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Every Movie Nominated for a 2025 Oscar, Ranked
This is on balance a very strong Oscar year.
You can have your genius László Tóths, your spitfire Anoras, your enigmatic Bob Dylans, but the most captivating protagonist on this year’s Oscar ballot is Japanese second-grader Ayame, whose struggle to master the handful of cymbal crashes required of her in her class performance of “Ode to Joy” becomes a tale of determination, community, and care. And while the shooting itself is neither obfuscated nor ameliorated, Morrison expands outward from that moment: There’s the fleeing officer whose palpable horror at what he’s done isn’t allowed to progress to responsibility due to the police apparatus racing to justify and insulate his actions; the community members flocking to the all-too-familiar scene; law enforcement getting their stories straight. But real intelligence and guts went into Villeneuve’s Part Two changes; the way he re-fashioned the Paul-and-Chani relationship (both Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya’s performances were deeply underrated); the bonkers art-freak aesthetic of Geidi Prime as a place drained of all vitality by the vampiric Feyd-Rautha (a bugnuts fantastic Austin Butler); Rebecca Ferguson’s transformation into the Stevie Nicks of the desert as Lady Jessica.
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