durald Arkapaw was nominated for Best Cinematography for Sinners. This is Arkapaw's first nomination, making her the first woman of color listed in that category. Speaking of which, Coogler is the seventh Black person nominated for Best Director and the eighth Black person to be nominated for Best Original Screenplay. This is Coogler's second time being nominated for Best Picture after Judas and the Black Messiah (2021). The other films that were up for Best Picture include: Bugonia, F1, Frankenstein, Hamnet, Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, Sinners, and Train Dreams.
Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another is the second most-nominated film with 13 nominations and Anderson's film is expected to win Best Picture. Anderson is also expected to win Best Director. Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme is one of the third most-nominated films with 9 nominations. Its star, Timothée Chalamet is expected to win Best Actor. Even so, Chalamet made history as the youngest male actor with three Oscar nominations for acting. Chloé Zhao's Hamnet is the fourth most-nominated film with 8 nominations. Zhao was only the sixth woman ever to be nominated for Best Director. She was the first woman of color to do so. She's only the second woman to be nominated in that category more than once. She was also the second woman to win for her film back in 2021. Zhao is not expected to win again, but her star, Jessie Buckley is expected to win Best Actress.
But, speaking of representation and diversity in these nominations, there is a good amount of Black nominees, Asian nominees, and even Latino nominees. In fact, Wagner Moura is nominated for Best Actor for his film The Secret Agent (2025), marking the first-time a Brazilian has been nominated in that category. As evidenced with the 97th Academy Awards, and the win for I'm Still Here (2024) for Best International Feature, it's clear that Brazil has a large amount of support in the Oscar space. Brazil is even well represented this year between The Secret Agent getting 4 nominations. Adolpho Veloso was nominated for Best Cinematography for Train Dreams (2025), marking the first-time a Brazilian was nominated in that category.
All these films are interesting and have some good elements, but, of all the films listed for Best Picture, only one made my top ten.
10. F1: THE MOVIE - This film got 4 nominations at the Academy Awards, including Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, Best Film Editing and Best Picture. I don't often get to go to the IMAX theater. The two closest to Delmarva are each a two-hour drive away. Yet, in 2025, I was able to go to the IMAX twice. The first time was the Regal Majestic in Silver Spring, Maryland. The second time was the Regal UA in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, which is a true IMAX theater. It's in King of Prussia that I saw this film, and it was probably the best cinematic experience that I had all year. It was a full screening and everyone in the auditorium had a blast because director Joseph Kosinski truly delivered an epic event. He did so previously with Top Gun: Maverick (2022). It would've seemed impossible for him to top himself, but he really did it. Brad Pitt really anchored the whole thing with fantastic racing sequences and Damson Idris really got a star-making role here.
9. SOULEYMANE'S STORY - Abou Sangaré is a first-time actor but, as far as I'm concerned, he gave the second-best male performance of any actor in any film in 2025. The 77th Cannes Film Festival thought his performance was great and awarded him so. The 50th César Awards agreed. The 37th European Film Awards agreed. The 35th Gotham Awards and the 30th Lumière Awards also agreed. It was too small a film to get any recognition from the Academy Awards. The 57th NAACP Image Awards nominated it for Outstanding International Motion Picture. It probably won't win, but Sangaré definitely gets my highest regard. The story is also very topical as it tells the tale of an African immigrant trying to seek asylum in France. It takes place outside the United States, but it is absolutely relevant to what many in this country are experiencing.
8. HIGHEST 2 LOWEST - Spike Lee has remade Akira Kurosawa's High and Low (1963). Some people regard that film as a classic and prefer it over Lee's version. My position is the reverse. I prefer Lee's version to Kurosawa's. The 1963 version is basically two films as one. It starts off as a chamber piece about a man having to decide if he'll pay a kidnapper's ransom. The second half is about the police trying to track down the kidnapper. The second half basically discards the man in the first half. This film stars Denzel Washington as the protagonist. If Lee had copied Kurosawa, that would've meant discarding Washington, which would've been a waste of Washington's talent. Plus, it leads to a scene between Washington and ASAP Rocky that is quite possibly the best scene of 2025. This film is also the best tribute to New York City that has been made in recent years.
7. THUNDERBOLTS* - The best super-hero film in terms of box office was James Gunn's Superman (2025). I've never been a fan of James Gunn's previous films, but he did a very good job with Superman. However, Gunn didn't hit me on an emotional level as this film, directed by Jake Schreier and written by Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo. Schreier's film deals with mental health using super-hero tropes and characters and does so with a lot more depth than Gunn could muster. There's even a character in this film that has never been seen on screen before named "Bob," played by Lewis Pullman, whose story line invoked more of an emotional connection than the character of Superman, which is a character I've loved since the 1978 version.
6. IN YOUR DREAMS - I haven't seen too many animated features this past year, but this one comes from a former employee of Pixar, Alex Woo. Pixar has a good formula for making films that is highly effective and highly impactful. Woo takes that formula and utilizes it here to a great degree. Yet, there is some innovative storytelling and really fun and funny ideas at play here. It's simply a great family story about a teenage girl and her younger brother grappling with parents who want to separate and possibly divorce. Woo's film though is aimed at children but is sophisticated enough not to simply reinforce the institution of marriage or the trope of the nuclear family per se.
5. LAYLA - It centers on a non-binary, queer character who is Palestinian and Muslim. It's about identity in many ways. It's also about how this person works as a drag queen and gets into a queer romance with a White male. Ironically, this film wasn't the only independent, British film to be released in the United States that does the exact same thing. There was another called Unicorns (2025), which was basically about a gay closeted relationship. When it comes to queer content, the series Heated Rivalry (2025) has been making headlines, which is basically queer men in closeted relationships. Coming-out stories and closeted relationships are stereotypical narratives that are told too often. This one, by Amrou Al-Kadhi, goes beyond that and has this film be about the interplay of masculinity versus femininity in such relationships, which is a more interesting interplay than just whether they're going to come out or not.
4. PONYBOI - There aren't many films about intersex people. I can't really name one that has been produced within my lifetime. There have been films that have utilized an intersex character like the recent, Oscar-nominated Conclave (2024), but there's hardly been a film that has centered an intersex character. River Gallo is an intersex person who writes and stars in this film. Its structure follows the one-crazy-night formula. It's probably not as twisty a thriller as some other notable films in that formula, but Gallo is such an amazing and unique screen presence that I don't think should be denied.
3. PLAINCLOTHES - This film, written and directed by Carmen Emmi, is a period piece set in the 1990's but its subject matter is oddly relevant. In a greater sense, the film is about the over-reach of law enforcement or law enforcement targeting a vulnerable group of people because they're vulnerable, which pushes them into vulnerable situations that can be exploited. Often, these vulnerable people are exploited because of their identity being discriminated at large. This can push people into dangerous situations like we just saw with the killing of Renée Good in Minneapolis, but the 2025 arrests at Amtrak's Penn Station in New York City are the connection to today that this film touches the most.
2. ONE OF THEM DAYS - A lot of people made hay about The Naked Gun (2025) saying it was the best comedy of 2025. I disagree. This film, directed by Lawrence Lamont, written by Syreeta Singleton and produced by Issa Rae, is by far the best comedy. It has the benefit of being an original screenplay, meaning it's not based on already produced material. There is some news about a lawsuit against the film for plagiarism. Depending on how that lawsuit shakes out, this film is an original. Yet, it does feel like F. Gary Gray's Friday (1995), and is a comedy on that level, which isn't as silly or goofy as The Naked Gun. Instead of playing against type for its actors, this film embraces the natural comedic charm of Keke Palmer and SZA who makes her film debut.
1. MAGAZINE DREAMS - When this film premiered in January 2023 at the Sundance Film Festival, many of the critics or people who saw it thought that its star, Jonathan Majors, gave an Oscar-worthy performance. When the film was finally released theatrically in March 2025, those Oscar chances for Majors faded, if they weren't already gone, due to his legal troubles, which resulted in his cancellation from Hollywood. However, the quality of his work here hasn't changed and it's still as Oscar-worthy as it was two years ago. The 26th Annual Black Reel Awards and the 57th NAACP Image Awards have recognized this film and particularly its writer-director, Elijah Bynum. People cite Josh Safdie's Marty Supreme (2025) as the nerve-inducing sports drama of the year, but, for me, Bynum's film accomplishes that in a far better way.