2025 Oscars: Best Director Predictions
- Nominations voting for the 97th Oscars will take place from January 8-17, 2025, with the official nominations announced on January 23, 2025.
Nominations voting is from January 8-17, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 23, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air live on ABC at 7:00 p.m. ET/ 4:00 p.m. PT. We update our picks through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions .
The State of the Race
The 2025 Oscar nominations for Best Director became one of the most discussed categories of the morning after the twin surprises of “The Substance” filmmaker Coralie Fargeat securing a nod, and “Conclave” director Edward Berger being left off the list.
More from IndieWire
The primary reason this caught people off guard was that since DGA nominations swung the way of “A Complete Unknown” director James Mangold, the expectation among prognosticators was that it would be those two competing for the fifth slot in Best Director. After all, Berger had a lot of traction, with “Conclave” premiering a couple months before “A Complete Unknown” even started screening and the papal election thriller earning more critical and commercial success than both of his aforementioned competitors.
But ultimately, the Directors branch took the more arcane route. None of the films nominated in the category made more than “Conclave,” making Berger seem like an example of a bigger trend of voters not having a taste for more traditional crowdpleasers like “Wicked” and “Dune: Part Two” as well.
Though the Golden Globes are not voted on by Academy members for the most part, “The Brutalist” filmmaker Brady Corbet winning Best Director there — and getting all that airtime to run through talking points about how the importance of artists having final cut — propelled him to frontrunner status. Especially when voters consider the scale of storytelling he was able to achieve on a tight budget.
Sure, “Anora” director Sean Baker is still fierce competition as a director who has long been on the bubble of awards races finally having his breakout via the Palme d’Or winner , but his film received far fewer below the line nominations.
Given how voters actually do spread the wealth when it comes to making sure every director they liked gets an Oscar, the game plan currently looks like Baker winning Best Original Screenplay, Jacques Audiard getting his Oscar for Best International Feature for nominations leader “Emilia Pérez,” and Corbet winning this category.
Nominees are listed in order of likelihood to win.
Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”
Sean Baker, “Anora”
Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez”
Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance”
James Mangold, “A Complete Unknown”
Best of IndieWire
Sign up for Indiewire's Newsletter . For the latest news, follow us on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram .
