2025 Oscars: Best Director Predictions (2025)

Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 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

If there is one major Oscar race that has changed the most due to the Academy’s push to become more globally-minded, it is the Best Director race. Recent surprise nominees, from “Anatomy of a Fall” filmmaker Justine Triet last year to “Triangle of Sadness” director Ruben Östlund and “Drive My Car” director Ryusuke Hamaguchi the years prior, have often been directors that appealed more to the tastes of international voters.

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Fast forward to now, and that sort of Cannes crowd really is leading the conversation around which filmmakers are likely to receive Oscar nominations. Though Sean Baker is an American director, his latest film “Anora” was the first American film to win the Palme d’Or since Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” in 2011. And not too far behind him was Jury Prize winner “Emilia Pérez” from French auteur Jacques Audiard, which was just chosen as France’s submission for the Best International Feature Oscar. Both films found a second wind at the fall festivals, with the two nearly winning the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival.

The actual winner of that award, “The Life of Chuck,” did so without being backed by a distributor, so any awards prospects for it, including a Best Director bid for Mike Flanagan, may be too last minute to find any legs. After all, the film only got slightly positive reviews.

Compare that to “The Brutalist,” which had glowing reviews, and then was acquired by A24 pretty immediately after director Brady Corbet won the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival, and one can see the difference securing a distributor quickly makes. Should the studio decide to release “The Brutalist” this year, Corbet seems like a lock for this category specifically, given the Directors Branch’s taste, but it’s notable that the film keeps getting compared to America epic “There Will Be Blood,” which neither won Best Picture nor Best Director for Paul Thomas Anderson.

Again, if Audiard does not fulfill the international quotient of the category, two other filmmakers likely to be propelled by that preference are German director Edward Berger, whose “All Quiet on the Western Front” follow-up “Conclave” has the makeup of a prestige thriller with broad appeal, and Italian director Luca Guadagnino, who not only put out two films this year, but did so in a way that shows the breadth of his skillset, similar to when Steven Soderbergh won Best Director for “Traffic” the same year he was nominated for “Erin Brockovich.”

That was also the year “Gladiator” won Best Picture, yet director Ridley Scott lost Best Director. Of the older celebrated filmmakers making an Oscar bid this year, the British director seems most primed to get that possible legacy slot like Scorsese and Spielberg in recent years, but that’s if “Gladiator II” is any good.

Controversy has already seemed to sink Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” which had mixed reviews out of Cannes. Meanwhile, Pedro Almodóvar won the Golden Lion at Venice for “The Room Next Door,” and Mike Leigh is receiving great reviews for his new film “Hard Truths,” though those films are a bit more intimate than what usually receives the nomination here.

Potential nominees are listed in alphabetical order; no film will be deemed a frontrunner until we have seen it.

Frontrunners:
Jacques Audiard, “Emilia Pérez”
Sean Baker, “Anora”
Edward Berger, “Conclave”
Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist”
Luca Guadagnino, “Challengers”

Contenders:
Pedro Almodóvar, “The Room Next Door”
Payal Kapadia, “All We Imagine As Light”
Pablo Larraín, “Maria”
Mike Leigh, “Hard Truths”
Steve McQueen, “Blitz”
Mohammad Rasoulof, “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”
Jason Reitman, “Saturday Night”
RaMell Ross, “Nickel Boys”
Ridley Scott, “Gladiator II”
Denis Villenueve, “Dune: Part Two”

Long Shots:
Francis Ford Coppola, “Megalopolis”
Robert Eggers, “Nosferatu”
Coralie Fargeat, “The Substance”
Tim Fehlbaum, “September 5”
Mike Flanagan, “The Life of Chuck”
Luca Guadagnino, “Queer”
Marielle Heller, “Nightbitch”
Greg Kwedar, “Sing Sing”
Todd Phillips, “Joker: Folie à Deux”
Malcolm Washington, “The Piano Lesson”

2025 Oscars: Best Director Predictions (2025)

FAQs

2025 Oscars: Best Director Predictions? ›

2025 Oscars Predictions:

In Venice, Daniel Craig is said to deliver a career-best performance in Luca Guadagnino's romantic drama “Queer,” playing a gay American expat in 1950s Mexico City. It swept up a packed theater at its world premiere on Tuesday night, earning a 9-minute standing ovation.

Who will win the best actor Oscar in 2025? ›

2025 Oscars Predictions:

In Venice, Daniel Craig is said to deliver a career-best performance in Luca Guadagnino's romantic drama “Queer,” playing a gay American expat in 1950s Mexico City. It swept up a packed theater at its world premiere on Tuesday night, earning a 9-minute standing ovation.

Who won four best director Oscars? ›

John Ford has won the most Academy Awards for best director (four), and Frank Capra and William Wyler each have received three. Other notable recipients include Kathryn Bigelow, who is the first woman to earn the award (2010), and Chloé Zhao, the first director of color to win (2021).

Who has won at least two Oscars for best director? ›

George Stevens won twice, for A Place in the Sun (1951) & Giant (1956). Fred Zinnemann won twice, for From Here to Eternity (1953) & A Man for All Seasons (1966). David Lean won twice, for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) & Lawrence of Arabia (1962). Vincente Minnelli won for Gigi (1958).

Who has the most best director Oscar nominations? ›

Martin Scorsese. Scorsese's 10 nominations make him the second most-nominated director of all time, behind only William Wyler (who holds the record with 12 nominations and died in 1981).

What movies will be up for the Oscars in 2025? ›

And the Predicted Nominees Are
RankFilm
1“Emilia Pérez” (Netflix) Jacques Audiard, Pascal Caucheteux, Valérie Schermann, Anthony Vacarello
2“Anora” (Neon) Sean Baker, Alex Coco, Samantha Quan
3“Gladiator II” (Paramount Pictures) Lucy Fisher, David Franzoni, Michael Pruss, Ridley Scott, Douglas Wick
7 more rows
5 days ago

Who is the oldest person to win an Oscar for acting? ›

At 83, Anthony Hopkins became the oldest person to win an Oscar in an acting category in 2021 for his role in "The Father." The British actor is no stranger to Oscar nominations, having been nominated a total of six times throughout his career.

Who is the Best Director of all time? ›

Who Are the Best Directors of All Time?
  1. Martin Scorsese. Known for his deep characters, dark worlds, and meditations of life and death, this masterful storyteller continues to push boundaries. ...
  2. Steven Spielberg. ...
  3. Alfred Hitchcock. ...
  4. Stanley Kubrick. ...
  5. Quentin Tarantino. ...
  6. Akira Kurosawa. ...
  7. Christopher Nolan. ...
  8. Francis Ford Coppola.

Who is the youngest Best Director winner? ›

The youngest director to take home the Best Director award was Damien Chazelle, who was thirty-two years old when he won for 'La La Land.

Who is the Best Director right now? ›

Best Directors Today
  1. Christopher Nolan. Writer. Producer. Director Tenet (2020) ...
  2. Quentin Tarantino. Producer. Writer. ...
  3. Steven Spielberg. Producer. Writer. ...
  4. Richard Linklater. Producer. Director. ...
  5. Alfonso Cuarón. Producer. Writer. ...
  6. Martin Scorsese. Producer. Director. ...
  7. Denis Villeneuve. Director. Writer. ...
  8. David Fincher. Producer. Director.

Who is the oldest director to win an Oscar? ›

As of March 2024, the oldest directing Academy Award winner was Clint Eastwood. He won two Oscar trophies for Directing. The first one at the age of 62, with the western film "Unforgiven" (1992), and the second one at the age of 74, with the sports drama "Million Dollar Baby" (2004).

Has a woman ever won the Best Director Oscar? ›

Kathryn Bigelow made Academy Awards history when she became the first woman to win Best Director with her gripping thriller in 2010. The Hurt Locker was nominated for nine awards at the 82nd Academy Awards and walked away with six trophies.

Who was the Best Director to never be nominated for an Oscar? ›

Sergio Leone

Leone was never even nominated for an Oscar, which is a surprise. In fact, he got only one BAFTA nomination and one Golden Globe nomination, both for “Once Upon a Time in America.” Let's not forget the important impact he had on cinema, though.

Who has 52 nominations for an Oscar? ›

The film composer has won five Oscars, four Golden Globes, seven BAFTAs and 25 Grammys. With 52 Oscar nominations, he is second only to Walt Disney as most nominated person ever.

Who is the most nominated actor of all time? ›

Of the 954 Academy Award nominees in an acting category, a total of 354 have received two or more acting nominations, 179 women and 175 men. A three-time Oscar winner, Meryl Streep holds the record for the most nominations in the acting categories, with a total of 21.

Who was the first woman to win an Oscar? ›

The very first winner of Best Actress in a Lead Role went to Janet Gaynor in 1928. She was nominated for three movies and declared a winner for her portrayal in all three. Although those films are hard to come by these days, you can watch Janet Gaynor in the 1937 movie A Star Is Born.

Who won the most Oscars for Best Director? ›

With four Oscars, John Ford is the most acclaimed director in the history of the awards. The films that won him these awards were The Informer (1935), The Grapes of Wrath (1940), How Green Was My Valley (1941) and The Quiet Man (1952).

Which director has directed the most Oscar winning performances? ›

William Wyler directed 14 Oscar winners, Elia Kazan directed 9 Oscar winners, Woody Allen directed 7 Oscar winners. William Wyler iirc.

How many times has Steven Spielberg won Best Director? ›

Spielberg is the recipient of various awards including three Academy Awards (with two for Best Director), two British Academy Film Awards, twelve Emmy Awards, nine Golden Globe Awards, three Directors Guild of America Awards, and seven Producers Guild of America Awards.

Who was the first woman to win Best Director? ›

Kathryn Bigelow made history as the first woman to win best director for her best picture-winning war drama, “The Hurt Locker,” when a woman-directed feature led the nomination tally, a first-ever.

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