2025 Oscar best Picture Nominees Reviews From Deadline’s Critics

Distributor: Neon

Producers: Cre Films, Alex Coco, Samantha Quan and Sean Baker

Director/Writer: Sean Baker

Cast: Mikey Madison, Yura Borisov, Mark Eydelshteyn, Paul Weissman, Lindsey Normington, Emily Weider, Luna Sofía Miranda, Brittney Rodriguez

Deadline’s Takeaway: Although Baker is no stranger to comedy, Anora is, for the most part, his broadest to date, playing out like an R-rated version of Howard Hawks’ Ball of Fire and reminiscent of Jonathan Demme’s forays into screwball, like Married to the Mob or, more pertinently, Something Wild, which this resembles (if you switch the genders of that film’s coupling).

Distributor: A24

Producers: Nick Gordon, Brian Young, Andrew Morrison, D.J. Gugenheim and Brady Corbet

Director/Screenwriter: Brady Corbet & Mona Fastvold

Cast: Adrien Brody, Guy Pearce, Felicity Jones, Joe Alwyn, Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird, Isaac De Bankolé

Deadline’s Takeaway: Corbet is saying it as he sees it, and there’s a perverse charm to his hardcore aesthetic, just as there was in Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux. The Brutalist reprises some of those film’s themes, and vast chunks of cast (Stacy Martin is a fixture now), but somehow it doesn’t quite feel as finished.

Distributor: Focus Features

Producers: Tessa Ross, Juliette Howell and Michael A. Jackman

Director: Edward Berger

Screenwriter: Peter Straughan and Robert Harris (Novel By)

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini, Lucian Msamati, Jacek Koman, Bruno Novelli, Thomas Loibl, Brían F. O’Byrne, Rony Kramer

Deadline’s Takeaway: A superbly crafted — in every respect — stunning dramatic achievement, this is the kind of well-regarded, praiseworthy adult drama that used to be a staple for studios but now is an increasingly rare bird.

Distributor: Searchlight

Producers: Fred Berger, James Mangold and Alex Heineman

Director: James Mangold

Screenwriters: James Mangold & Jay Cocks, Based on the Book by Elijah Wald

Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Monica Barbaro, Elle Fanning, Edward Norton, Scoot McNairy, Boyd Holbrook

Deadline’s Takeaway: This is not the cradle-to-grave kind of musical biopic we have seen in recent times given Freddy Mercury, Elton John and also this season with Robbie Williams in Better Man (although in that musical film, Williams is portrayed as a chimpanzee), but rather one more interested in a period where a changing world was shaping its subject, and events from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Kennedy assassination to the civil rights movement would have a profound effect on us all — and no less than on Bob Dylan himself.

Distributor: Warner Bros.

Producers: Mary Parent, Cale Boyter, Tanya Lapointe and Denis Villeneuve

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Screenwriter: Denis Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts, Frank Herbert (Novel By)

Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin, Christopher Walken, Dave Bautista, Stellan Skarsgård

Deadline’s Takeaway: Villeneuve embraces the breathing space, and everything he didn’t do in the first, he does here, leaning right into the complicated mythos of the planet Arrakis and its surrounding worlds.

Distributor: Netflix

Producers: Pascal Caucheteux and Jacques Audiard

DirectorWriter: Jacques Audiard

Cast: Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, Selena Gomez, Adriana Paz, Edgar Ramírez, Mark Ivanir, Eduardo Aladro, Emiliano Hasan

Deadline’s Takeaway: Audiard leans into its conventions; rather than bending his provocative story to fit it, he bends the form itself. From the very beginning, when we see the lights of Mexico City dissolve into fairy lights around the sombreros of a mariachi band, there are visual evocations of the glitter and glamor of musical theatre; we often find ourselves gazing at the stars, a brief respite from the drama. Dance numbers might begin in the office, continue in a black neutral space as the scenery magically fades away, then return to the real. Songs are delivered in snatches rather than as whole numbers, merging into dialogue and often barely sung at all. The sparkle never outshines the essential seriousness of the subject.

Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

Producers: Maria Carlota Bruno and Rodrigo Teixeira

Director: Walter Salles

Screenwriters: Murilo Hauser and Heitor Lorega

Cast: Fernanda Torres, Fernanda Montenegro, Selton Mello, Valntina Herszage

Deadline’s Takeaway:  Walter Salles’ first dramatic feature in 12 years is ultimately a celebration of Brazil — not only of the resilience of its liberalism under tyrannical rulers, but of its sunlight, its carnival spirit and the delicious blue of the sea that rolls onto Rio de Janeiro’s broad beaches. 

Distributor: Orion Pictures/ Amazon MGM Studios

Producers: Plan B Entertainment/Anonymous Content/Louverture Films, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner and Joslyn Barnes

Director: RaMell Ross

Screenwriters: RaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes, Based on the Book by Colson Whitehead

Cast: Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aujanue Ellis-Taylor, Ethan Cole Sharp, Sam Malone, Naja Bradley, Jase Stidwell, Legacy Jones, Luke Tennie, Fred Hechinger

Deadline’s Takeaway: Admittedly a difficult book to transfer its rhythms to a different medium, Ross takes a poetic and impressionistic swing in his first narrative feature which actually does have much in common with his 2018 Oscar-nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening, a beloved film with a large following. That movie’s visual style got him the notice that led to being hired to direct and adapt (joined later by Joslyn Barnes) Nickel Boys, and it works to some advantage as well as disadvantage.

Distributor: Mubi

Producers: Match Factory/Working Title/Blacksmith/A Good Story, Coralie Fargeat and Tim Bevan & Eric Fellner

Director/Screenwriter: Coralie Fargeat

Cast: Demi Moore, Margaret Qually, Dennis Quaid, Edward Hamilton-Clark, Gore Abrams, Oscar Lesage

Deadline’s Takeaway: Imagine David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive fused in a telepod with David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers, add the unbelievably dynamic pairing of Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, process it through the ultra-vivid color palette that is Fargeat’s hyper-saturated imagination, sprinkle a bit of J.G. Ballard on top, and you have the perfect breakout genre movie of the year.

Distributor: Universal Pictures

Producers: Universal Pictures/Marc Platt

Director: Jon M. Chu

Screenwriters: Winnie Holzman & Dana Fox (Based on the Book by Gregory Maguire)

Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Marissa Bode, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum, Ethan Slater, Bronwyn James, Bowen Yang

Deadline’s Takeaway: Not only does it soar cinematically, it exceeds all expectations. What director Jon M. Chu (Crazy Rich Asians, In the Heights) does here ranks with the best movie musicals, an innovative and quite stunning take that will not disappoint even the hardest-core lovers of the stage version. And this is only Part One (more on that later).