Oscars 2025: New York Film Critics Preview and Predictions

The calendar is tightening for Oscars 2025. One of the biggest announcements is the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, which still holds some value in the massive clusterf*ck that Oscar season has become. They’ve been around since the 1930s. They tend to align slightly more with the Oscars than some of the other critics’ awards. Most of the participants are legit or semi-legit critics.

Here is how the calendar will roll out this next week.

Monday, Dec 2 – Gothams
Tuesday, Dec 3 – New York Film Critics
Wednesday, December 4 – Spirit Awards, National Board of Review
Thursday, December 5, AFI announces their top ten of the year.
Monday, December 9, Golden Globes announce nominees
Thursday, December 12, Critics Choice announce nominees

I’ll be skipping predicting or previewing the Gothams and moving straight to New York. They act like they don’t make their choices to influence the Oscars or predict them, but I don’t think anyone in the awards race is immune from wanting to influence how the Oscars turn out. But how influential are they? I’d put them in a relatively small group of the most influential, falling just behind the major guilds and the Golden Globes. Of the critics awards, they hold the most influence.

Let’s look at Best Picture – in bold what was nominated, in red and bold what won at the Oscars:

2000 – Traffic
2001 – Mulholland Drive
2002 – Far from Heaven
2003 – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
2004 – Sideways
2005 – Brokeback Mountain
2006 – United 93
2007 – No Country for Old Men
2008 – Milk
2009 The Hurt Locker
2010 – The Social Network
2011 – The Artist
2012 – Zero Dark Thirty
2013 – American Hustle
2014 – Boyhood
2015 – Carol
2016 – La La Land
2017 – Lady Bird 
2018 – Roma
2019 – The Irishman
2020 – First Cow
2021 – Drive My Car
2022 – Tár
2023 – Killers of the Flower Moon

So, as you can see, it is more of a predictor of a nomination than a win But still, with a few exceptions, they tend to be mainstream.

As for Best Picture, I do not know how they’ll go. I suspect Anora will be in the conversation, of course, but they also might choose something like The Brutalist. Are there any big studio films they might decide to rally around? Probably not.

The other categories are randomly chosen and, I think, largely impossible to predict. But I’ll give it a shot.

Predictions

Best Picture: Anora
Runners-up: The Brutalist, Nickel Boys

Best Director: Brady Corbet, The Brutalist
Russers-up: Sean Baker, Anora, RaMell Ross, Nickel Boys

Best Actor: Adrien Brody, The Brutalist
Runners-up: Daniel Craig, Queer, Colman Domingo, Sing Sing

Best Actress: Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl
Runner-up: Mikey Madison, Anora, Demi Moore, The Substance

Supporting Actor: Kieran Culkin, A Real Pain
Runner-up: Guy Pearce, The Brutalist

Supporting Actress: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Nickel Boys
Runner-up: Margaret Qualley, The Substance

Screenplay: The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Runner-up: The Brutalist

That’s the best I got. Predicting these is like herding cats. One never knows how the awards will turn out because they debate them in real time and go through various rounds of voting.