The 2025 Oscars are finally here.
The Academy Awards have always been my version of the Super Bowl. I've been studying film as well as the history of this particular awards show for nearly 20 years, and the expanded ability to wager on it has combined my two favorite passions: film and gambling.
Even if you're not in a state or area where betting on the Academy Awards is offered at your favorite sportsbook, you can wager on the Academy Awards in all 50 states at Kalshi, a legal predictions market that operates in trades instead of bets, similar to the stock market. Learn more here and sign up using the code below for a $10 credit for new users.
In the past, it wasn't uncommon for me to let my personal feelings on these individual films and performances get in the way of the logic behind who was going to win. One way that has been curbed has been through various data models that have emerged throughout the years, as well as outlets wherein I can opine on everything I see — including virtually every Oscar nominee — which I do on Letterboxd, where I've ranked all 55 new releases I saw in 2024.
Preamble aside, below I've broken down every single category and given my 2025 Oscars predictions and betting picks. Where my "Predicted Winner" and "Bets" occasionally diverge is just noting where the play is based more on value than who I think is going to win the award. It could be helpful if you're simply looking to win your office pool instead of betting these awards traditionally.
As I frequently said during my days as a movie theater box office attendant, enjoy the show.
2025 Oscars Predictions
Best Picture
Click here for complete Best Picture betting odds
Anora or Conclave?
This Best Picture race is fascinating, more so than we’ve seen in a number of years.
Both films have trends that favor it, so something’s got to give.
Consider this:
- 12 of the past 15 films to win the top prize at the Critics Choice Awards, Producers Guild Awards and Directors Guild Awards have won Best Picture. That favors Anora.
- Just one film to win at the PGA, DGA and Writers Guild Awards has lost Best Picture (Brokeback Mountain). This, again, favors Anora.
- Seven of the past nine films to win the top prize at the BAFTAs and Screen Actors Guild Awards have won Best Picture. That favors Conclave.
And that’s not even mentioning The Brutalist, which is significantly more live than your typical third favorite entering the Oscars.
The Brutalist was actually the strong favorite entering the new year, and a win at the Golden Globes made it the favorite when Oscar nominations were announced in late January.
The Brutalist’s path now, however, is that of the underdog. There’s precedent, however. Academy Awards fans will never forget the famous moment in 2017 when on-stage confusion ended with Moonlight being named Best Picture over La La Land. What people might not remember is where the odds stood entering that night.
Moonlight’s only significant televised award that season was at the Golden Globes. Every other major precursor ceremony went with La La Land (except SAG, which went to Hidden Figures).
Entering Sunday night, La La Land was around a -600 favorite, while Moonlight was +500. At Gold Derby, 35 of 37 experts and editors picked La La Land to win Best Picture.
It was arguably the biggest upset in Academy Awards history.
To be clear, everything here points toward an Anora coronation. It’s foolish to pick a long shot, and while Best Picture is a category more likely than most to see an upset, if you want to go that route you may prefer to go with my colleague, Chris Raybon, who is betting Conclave.
That’s fair. None of the math points toward The Brutalist. But there’s precedent here, and anecdotally The Brutalist is the kind of film the Academy voting base often favors: big, technical achievements on an epic scale. Likely wins in Best Cinematography, Best Sound and a decent shot at a few others helps its case, too.
This year’s ceremony is one of the least certain we’ve seen in years. Ben Zauzmer, whose Oscar Math has become a staple at the Hollywood Reporter, has Anora favored at just 52% to win, and has 10 other categories where the favorite is sitting around 50% or lower.
As a bettor whose only goal is to turn a profit, I’ll be wagering on Anora, which is -200 at DraftKings, FanDuel and BetMGM, but also taking a stab at The Brutalist at +650 (both FanDuel and BetMGM).
I’ve also invested in The Brutalist at Kalshi at 13% and will be watching it throughout the ceremony. If Anora gets upset in any of the early technical categories in which it’s expected to win, and/or The Brutalist scores some big wins, we could see that market move and be able to consider a cashout to guarantee profits.
Bets: Anora -200 at DraftKings/FanDuel/BetMGM | The Brutalist +650 at FanDuel/BetMGM
Predicted Winner: Anora
Best Director
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This is an Anora vs. The Brutalist battle, with Conclave sitting on the sidelines after the surprising snub of Edward Berger when nominations were announced.
Like with Best Picture, the narrative here is a big favorite being overtaken during the precursor awards circuit.
The Brutalist director Brady Corbet was as short as -700 to win this award in late January, but when the DGA gave its top prize to Anora director Sean Baker, the odds flipped, and we now enter Sunday night with oddsmakers and prognosticators alike expecting a Baker coronation.
It’s easy to see why. In the last 21 years, the DGA and Academy have aligned on the Best Director winner 19 times. The two times it didn’t were in 2020, when the Academy picked Bong Joon-ho over the DGA’s Sam Mendes, and in 2013, when the Academy went with Ang Lee and the DGA’s Ben Affleck didn’t even receive an Oscar nomination.
A closer inspection does reveal some warts on Baker’s resume, however. It’s true that Baker won at the DGA, which is a really big deal, but it was also his only Best Director win among the major televised pre-Oscars circuit. Only two of those 19 Academy/DGA agreements can say the same: Tom Hooper for A King’s Speech and Alejandro González Iñárritu for Birdman.
Corbet, meanwhile, won at both the Golden Globes and the BAFTA, as well as less-known organizations such as the IPA Satellite Awards and the Venice Film Festival, where he won the Silver Lion.
Zauzmer has this race tight, with Baker at 35.7% and Corbet at 30.4%. Another Oscars model I trust, by Cole Curtiss, actually has Corbet favored at 55.7%.
That’s enough for me to pair my Brutalist Best Picture bet with another upset here. Unlike in Best Picture, though, there’s no hedging with the favorite.
Bet: Brady Corbet (The Brutalist) +150 at BetMGM
Predicted Winner: Corbet
Best Actor
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For months this race has boiled down to wondering if Timothee Chalamet (A Complete Unknown) could narrow the lead on Adrien Brody (The Brutalist).
It took until the last pre-Oscars ceremony, but it finally happened.
After Brody cleaned up everywhere the pair was nominated, Chalamet finally broke through with a surprise win at thw SAG Awards, giving us an unexpected race entering Sunday night.
The SAG win is a big deal. Since 2004, only two Best Actor winners were not awarded by the guild: Anthony Hopkins (over Chadwick Boseman) in 2021, and Casey Affleck (over Denzel Washington) in 2017.
That said, it’s virtually unheard of for an Oscar winner’s only pre-ceremony win to be at the SAG.
For what it’s worth, this played out exactly as I expected when I bought Brody at 56% at Kalshi several months ago. I thought Brody would clean up before the SAG, and planned on selling before that ceremony when he was at peak value, expecting Chalamet to have a shot there.
Instead, I got greedy and hung on to Brody entering the SAG, so I instead grabbed an immediate post-SAG position on Chalamet at less than 50%. So, I’ve got a decent chance to profit regardless of how Sunday night plays out.
From an anecdotal perspective, Chalamet just seems like the type of actor the Academy will want to reward. Almost like the male version of Emma Stone, he’s a quintessential theatre kid, someone the younger voters are intimately familiar with and someone in which the older voters see themselves.
Even with the post-SAG juice squeeze, I still think there’s value in Chalamet supplanting Brody as youngest Best Actor winner on Sunday night.
Bet: Timothee Chalamet (A Complete Unknown) +185 at FanDuel
Predicted Winner: Chalamet
Best Actress
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Like in the Best Actor category, this has been a race primarily between two people throughout awards season, but unlike in that race there is a stealth third player looking to play spoiler.
Demi Moore (The Substance) is a deserving favorite, a position she gained early in awards season with a win at the Golden Globes.
Mikey Madison (Anora) is who Moore overtook in the odds market, but she remained very much in contention throughout, and solidified her position as a solid second favorite with a win at the BAFTAs.
Moore again won at the SAG, and is the most likely winner here.
The longshot spoiler with a legitimate shot is Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here). She is the second Brazilian to be nominated for Best Actress – the first was her mother.
Torres received a shocking win at the Golden Globes (alongside Moore; the Golden Globes separate the awards into two different categories), and the Academy as a whole is clearly enamored with her film, as it wasn’t even on the radar for Best Picture before receiving a surprising nomination.
More than likely, this is a situation akin to last year when Sandra Hüller was viewed by many as a potential upset candidate in a race that featured Emma Stone and Lily Gladstone. Of course, we don’t know how close Hüller actually came to winning, only that she didn’t.
After Torres’s Golden Globes win, she vaulted from +2800 all the way to +430. A lack of wins since that early January ceremony has settled her back in the 14-1 range, but it’s important to note that Torres did not contend directly with Moore and Madison in any race at a major ceremony.
That could be viewed as a negative, as it means Torres wasn’t nominated in several of those shows, but it also means we don’t know how voters would rank her against the two favorites.
I have a strong position on Moore at Kalshi, having bought in a little above 50%, and I remain pretty firm that she should and very likely will win this award. Along with it being a standout performance, it would also be something of a lifetime achievement award for a veteran actress – now in her early 60s – who went from high-profile roles in the late 1980s and 1990s to obscurity, and is now back in the limelight.
Academy voters love that kind of narrative, and it would be enough to put her over the top even if the precursor data didn’t exist.
The Torres uncertainty has me sprinkling a little on her at long odds, too, but my primary position is on Moore.
Bets: Demi Moore (The Substance) -240 at FanDuel | Fernanda Torres (I’m Still Here) +1400 at FanDuel
Predicted Winner: Moore
Best Supporting Actor
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Along with Best Supporting Actress, this is the most sure-thing award of the six major Oscars awards.
Kieran Culkin has won Best Supporting Actor at every major awards show leading up to the Academy Awards. As such, his odds are a staggering -3500 to take home the Oscar on Sunday.
His closest competitor is Edward Norton, who is at +1100.
I bought in on Culkin at Kalshi when he was trading at around 64%. He’s now in the high 90s, and I’ll be looking forward to my pay day on Sunday night.
Bet: None
Predicted Winner: Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain)
Best Supporting Actress
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Like Culkin and Best Supporting Actor, this race is wrapped up.
Zoe Saldana has won Best Supporting Actress at every major awards show leading up to the Oscars, and is now a -2500 favorite to win Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards.
Saldana's closest competition is Ariana Grande, who is a +800 favorite to win Best Supporting Actress. Right behind her is Felicity Jones at +1400.
I don’t have a position here, and while this isn’t an official prediction, if I had to pick one “holy crap” upset on Sunday night, it would be Grande over Saldana.
That would only happen if the Emilia Perez backlash were even more fierce than people imagined.
Bet: None
Predicted Winner: Zoe Saldana (Emilia Perez)
Best Original Screenplay
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The last time the winner in this category was a film that wasn’t nominated for Best Picture was 20 years ago – Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by the venerable Charlie Kaufman.
That means the odds are stacked against A Real Pain in a three-horse race between it, Anora, and The Substance.
Anora is the favorite largely based on its win at the Writer’s Guild Awards, but its position is precarious. Screenwriting precursors are tough to gauge because different organizations have different standards that impact eligibility. Thus, The Substance was not eligible to compete against Anora at the WGA.
A Real Pain’s surprising win at the BAFTAs put it in position to pull off this upset, and Anora also has head-to-head losses to The Substance (at the Critics Choice Awards) and A Real Pain (at the aforementioned BAFTAs).
The latter is more predictive when it comes to Oscars success, and considering neither of the models I rely on have Anora’s chances above 50%, I’m looking at an upset here.
Bet: A Real Pain +550 at FanDuel
Predicted Winner: A Real Pain
Best Adapted Screenplay
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Nickel Boys won the Best Adapted Screenplay award at the Writer’s Guild Award. However, Conclave was not eligible there.
Conclave did win at the BAFTAs, as well as an integral prize at the USC Scripters Awards.
Conclave has been a strong favorite in this category for several months, and without a strong contender emerging in any precursors, it’s the obvious choice.
Bet: None
Predicted Winner: Conclave
Best Costume Design
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We’ll blow through these other categories of which I see no betting value and the winner seems relatively obvious.
Wicked has been the strong favorite here and -2000 is beyond where I would bet it.
Bet: None
Predicted Winner: Wicked
Best Makeup and Hairstyling
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I could see an argument here for Wicked if you’re of the belief that Academy voters are really that in love with what was the biggest film of 2024.
I don’t buy it. The Substance is -1400 and for good reason.
Bet: None
Predicted Winner: The Substance
Best Production Design
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The second of the two categories where Wicked seems guaranteed to walk away with a gold statuette.
The box office sensation is -400 here. It’s not as strong a position as Best Costume Designer, but while some see Nosferatu, The Brutalist, or Conclave as stealth contenders in the +500 to +900 range, both the Zauzmer and Curtiss models have Wicked north of 60% in this category.
Bet: Wicked -400 at DraftKings
Predicted Winner: Wicked
Best Original Song
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I’m hesitant to wager on this category considering two of the primary contenders are from Emilia Perez, and it’s tough to predict what voters are going to do given the controversy surrounding the film.
That controversy primarily stemmed from hateful tweets that resurfaced from the film’s star and Best Actress nominees Karla Sofía Gascón. What’s not being mentioned, however, is that this film was relatively contentious even before that controversy.
Emilia Perez has been loudly condemned by significant portions of two communities that felt misrepresented by it – the Mexican community and the transgender community.
It’s true that despite this Academy voters saw enough in the film to nominate it for 13 Oscars, more than any non-English language film in history.
But it’s at least possible that, after the Gascón controversy emerged, some voters reconsidered, and perhaps in doing so took the condemnation into further consideration.
To be clear, I still think the favored song from this film wins here, but I’m not going anywhere near a bet on or against it.
Bet: None
Predicted Winner: El Mal from Emilia Perez
Best Visual Effects
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The first Dune movie won this award and Dune: Part Two has been favored in this category since the start of awards season.
Its closest competition is Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, but it’s tough to imagine voters going against a film they’ve already shown its affinity for.
Bet: None
Predicted Winner: Dune: Part Two
Best Animated Feature
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A year ago my favorite bet of the Academy Awards was in the Best Animated Film category. I called an upset in this category and it came through, as The Boy and the Heron took down Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.
My favorite bet this year is once again Best Animated Feature, but this time it’s on the favorite.
There’s been some momentum for Flow, a fascinating film without any dialogue that’s also nominated in the Best International Film category, but the precursors have strongly aligned with the favorite, The Wild Robot, which additionally is widely available enough to likely have been digested by a large majority of Academy voters.
I think at -250, The Wild Robot remains undervalued. Based on all the data and models and precursors, it should be closer to -900 for this award.
Bet: The Wild Robot -250 at FanDuel
Predicted Winner: The Wild Robot
Best Cinematography
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This is an interesting race with a firm favorite but two other contenders that seem lively enough to make an upset possible.
The Brutalist is in a strong position here, but both Nosferatu and Dune: Part Two have strong cases to leave Los Angeles with this award on Sunday night. Particularly if the downward momentum for The Brutalist continues.
As such, I can’t recommend a bet here, but I wouldn’t fault you for taking a stab at either or both of the two closest underdogs.
Bet: None
Predicted Winner: The Brutalist
Best International Feature
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This is the category where the push against Emilia Perez is most likely to be felt, if at all.
Once a dominant favorite in this category, it now finds itself looking up on the odds board at I’m Still Here.
In recent years, the Academy has gotten accustomed to nominating one international film for Best Picture. In those cases, the Best International Film category lacked drama, because if a film was revered enough to get a Best Picture nomination, it was obviously going to win this category.
This year’s curveball came when both Emilia Perez and I’m Still Here were nominated for Best Picture. It was the first time the Academy has ever nominated two non-English language films in the same category.
While I’m Still Here becoming the favorite in this category has plenty of rationale, I don’t see enough value to bet on it, nor on Emilia Perez now that it is plus money.
Bet: None
Predicted Winner: I’m Still Here
Best Film Editing
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A year ago, the prolonged strike of the Writer’s Guild delayed the WGA Awards until after the Academy Awards. That made predicting the two screenplay categories tougher than any year prior.
This year, the same thing happened to the editing categories, as the Los Angeles wildfires delayed the ACE Eddie awards until March 14.
Further complicating matters is the fact that the film many saw as the deserving favorite in this category, Challengers, didn’t even receive a nomination. Challengers won this award at several precursor shows, including the CCA and the HCA Astras.
There’s one more unique twist here and it’s that Sean Baker, who is favored to win both Best Original Screenplay and Best Director for Anora, is nominated here as well. It’s not uncommon for a director to also write his film, but to edit – and be nominated for that work – is uncommon.
If Baker were to win this award, which will presumably be given out relatively early in the night, I think it would be safe to presume it’s going to be Anora’s night and potentially set up for a sweep of all the major awards for which it is nominated.
That would require Anora topping Conclave, which is a modest favorite, but has shown enough strength in the precursors to warrant a wager.
Bet: Conclave -150 at FanDuel
Predicted Winner: Conclave
Best Original Score
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Best Film Editing isn’t the only category complicated by the lack of a Challengers nomination.
Many considered Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s score to be a runaway favorite here, but the Academy somehow and incredulously failed to nominate it at all. So while it’s cleaned up at all the precursor shows, it won’t be winning here.
What we’re left with is a relatively safe-ish favorite in The Brutalist without much competition behind it.
Bet: None
Predicted Winner: The Brutalist
Best Sound
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The first Dune movie won this category, and Dune: Part Two has been seen as a strong favorite throughout awards season.
A complicating factor in this category over the last couple of years is that there used to be two sound categories, and they only combined them into one five years ago. So the data on precursors isn’t very strong.
My inclination was to pass on this category, but my colleague Chris Raybon convinced me during our recording of the Oscars Best Bets episode of The Action Network Podcast that there’s value on Wicked here as a decent-sized underdog.
I’ll roll with that while noting that I still think that Dune: Part Two is your most likely winner, hedging a bit on our valuable underdog bet.
Bet: Wicked +450 at BetMGM
Predicted Winner: Dune: Part Two
Best Documentary Feature
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No Other Land has a complicated path despite its standing as the favorite. It’s an incredible film, made over several years by a Palestinian-Israeli Collective that documented the destruction of Masafer Yatta by Israeli military forces.
It was never able to secure a U.S. distributor and was instead self-distributed by its filmmakers to appear in select theaters around the country.
This is another category of which the precursors aren’t as much help as we’d hope. That’s because the most common winner was Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, which naturally was not nominated by the Academy.
My concern with the favorite here is that not enough voters saw No Other Land, although it has won enough awards across the circuit to assuage that a bit.
Wins by Porcelain War and Sugarcane have actually helped make this race tight enough that I now do see value on No Other Land. It’s not my most confident bet of the night, but I believe it’s worth a wager in the -160 to -165 range.
Bet: No Other Land -160 at FanDuel
Predicted Winner: No Other Land
Best Documentary Short
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The short categories are notoriously the toughest to predict and also notoriously among the most likely categories to see an upset.
As such, I frequently go with upsets here, but in this particular category we’re getting plus money on the favorite, and it seems like a deserving favorite.
Bet: I Am Ready, Warden +110 at BetMGM
Predicted Winner: I Am Ready, Warden
Best Animated Short
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Wander to Wonder has continued to seem like a more vulnerable favorite than the odds would suggest.
My initial bet was going to be on Yuck! which was sitting around +900 but seemed much more live than that, but oddsmakers wised up before I could get down on it and it’s now in the +200 to +500 range, which is much more reasonable.
That leaves me with a position on Beautiful Men, as well as the longest shot underdog to sprinkle some couch change on.
Bets: Beautiful Men +500 at BetMGM | In the Shadow of the Cypress +2300 at FanDuel
Predicted Winner: Beautiful Men
Best Live Action Short
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The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent and A Lien are essentially co-favorites here and both are coming off at plus money.
The momentum seems to be with the former in this case, and I’ll have a small wager there.
Bet: The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent +175 at FanDuel
Predicted Winner: The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent
